All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody

Author:Amanda Foody
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

GAVIN GRIEVE

Champions have tried to escape the tournament by tunneling beneath the Blood Veil or piercing it with spells, but their magick is no match for its enchantment.

A Tradition of Tragedy

Swearing, Gavin turned around and picked his way across the moors. The landscape had never really made much sense to him—out here, the moorlands were like two jigsaw puzzles that had been mixed together, one muddy and sulfurous, the other brimming with plant life and animals crouching in the underbrush.

At last a crumbling stone building appeared at the bottom of an incline, a pocket of peaty bog pooling around the disintegrating stone walls. The Monastery.

The first night of the tournament generally ended in at least one slain champion. But the sky would’ve lightened had any one of them died, and their names would’ve been crossed off the pillars in the Landmarks. All seven of them had survived until morning. Which meant Gavin’s next step was simple: draw first blood. Prove himself as a force to be reckoned with.

As the Monastery was the closest Landmark to the Castle, he’d decided to start there.

He could tell immediately that it was occupied. The wards glimmered crimson around the high walls, signifying at least one champion inside. At this point, he didn’t care who they were. Between his damp shoes, his sweaty face, and his general fury about the state of his magick, he was more than ready to start a fight. It had been a painful, horrifying process to fill all his spellrings again using his own life force, but he’d done it. The pain had only made him vomit once.

Gavin stared at the Shrouded from Sight spellstone on his left hand. Before Reid had cursed him, the spell had merely behaved as basic camouflage; like a chameleon, his appearance would blend into his surroundings. At a higher class, it could even pass through some warding spells.

But when he cast the spell this time, it felt different.

His strange new magick shimmered around his hands, then swept over him, engulfing him in purple and green light. Gavin watched, astonished, as the tips of his trainers disappeared, then his fingertips, his torso, until he was entirely invisible, even to himself. He glanced down and grinned—if he squinted, he could just make out the barest outline of a shadow.

Shrouded from sight, indeed.

Gavin’s tattooed arm twinged with pain, but he ignored it. He paused at the edges of the Monastery’s overgrown garden. There would be wards surrounding the Landmark, even if he couldn’t see them. And he didn’t want to waste any magick finding them. He remembered what Isobel Macaslan had done outside the Castle, then reached down and picked up a pebble from the grass.

He threw it, and sure enough, it plunked against an unseen wall a few meters ahead, sending ripples of red light through the air.

Satisfied, he took a step forward—only for a crimson shock wave to tremble outward from his left foot. Another ward. He swore and jumped back, but he felt no lingering curse.

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