The Young Elites (The Young Elites #1)(63)
Author: Marie Lu

I heard my sisters wailing through the night. They knew
what I had done, and they hated me for it.

—Dantelle, by Boran Valhimere

Adelina Amouteru

Today is supposed to be the first day of the Tournament of Storms. Instead, it’s an endgame with the Inquisition.

The main Estenzian square, usually left open and uncluttered, has been transformed into a sprawling marketplace of makeshift wooden stalls and colorful flags, a sea of shops and people that surrounds the main arena looming at the harbor. But with today’s Tournament now a funeral for the king and a challenge to the Daggers, the atmosphere is ominous and eerily quiet considering how many people are flooding in. Here and there, lines of Inquisitors observe the masses. Teren wants the public to see us dead, right before their eyes.

I walk with Violetta through the crowds. No invisibility right now; it’s too hard for me to hold such a shifting illusion for as long as we’ll need it—and with this many people, we’d draw suspicion the instant others bump shoulders with us. I have to save my energy for our attack. Instead, I’ve woven the illusion of different faces over each of ours. I changed my dark eye and the ruined side of my face into a flawless visage with bright green eyes, each of them framed with blond lashes instead of silver. I adjusted my skin color from dark olive to light cream, my lips to a pale pink blush. My hair looks red-gold, and my bone structure is different. Violetta, too, now has skin as fair as a Beldish girl’s, and her dark hair is instead a coppery blond.

We are still not perfect images. I never had time to train myself in mastering the illusion of faces, and even though I’m improving rapidly, there are little things that seem off and unnatural. It should work, if no one stares too hard—but people who linger too long on our faces will frown, because they will know that something is off about us. So we move on.

By the time we’ve reached the general vicinity of the arena, sweat is running down my back.

The arena is enormous, perhaps the largest structure I’ve ever seen, rows and rows of archways stacked upon one another in a giant ring of stone. The number of Inquisitors grows as we near the arena. Teren has stationed an army of enforcers here. I try to keep my face down as much as I can, to imitate the rest of the crowd, and shuffle past the Inquisitors without looking at them. I half expect them to recognize me, to see through my shimmering illusion, but they seem to buy my appearance whenever they peer down at my face. They are searching for the Daggers’ allies. Threads of fear blanket the entire square, thickening right in the center of the arena.

“Stop,” an Inquisitor says to me. I pause, remembering to look bewildered, and peer up at the Inquisitor. He stares down at my face. Beside me, Violetta stops moving. I suck in my breath and focus all my concentration on solidifying my illusion, emphasizing the subtle movements of my face, the pores of my skin and the details of my eyes.

The Inquisitor frowns. “Name?” he grunts.

I lift my chin and give him my most confident look. “Anne of House Tamerly,” I answer. I nod at Violetta, who curtsies prettily. “My cousin.”

“Where are you staying?”

I rattle off the name of a local inn I’d seen during the qualifying races. “My father is doing business in Estenzia for several months,” I add. “We heard this morning that the king’s funeral may also involve an excecution. Is it true?”

The Inquisitor casts me another dubious look, but people are crowding behind us and he has no time to waste. He finally grunts his approval at us and waves for us to continue. “Nothing you Beldish would appreciate,” he answers. “Carry on.”

I don’t dare look back, but behind us, I hear him turn his attention to questioning the next person.

The arena had been built to hold tens of thousands of people. The archways stretch up toward the sky and down into the ground, so that even though we entered the space from ground level, we now stand along a row of stone benches looking down at dozens of rows below us, benches that wrap around the arena in circles before ending at the bottom in a wide, central space. Hordes of people mill in the aisles. Among them are our patrons’ soldiers. I can’t tell which ones they are, but they are here, scattered and hidden among the masses. Waiting for Enzo’s signal. I crane my neck, searching for him. Violetta shakes her head, letting me know she doesn’t sense him nearby.

“Come on,” I whisper, tugging her hand. “Let’s get closer.” We head down the rows until we are almost at the very bottom, then take our seats in the first row.

Before us stretches the arena’s center. It is flooded with water, a deep lake with channels that filter out into the Sun Sea; the dark shapes of baliras swirl underneath the surface. Cutting above the lake is a wide strip of stone path stretching from where Violetta and I sit to the other side of the arena, with a larger round platform in the very center. During a typical celebration, balira riders will wait along the platform and call for their baliras, and when the enormous creatures burst from the water, the riders jump onto their backs and perform stunning acrobatics to a cheering audience. Masked revelers in elaborate costumes would parade along the path, magnificent in their glittering colors.

Not today. Today, white-cloaked Inquisitors line both sides of the stone path. In the water, baliras circle, their calls muted, haunting and ghostly. I turn away, then scan the rest of the filling arena. There’s a cloak of fear and anxiety that blankets the entire space. Some of the onlookers seem excited, restless for the promise of blood. Others stay seated, with their mouths pulled into grim lines, whispering among themselves. My restlessness rises with them. Threads glitter in the air, tempting me.

My breaths are starting to come in shallower gasps as I continue to hold our illusions steady across our faces. Violetta touches my shoulder. She nods toward the opposite end of the arena. “There,” she whispers. I follow her gaze. Enzo is somewhere in the crowd.

The Daggers should all be in position by now, along with their supporters.

Finally, after what seems like hours, all the Inquisitors lining the arena draw their swords and hoist them into the air for a traditional salute. The crowds hush. I look toward the royal pavilion, where the king would have once appeared with his crown and golden cloak.

Instead, the pavilion stays empty. And at the far end of the arena, Teren strides in with Inquisitors flanking him. A helmet shields his eyes from view, transforming him into the fearful image of someone not quite human. Right in front of him, weighed down in chains and guarded by more soldiers, with a blindfold over his eyes and a gag in his mouth, is Raffaele. My heart begins to pound.