I was an early riser, the call of dawn as irresistible to me as a Siren’s song, and I awoke on the morning of the First Trial when the sun was only the barest light against the black horizon. I threw back the blankets anyway.

I’d tossed and turned all night. Each time I’d tried to sleep, Aidoneus’ smirking face filled my dreams. Even with Varian’s touch still a ghost against my skin, I could not drive those strange, silver eyes from my mind.

I sat up, rubbing my face, and swung my bare feet over the edge of the bed to land on the cold marble floor. And though I knew I should begin readying for the First Trial, I did what I’d always done when worry kept my mind running in circles—I went to work.

When I found myself before the infirmary’s large wooden doors, I pushed them open as quietly as I could. The room stretched before me—oblong with high, vaulted ceilings. Cots, mostly empty, were spread throughout the chamber. But with the Trials beginning, they would soon likely be full. Writhing knots filled my stomach at the thought.

Banishing those dark fears, I moved further into the room. Though the morning light was still dim, a few scattered braziers were lit. They cast their warm glow on the patients and the healers who moved among the cots. But the few patients they held were not the infirmary’s usual guests—not priestesses or injured slaves or sailors from the docks beneath the city’s walls. No, this morning found the cots lined with the God-Blooded.

“My lady?” a tired voice called.

I turned.

One of the infirmary’s most skilled healers, Epione, stood by a supply cart. Bruised half-moons hung heavy beneath her hazel eyes. “What are you doing here?” She yawned. “The First Trial is only hours away.”

“I should ask you the same thing. You look dead on your feet.”

“The High Healer called for me just as I’d crawled into bed,” she answered. “Seems the feast turned into a boxing match last night.”

With so many Dorians thrown together, I wasn’t surprised. I took another glance around and found a young God-Blooded who held a rag against his mouth. He grinned up at me. Where several teeth should’ve been was only a crimson gap.

“By the gods . . . why are males such fools?” I said, nose wrinkled.

Epione laughed. “Perhaps you should ask him,” she said, gesturing towards the young male. Clearly happy to allow me to tend to the fool, she offered me a wink and moved on to her next patient.

I grimaced, then went to work. The warmth of my mother’s light spread through me. Tendrils of her rosy, healing glow branched down my arms, gifting power to my hands. And, while I could make the effort to numb him first, I didn’t bother. The idiot deserved to feel my magic’s burn.

I did my best—the male squirming in his seat the entire time—but even I could not make teeth grow back.

The early morning hours passed much the same until the brass bells that hung throughout the palace tolled seven—the usual call for priestesses to make their way to the great hall for breakfast. But today the hall would be full of males. Males ready to fight and die in my Trials.

Epione appeared at my shoulder. “You better go. They’re probably looking for you.”

I nodded, letting the healing warmth of my magic subside, but when I turned, I spotted a familiar figure glowering at me from the doorway.

“Shit,” I said. Then, resigning myself to my fate, I trudged towards the hall.

“Hello, Parthenia,” I greeted a bit tentatively.

Mossy eyes—lifted at the corners like a cat’s—focused on me with sharp intensity. ”Hello, Parthenia,” she echoed. "Hello, Parthenia! That’s all you have to say when I’ve been covering for your pretty little ass all morning? The High Priestess has been asking for you for hours.”

“I knew you’d find me,” I said by way of apology. “Eventually.”

Though diminutive in stature, my handmaiden—a human born across the Glass Sea in the country of Alba—reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me into the hall with a surprising amount of strength. The movement sent a coil of her wild, curling red hair into my face. I sputtered and brushed it away.

“Oh, you knew, did you, Korai? I had to tell the High Priestess you were praying, of all things,” she said, yanking me along behind her. “As unbelievable as that lie was, she seemed impressed by your sudden piety.” She snorted. “And now we’re late.” Her lilted accent grew thicker in her agitation. “If the High Priestess finds out where you’ve really been all morning, she’ll flay both our hides.”

And so, an hour later, I stood before the silvered mirror in my chamber. I stared at my reflection and a different person stared back.

I stood gilded from head to toe, my gown as golden as the rays of the sun. Cinched at the waist with a belt of diamond-studded rose gold, the shoulders pinned with matching brooches, it gracefully draped over my body, hanging close in just the right places.

Parthenia had painted my lips a delicate coral and lined my eyes with kohl. She braided my hair in an elegant bun, half the auburn waves left loose to tumble down my back. Finally, she’d applied a fine sheen of oil to my brow, then dipped a brush into a pot of gold dust and painted me with the Mark of the Korai, my mother’s own symbol—the morning star—shining in the center.

I took a shaky breath. “What do you think?”

“Perfect.”

“A perfect prize, you mean. I look like a trophy.”

Parthenia softened. “Don’t worry. You know who will win. The rest of this is just tradition.”

Tight-lipped, I nodded.

She crossed to the side table, where a pot of tea and fine porcelain cups were laid out on a silver tray. Small hands poured the dark liquid and offered it to me.

I breathed in the steam and grimaced. “Gods . . . This smells terrible.” I shuddered. “You know, there’s no need to poison me, Parthenia. I’ll be out of your hair in a few weeks.”

“You know very well what that is,” she said, clearly not impressed by my joke. “You’ll drink it and hush.”

The taste was that of hot carrot juice seasoned with a disgusting amount of ginger, but I choked it down. As always, Parthenia was perceptive. I had a habit of returning to my chambers late when Varian was in residence. So, I stopped complaining and drank it to the dregs.

The Celestial City stood high upon jagged cliffs that jutted out above the Glass Sea, just southwest of Hyperion. But while Hyperion was the capital of the empire’s governance, the Celestial City was the capital of its holy life. A shrine to every god Dorians had worshipped since the Ether's appearance a millennia before could be found within the city’s great limestone walls, though none were as revered as the celestial titans—Helios, Eos, and Selene.

I watched out the window of the carriage, listening to it rumble and clack as the iron wheels rolled over the cobbled streets. We traveled up one of the three main avenues of the city—this one called Temple Row for the many shrines doting the thoroughfare. We’d already passed the Temple of Selene—a great rotunda of white marble.

I counted the shrines as we traveled southwest along the road: one to Hera, one to Hephaestus, one to Hermes. A black marble shrine to Hades even stood at the intersection.

I thought of his son’s silver gaze and my hands shook.

With Solara on the bench beside me, Elysa and Sibyl seated opposite, the carriage rolled on, though I didn’t shake my unease until we passed the pink marble of the Temple of Hestia. Its mahogany doors stood open, the great hearth fire a roaring glow in the heart of the circular building. People—God-Blooded and human alike—crowded close, passing to and fro, some homeless, some orphans, some just comforted by the welcome they could always receive there.

“Oh, look,” Solara said as we moved past, “There’s the Hearthkeeper. She’s one of your patients, isn’t she?”

I glimpsed the priestess. She stood over the fire as she stirred a large pot, one hand low on her belly to support the growing weight there. “Aphaea. The babe will be born in weeks.”

The morning sun shone through the carriage window, bathing Solara in a halo of golden light. She smiled just as brightly. “A girl or a boy?”

Sibyl swatted her knee. “Don’t encourage your sister. You know how the High Healer hates her guesses.”

“They aren’t guesses,” Elysa said.

I stared at her. Those were the first words she’d uttered in my presence in weeks. “Thank you.”

She shrugged, opal eyes focused on the street beyond. “It’s only the truth.”

Warmth flooded my chest. I tugged at the invisible bridge between us and, for the first time since preparations for my Trials began, there was no anger pouring toward me. Perhaps I’d been mistaken the night before. Maybe she had finally given up on Varian.

“Well?” Solara prodded. “Girl or boy?”

“A girl. I sensed it before she even realized she was with child.”

The High Priestess waved an impatient hand, her jewelry clanging. “That’s all well and good, but what else did you sense?”

“The father, you mean . . .”

Sibyl nodded. “As much as I hate idle gossip, I can’t take a step in the palace, or the temples for that matter, without hearing the priestesses talking about it. It is a mystery I’d like solved, if only so everyone can get their minds back on their work.”

“If Aphaea wants to share who fathered her babe, she will.”

Elysa’s attention slid to me. “But you know if the child’s father is God-Blooded. If she will inherit any power?”

I hesitated. “The child is strong . . . Strong enough that I’ve suspected her father might be more than a God-Blooded.”

Sibyl’s mouth dropped open. “You think Aphaea bedded a god?”

Elysa shook her head. “Really Sibyl? Are you surprised? Those males will stick their pricks in anything. Take Solara’s mother, for example—”

“Elysa!” Sibyl barked.

Beside me, Solara wilted.

I took her hand and squeezed. Her mother was a human slave, chosen by Helios for her beauty rather than her strength. As a result, Solara had little of her father’s power, and it was a fact that she carried with no small amount of shame. But Solara was a daughter of the sun. She was never one to dwell in darkness for long. “Do you think you’ll have charge of your own infirmary in Hyperion, Aurora?” she asked.

My chest tightened, and though doubt filled every inch of my heart, I answered, “Of course.”

“I’m sure Varian would allow that. At least, when things are peaceful.” Sibyl’s smile was brittle.“When he won’t need to call upon your powers himself.”

A hint of a lie filled my mouth with her first words, but the taste of truth quickly took its place. Yes, Varian would allow that. In the few rare moments when my power was my own. I tried to swallow down the dread. Varian loved me, at least. The same couldn’t be said for any other competitor, least of all Aidoneus of Myridia.

“If he wins,” Elysa said. “I overheard some guards placing bets this morning, and the odds were split surprisingly evenly. Of course, Aidoneus has defeated Varian in battle once before . . .”

Everything within me stilled. “What—”

Solara’s hand tightened around my own. Don’t listen, Aurora. She’s jealous and hurt. She’s been taking it out on everyone around her for weeks. Her soprano voice filled my head. Varian will win. We all know it.

“That was over a decade ago,” Sibyl said, voice hard. “Solara was a babe at the breast still, you two little older. And it was hardly a fair fight.”

Over a decade. A blink of an eye in the life of a God-Blooded. I opened my mouth to speak, so many questions crowding my tongue that I couldn’t form words.

Then the carriage stopped and all thoughts of Aidoneus vanished. Outside stood the most impressive structure in the city—the arena.

“I always forget how massive it is,” Solara breathed.

And it was. Built at the far western edge of the city, the arena loomed two hundred feet high. Within its pale walls, criminals and slaves were regularly put to death for the entertainment of Doria. But the most spectacular events held there were the Trials. There, generations of Korai had been fought for and today, the sand would once again run red with blood.

We exited the carriage and guards flanked us, leading us to the Emperor’s private box, where the most elite of Imperials would watch this first competition.

Words were spoken, but my heart pounded so forcefully all I could hear was the blood in my ears. I offered mumbled half-nonsense replies. Then I was passed from noble to priestess to governor, across the marbled floor and out from under the protection of the canvas awning shielding the nobles from the sun, until the light blinded and the crowd’s roar was thunder.

Then I stood at the balustrade, just a story or two above the arena floor, the Emperor beside me. The waning ruler took my hand, his skin dry as parchment, and faced the crowd, lifting our entwined hands in the air. The answering cry set my ears to ringing.

How many Korai had stood where I stood, listening to the call of the crowd, ready for blood to spill? Had they felt as I did? As frightened? As cold?

The only spark of warmth was a figure directly below. Varian stood upon the sands, readying himself for battle with the dozens of other competitors. His armor, scaled and fire-gilded in red and gold, was emblazoned with the crossed swords that had been the symbol of Doria since the tribes had united and marched from the Eleutherian Mountains a thousand years before.

His eyes found and my stomach settled somewhat. The nervous fog clouding my mind lifted under the safe warmth of his gaze.

The Emperor loosened his grip on me. His hand, joints swollen and twisted, moved to my back, guiding me towards an ornate chair, only outdone by his larger. I took my seat beside Varian’s father and waited for the First Trial to begin.