Phoebe
The great hall is a storm of scents and sounds. Power, perfume, and paranoia all mingling in the magically lit air. I stand beside Liam near a pillar of gleaming obsidian, trying to look like I belong here and failing spectacularly.
“Nervous?” Liam asks, his voice a low anchor in the chaos.
“I’m not used to crowds,” I lie. It’s not the crowd. It’s the predators in it.
He follows my gaze to where Kaelen is holding court, his laughter a sharp, ugly sound. “He’s all posture. Don’t let him get to you.”
“I’m not,” I say, my hand resting on my knife. A habit. A comfort.
Liam scans the room, his amber eyes missing nothing. “That’s the interesting thing about this place. Everyone comes here thinking they’re the hunter.”
“And they’re not?”
A wry smile touches his lips. “We’re all just waiting for the real one to show up.”
As if summoned by his words, a voice I recognize cuts through the air. “Protecting your little stray, Liam? How noble.”
Kaelen has detached from his group and stands before us, his electric blue eyes dripping with scorn. He doesn’t even look at Liam, his gaze is fixed solely on me.
“Still here, Creek-pup?” he sneers. “I’m surprised you haven’t run home crying already.”
“She has more right to be here than you do, Kaelen,” Liam says, stepping slightly in front of me. His scent is calm, but I can see the tension in his shoulders.
Kaelen finally glances at him, a look of utter dismissal. “A Beta defending a nobody. It suits you. A weak wolf for a weak pack. Stay out of my way, both of you. When the culling begins, I won’t be so polite.”
He turns his back and saunters away, leaving the threat to hang in the air between us.
“Thank you,” I say quietly to Liam.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he murmurs. “He’s right about one thing. This is a culling. We just have to make sure we’re not the ones getting cut.”
Before I can respond, it happens.
The sound in the hall does not fade. It is severed.
One moment, there is a roar of a hundred conversations. The next, a profound, ringing silence that is louder than the noise it replaced. Every head turns in unison toward the high dais at the front of the room. He is there.
I did not see him arrive. He simply exists where a moment before there was nothing. Alpha Valerius.
He wears no silks, no jewels, no armor. Just simple, dark clothes that seem to drink the light around him. Power is his mantle. It rolls off him in palpable waves, a pressure that settles deep in my bones and makes the air thick and hard to breathe. His hair is blacker than a starless midnight. He is stillness and fury in one form.
He stands at the center of the dais, his hands clasped behind his back. The silence stretches, tightens. He is the Game Master, and this is his board.
Then, he speaks.
His voice is not loud, yet it possesses the entire hall. A low, resonant sound that vibrates through the stone floor and up into my chest.
“You have come to my home.”
“You have accepted my invitation.”
“You believe you are here for glory.”
He pauses, and his eyes, the color of starlight and ice, begin to sweep across the assembled contestants. It is the gaze of a god inspecting his sacrifices.
“You are wrong.”
“Glory is a story told about the dead. Honor is a luxury for those who have already won. Power is a burden, earned through sacrifice.” He lets the word hang in the charged air. “Here, you will learn the meaning of sacrifice.”
His gaze continues its slow, methodical path across the faces of the powerful and the proud. I feel it approaching like a physical thing, a storm front moving over the sea. My heart begins to pound, a heavy, frantic beat against my ribs.
“The Iridian Games are not a test of what your bloodline has given you. They are a crucible, designed to burn away your pride, your weakness, your fear. To discover what remains in the ashes.”
His eyes pass over Kaelen, who stands taller, trying to meet the gaze with defiance and failing. They pass over Liam, who looks down, a flicker of something like fear on his face. They are almost to me.
“There are three rules.”
“Rule one. The challenges will test your body, your mind, and your spirit. Fail any test, and you are eliminated.”
“Rule two. What happens within the confines of a challenge is part of the game. Alliances are permitted. Betrayal is encouraged.”
“Rule three,” he says, and his voice drops, becoming something ancient and cold. “Do not die. Elimination from the game is not a release. It is a forfeiture. Should your life be forfeit, it becomes mine to claim.”
Terror, sharp and cold, lances through the room. A hundred brave heirs suddenly look like lost children.
And then his eyes find me.
The world doesn’t fade. It shatters.
Everyone else disappears. The grand hall, the captured starlight, the scent of fear. It’s all gone. There is only the impossible silver of his gaze locking onto mine. It’s not a look. It’s an anchor, a hook in my soul, pulling me into a depth I cannot comprehend.
My breath leaves my body in a rush. A wave of dizziness crashes over me, so powerful I stagger, my hand shooting out to grip Liam’s arm.
A spark. Deep within me, a sleeping thing awakens and hums in response to him. It’s a note of recognition that makes no sense. It’s not a memory. It’s older than that. A song my soul knows the words to, even if my mind has never heard the melody.
Why does looking at him feel like coming home?
Why does it feel like being cornered?
He holds my gaze. One second. Two. An eternity. The world narrows to the space between us. The pull is terrifying, a current that wants to drag me out of my own skin and into his orbit. Part of me wants to run, to tear myself away from this feeling. Another, impossible part of me wants to take a step closer.
My free hand flies to my throat, my fingers scrabbling for the familiar, grounding weight of my mother’s amulet. The bare, cold skin they find is a shock that jolts me. Without it, I am adrift in the silver tide of his gaze.
He gives a single, almost imperceptible nod. It is not for the crowd. It is for me.
Then he looks away.
The connection shatters. The world rushes back in, a cacophony of sound and light. Air floods my lungs with a ragged, painful gasp. I am shaking.
“And the prize for the victor,” Valerius continues, his voice utterly unchanged, “is more than a simple boon. It is a chance to rewrite your destiny. A power great enough to save a dying pack, or to build an empire.” He lets the promise settle over the now greedy silence. “The games begin at dawn. Be ready.”
He turns and vanishes, melting back into the shadows at the rear of the dais as if he were never there.
For a moment, there is absolute stillness. Then the dam breaks.
A roar of conversation erupts, a hundred voices talking at once, laced with fear and a fresh, brutal ambition.
“Phoebe?” Liam’s voice is urgent in my ear. He places a hand on my shoulder to steady me. “What was that? Are you alright?”
I snatch my hand back from his arm, my face hot with shame. “I’m fine. Just… the air in here.”
“No,” he insists, his honest eyes searching my face. “That wasn’t the air. He looked right at you. It wasn’t just a glance. Everyone saw it.”
My blood runs cold. Everyone saw it?
I risk a look around. Several contestants are staring in my direction, their expressions a mixture of confusion, suspicion, and in Kaelen’s case, pure, venomous hatred. I have been marked.
“He was looking at everyone,” I say, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth.
“No, he wasn’t,” Liam says, his voice low and certain. “He was looking at you.”
I can’t answer him. I can’t explain what happened because I don’t understand it myself. That feeling of recognition. That terrifying pull.
I came here with a single, clear purpose. Win the game, win back the amulet. It was a straight line, a path of anger and grief.
Now, nothing is clear. The path has fractured into a thousand possibilities, and at the center of them all is the enigmatic Game Master.
He isn’t just a variable in the game. He is the game.
And he just looked at me as if he already knew how it would end.
