The Chain (The Secret of Spellshadow Manor #3)

They were both skillful and agile, and seemed evenly matched. Alex watched the faces in the crowd, trying to make out which ones might be the parents of these two. There were too many worried faces to mark any of them as family, but there were eager faces too, spurring on the warriors.

The duel raged on, with spell after spell shivering through the air, until both combatants seemed exhausted. The arena glittered with spent magic. For a second, the boy seemed to pause, giving the girl the opportunity she needed. Swiftly, she sent an attack toward the boy that hurled him back against the golden barrier, his body crumpling against it. He slid down the shield and collapsed in a heap on the grass, unmoving.

The suspense was terrible.

Ellabell gripped Alex’s arm as they waited for the boy to move.

Eventually, he stirred and looked up toward Alypia as he dragged himself up onto his knees, bowing his head and placing his palm flat on his heart in a motion of surrender.

“Mirabelle Scavo is the victor of the first battle!” she announced, firing a blue flare into the air as a cheer went up from the crowd.

Although she looked exhausted, the girl was grinning with pleasure as she punched the air and set off across the grass toward the raked seating. She sprinted up into the audience to find her family, who waved eagerly to her from their seats. They embraced her warmly, but Alex’s attention was distracted by the scene below, on the field, as two assistants ran on to pull the boy away. He watched as they dragged Orpheus Llangollen back through the tunnel on the right. Looking back up into the audience, Alex examined two adults as they stood up from their seats and made their way slowly down the stone steps, their shoulders hunched, their faces hidden, before disappearing into the same tunnel the boy had been taken into. Sorrow twisted in Alex’s heart as he heard the names of the next two duelers being called. After tonight, those parents would never see their son again.

He could not understand, for the life of him, why they allowed it. Why anyone here allowed it.

He and Ellabell continued to watch the events for as long as they could stomach it. It was difficult to stop watching, as sick as it made them feel. Alex felt as if he almost owed it to them, to watch, though he couldn’t rationalize it.

Pair after pair ran onto the battlefield, brimming with enthusiasm, until there were no pairs left. The crowd had thinned after each pair had fought, with parents of the losers disappearing into the tunnel.

He and Ellabell had watched the death matches of fifteen pairs. Sixteen had survived after one tie, with fourteen hauled away to their Gifting Ceremony. All that work, all that strain, all that suffering, rounded off with the agony of having their life essence torn away from them. He wondered, with horror, if the parents stayed to watch. It was a no-win situation, and Alex wasn’t sure which scenario was better—for them to stay and watch and have to see that, or for them to leave their child to suffer it alone.

Music pulsed through the night sky as the after-ceremony celebrations began, toasting the victors of the evening. Alex didn’t need or want to see any more.

“I’m done,” he whispered, turning away from the window.

Ellabell nodded, leaning into him. “Me too.”

He glanced down at her, seeing the unexpected shimmer of tears in her sparkling blue eyes. She quickly brushed them away.

“Let’s see what the others are up to,” she suggested, her voice thick.

Alex wanted to stop her, but she was already at the top of the staircase leading down to the lower floor. He followed close behind, wandering back down to the other room.

Below, Jari was sitting beside Aamir, whose eyes were open, talking to him softly as he trickled water into his friend’s mouth. Natalie was still by the window, entranced by the view. She turned as they entered, her eyes aglow with awe and envy at the power she had just witnessed. The sight disturbed Alex, knowing what that look usually meant, but then everything he’d seen tonight had disturbed him.

It was all horrifying, filled with nasty surprises, to the point where Alex began to wonder if this place actually was any better than Spellshadow Manor, or if it was merely dressed up in prettier packaging.





Chapter 11





Helena didn’t return to the tower after the festivities that evening or appear the next day, though when Alex wandered down to the bottom floor he found a box of food waiting by the front door with a note on it:

My sincerest apologies for being absent, but my training schedule has notched up a gear today and is likely to remain that way for a while. It is always the same after an Ascension Ceremony—we have all learned new things and want to test them out! I will visit as soon as I am able. In the meantime, even if I can’t hang around to chat properly, I will leave food and supplies. I hope you enjoyed the spectacle last night! See you soon. H.

Carrying the box of food back up to the main room, Alex could feel the tension in the air. After the events of the previous night, a feeling of awkward anxiety had spread through the group. Nobody could quite believe what they had witnessed, or that they had actually stayed to watch it. It seemed as if nobody knew how to put into words what they had seen.

The only person who appeared slightly more understanding about the whole thing was Jari, who shrugged off the horror of the ceremony as best he could. “I don’t know why you’re all so bothered about it—at least they know what they’re in for. It’s not like it’s this big shock at the end of four years, like at Spellshadow. If it doesn’t faze them, why should it faze us?”

His logic was sound, and yet Alex couldn’t bring himself to agree.

“People died, Jari. Even if they knew what they were getting into, they’re still dead. I think that’s something to be bothered about, regardless of how—I mean, they just walked to their deaths like it was nothing! Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”

“If it’s not weird to them, why should it be to us?” Jari replied.

“You don’t feel anything toward those poor souls?” asked Alex sternly.

Jari sighed. “It’s bad, of course it’s bad, but what are we supposed to do about it? There’s no use moping over it. It happened, it was very sad, but there is nothing we can do to change it.”

Alex didn’t say another word as he mulled over Jari’s point of view. Whether the blond-haired boy was right or not, Alex wasn’t ready to accept that verdict. People had died, and that always mattered.

Natalie was strangely silent on the subject, standing by the window looking out at the field beyond.

“I wonder how long they study for the ceremony,” she said quietly, her eyes transfixed on the painted pitch.