7 Deadly Instincts (The Sinfire Chronicles Book 1)

Gray knew exactly what to do next, and he was about to tell his squad what their next actions needed to be when Rynn sighed.

Her next words broke his heart. “Was this a mistake? Was all this testing and culling and soulshredding and reckoning a mistake?”

Tomi snorted. “Reckoning. Wanna know the definition?”

Lilian inhaled sharply. “This would be where Pamalee would call us fucking idiots for talking when we should be running.”

“Fuck running,” Rynn spat, mana swirling around her core. “Let them come. I killed Kabe. I’ll kill them all. This isn’t a game anymore.”

“You know what I meant,” Lilian said in a quiet voice.

“Rynn is right,” Gray said. “We’re done playing games. But we need a minute. Let’s eat and drink and get a vocabulary lesson.”

They still had their packs—and while Gray had no desire to eat, he knew he needed something in his stomach. The water was warm, the ironbites were dry, but he choked a half of one down. It was the brain and raisin, but it might’ve been the most delicious frizzle twist but that wouldn’t have mattered. He felt sick.

They gave Pinch a little water, and she managed to drink some down. To his surprise, she could eat, but it was mechanical. She sat there on the floor, chewing and chewing and chewing. When she swallowed she turned to him but then lookin on past him. “Gray. Thank you.”

Then she was gone again, staring out into nothing.

Gray finished off his water and put it in his pack. “Tomi?”

The cat girl had trouble getting the horrified look off her face. Seeing Pinch, pale, with white hair and white eyes, there but not there, had really hurt them all.

“Yeah, Reckoning. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. I mean, it’s not your typical word for a test. Or maybe it is, I don’t know. There’s a bunch of meanings because words are stupid. But there are basically three meanings—a judgment, a settling of accounts, or a moment of truth. It kind of fits. Even now. This is our biggest test, right? Yes, First Field is violent, unfair, and dangerous. But so is life. I grew up in Stormjaw…it’s cold there. Well, it’s cold when it’s not freezing. And things were…it was awful. The point is, I’ve had a terrible fucking life. I’m not alone, I know. Gray, Ames, you suffered.”

“I’m sorry for what you had with…with your sister,” Midj whispered. “I know a little. I know I’ve been lucky. And I’m grateful you don’t tease me for it.”

Tomi smiled sadly. “No, never. Maybe I get jealous sometimes, but I keep that to yourself. I’m glad not everyone…was…had their family…no, it’s not the time to talk about my childhood. The point is, we’re being tested. So I say we finish this. We take that statue up to the coliseum as quick as we can. Pinch can fly and find Froggy…” the words died in her mouth.

Pinch’s flying days were over.

Tomi corrected herself. “We can try and find Froggy but really, we have the points we need to get on the board. Gray’s plan worked. We might not win, but we’ll come in the top three maybe. I haven’t done the math but fuck it.”

Rynn sat quietly, holding Ame’s hand, the two huddled together near Pinch. Rynn couldn’t keep her eyes off the fae girl.

Mid j continued to eat but without her usual relish. With one hand, she held onto Gray, and Gray had to admit her touch was soothing.

“My point is,” Tomi continued, “is that when we started, we didn’t know people would eventually try and kill us.”

“Not people,” Rynn murmured. “Dragons. It’s the dragons who are behind the murders and the payouts. They really hate Settie. But I see where you’re going. We didn’t know it would end like this, with us fighting for our lives. We just have to avoid the fae and the rest of the orcs. Duskdrop is still out there and Blonko, wherever he is.”

“Colors,” Ames muttered. “Rainbows and steel. Spikes in our eyes. The Underdwell will be washed in the blood of the unclean. It’s all colors, but that’s a lie. It’s no colors. It’s not white. It’s black. It’s a steel abyss.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

The Quelling elf shook her head. “I don’t know. I died during the Testing. I failed. But then…I didn’t, right? I have found love and forever in the Testing. We are being judged. The Reckoning is another trial, like when Gray was going to be punished, but we have the truth on our sides. We are together. It’s what Rynn says.”

The elf girl looked at her wife with such love on her face. “Unstoppable. Inseparable. We’re together, and we’ve never been stronger. We’d be stronger with Pamalee back but…that can’t happen.”

“Can’t happen,” Ames whispered. “Impossible. Her core is gone. She gave up her core for Gray, to give him mana. She broke her oath but it was something more. Because of what Gray can do. Because of who Gray is…”

She stopped talking and didn’t speak more.

Lilian shot up. “This isn’t helping. None of this helping. We’ve killed people. The Magistrate is going to know, and he’s going to kill us. Our lives are over, ruined, and I hate that I finally get magic and this whole other world and it’s taken from me. But why should I be surprised? I shouldn’t.”

The princess marched over and pulled the idol out from under the bed. She threw it to Gray. As she did, there was a flash of rubies from around her heck. “Let’s go. Now. Are you going to ruin my life some more, Gray?”

Her eyes went to Ames. “If you scream, I will punch you.”

Gray stood up and stashed the idol in his pack. “You better keep that necklace hidden, Lil. We don’t want the Magistrate putting you on trial for unsanctioned magic items. We didn’t kill anyone. We found the idol, and we’re going to the stadium to get our points. That’s it.”

“Or we run,” Rynn said. “We find Settie, we tell her what happened, and then we decide what we want to do next. We don’t go back to the stadium. Maybe we don’t even stay in the seven cities. We just…we just leave.”

“What about your father?” Gray asked.

The elf girl shrugged. “We could go back to the Crown and figure things out. I hear Stormjaw is nice.” She gave Tomi a little smile.

Tomi laughed. “Oh, it’s great. Who doesn’t like freezing to death? Or penguin shit. You have to really embrace the lingering perfume of penguin shit.”

“No.” Ames rose to her feet. “When we get to the stadium, we’ll be given a gift…what it is, I don’t know yet, but we will finish the Testing strong. I can see it all happening. This is the dark before the dawn. There will be life again, and happiness, and laughter. And Yellow the dog.”

“Love Yellow,” Rynn muttered. She looked a little better but not much.

“What do you see, Ames?” Gray asked.

The dark elf shook her head. “I don’t have the right words. I wish I did, but I don’t. There’s going to be something we can do for Pinch. But we have to leave here first. Then we come back. But it’s desperate, so very desperate. Is this helping?”

Tomi snorted. “Sure, Ames. We leave only to come back. Clear as mud.”

Gray was going to trust her. “We leave only to come back. But we will make it to the stadium, won’t we?”

Ames nodded. “Covered in blood.”

Again, Tomi laughed. “Oh, right. Clear as blood. My mistake.”

* * *

They were soon out of the palace and hurrying down the main corridor until they reached the central dead gardens. There, they ran into Froggy’s Thunder, all seven of them.

“What was that fighting?” Froggy asked, looking scared.

Gray kept them moving. “Follow us. We can tell you on the way out. We found the Ambition Instinct idol. Well, we didn’t find it. We took it from the squad who just tried to kill us.”

“Fuck,” Froggy whispered. “We leave you alone for five seconds and people try to kill you again. You weren’t kidding, were you?”

Rynn started rambling. “We had to open up this giant demon door, and it was so squeaky, and we think that’s how they heard us. Then the Fire Flyers were there, but not just them, Kabe and Tillwick Duskdrop and Blythe Donnaruma. It was so crazy and awful. I killed Kabe. I guess it was bound to happen, but it’s not…it’s not something I’m proud of.” She went on to tell them about all that had happened since they’d been separated.

A lot of the members of Froggy’s Thunder kept glancing at Pinch. She was a different person now. The old Pamalee Thornpinch was gone.

The rage that Gray felt kept him full of mana. If he could, he would’ve murdered all of those recruits all over again. Kabe got off lucky.

The plan was to take the Ambition Instinct idol up to the stadium, Squad 23 would get the point, and then both squads would return to the dead gardens to look for the last idol, the Status Instinct statue, worth two points.

They reached the grand staircase and started up the steps. They had to go slow because Pinch couldn’t handle the steps. It got so bad that Tomi shifted, and as a hulking cat girl, carried her to the top.

Main street wasn’t empty.

To the left, standing alone, was Blonko, blocking their way out.

Gray let mana leak out of his core. Everyone drew their swords, charging them to red. Even Froggy’s team held lethal weapons now.

But then something strange happened. The ruby necklace around Lilian’s neck glowed so brightly it was hard to look at it. It meant that demons were near, but Gray didn’t see any.

“We’re leaving,” Gray said. “You’re not going to stop us.”

The big orc with the steel arm grunted laughter. His tusks looked bigger and his scalp was even more patchy. Had he lost hair and gained muscle?

Something was strange about him.

“Told Kabe you wouldn’t die easy,” the big orc said. “So I waited up here.”

“Where are the rest of the raiders?” Gray asked.

Blonko shrugged. “Playing First Field games. Me and Kabe left. He went with the dragon team to kill you. They’re doing it for money. I stayed here to kill you. I’m doing it for fun.” He paused. “Wait. That’s a lie.”

A horn slowly rose from the right side of his skull. Spikes rose from his steel arm. He was going through some kind of transformation.

And Lilian’s ruby necklace grew brighter.

It illuminated the corridor, showing the bodies of Limborda and Flaraminda behind the massive orc. Both were pierced through the head and chest and belly with any number of long, iron spikes, driven into the floor and into the wall. They had the glow of dark mana about them. Gray had never seen anything so darkly enchanted.

Blonko caught Gray looking. “That’s right. Better to play First Field’s game than my game. Nobody wins my game. That’s another lie, actually. One time, I played a game with your sponsor. The great Captain Sette Sevanya, and she won. Though you and both know that’s not her real name.”

Gray’s blood turned to ice. Time seemed to stop. He looked into the orc’s core, and no, there was no core, scintillating with all the colors of the rainbow. The same dark mana in the spikes behind Blonko filled every part of the orc-thing in front of him.

This wasn’t an orc. This was a demon lord.

More horns rose from Blonko’s skull until there was a ring of them. The patchy hair was gone. More spikes grew from his arm.

“When did you fight our captain?”

“What do you dirty little fuckers call it?” the demon had grown a foot taller and a foot thicker. His uniform had torn in places to accommodate his extra bulk. “Oh, right. The Endless Night of Sorrow and Wrath. Killed her friend. Killed a lot of works. Killed and killed and would’ve killed her but she beat me. Sure she thought she killed me but I took a lesson from a certain troublemaker and got a second chance. Everyone in the Offal Guard did.”

“No,” Tomi said with genuine fear in her voice. “No, it can’t be.”

“Bellichor,” Gray said. “That’s your name.”

“How do you know? Settie wouldn’t tell anyone what happened that night.” His tusks were getting smaller and smaller until he had a mouthful of fangs over red lips, so bright against his green skin. But soon, that green was gone, and there stood a giant man the color of cinnamon candy.

It was Froggy that finally stammered, “He’s…that’s…he’s…” It took a while, but she finally spit out the one word. “Regalia.”

“Not just regalia,” Tomi gasped, but a member of the Offal Guard. They were Malchutt’s—”

Bellichor exploded. “Do not say his name! You don’t want to risk his return. Even I don’t fucking want that.”

“We have to fight him,” Froggy said.

Spikes shot out from behind him, from floor to ceiling, creating bars, sealing off the corridor at first. Then others sprang out of the rock, at every angle possible, until there was a wall of spikes there. Getting out through the labyrinth was no impossible.

There was the corridor to the right, but no one knew where that led. It might lead to another way out or it might be a dead-end.

From down the staircase, Gray head footsteps. Another squad was coming. If he were lucky, it would be a squad who could help them. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the thing in front of him.

The demon lord finally responded to she-orc. “You don’t have to fight me, Froggy. I could give two shits about you and your bunch. But Grayson Fade and Squad 23? No. They don’t get to live. They die. Every single fucking one of them. And then, when they’re dead, I’ll lay low here. And then? I’ll find Captain Sette Sevanya, but only after her heart has broken once again. I love seeing her in pain. It’s one of the great joys of my long, very long, some might say eternal life.”

Gray had to keep the demon talking while he figured out a plan. “You said you weren’t doing it for fun. It is just revenge against Settie?”

The demon sneered, and spit licked down his chin. He wiped it off with his non-metal, non-spiked arm. “Settie? You call that bitch Settie? Now that’s funny. Maybe she did tell you about me, for you to be so close. She wants to rebuild the Wrath Tower. We can’t let that happen.”

“It’s Duskrop and the Winners,” Rynn said softly. “And the last of the orcs.”

Gray didn’t respond to his bonded, but he was grateful for the information. He was coming up with a plan.

He spoke to the recruits of Froggy’s Thunder. “Get out of here, Froggy. Head down the corridor to the right. If you can get out, find Settie and tell her what happened.”

“I won’t argue,” Froggy gasped. “But we’re only adepts. You can’t think too—”

Gray cut her off. “Run.”

Froggy nodded at him and then went running off with her squad down the corridor.

Bellichor made a fist and spikes slammed into place, creating another wall. Now, they were cut off completely. Gray had the idea that the demon didn’t have enough spikes to seal off the grand staircase. It was so very grand after all.

The fae and the orcs topped the steps, but they were on the other side of the staircase, far enough away they couldn’t stab Gray and his squad behind their backs.

He then unslung his backpack, took out the idol, and tossed it Bellichor, who caught it with a grin on his horrific face. “You are a clever one, Grayson Fade.

Gray started backing up and his squad followed his lead. “Okay, Winners and Raiders. There’s the idol. You probably won’t have any trouble getting it from him.”

Both the orcs and the fae stormed forward as Gray and his recruits retreated down the steps.

“Hey,” one of the orcs said. “That looks like Blonko’s arm. What did you do with Blonko?”

The demon laughed. “Come closer and I’ll show you.”

Duskdrop glanced at Gray. “If you accuse me of anything, I’ll deny it. I earned my paycheck. Now, I’m going to get the idol and win this thing.”

Another orc, Ishnash Zugnutts, who had competed in Redemption Midnight, grunted. “Let’s see who ‘s still standing after we will this thing. Just another First Field trick I’m sure.”

Duskdrop laughed. “All dressed up as a demon. I like the spiked walls. The magistrate is slipping.”

All of them ignited their weapons and started spells.

By that time, Gray and his squad were halfway down the steps.

Bellichor laughed. “Thank you, Grayson Fade, for the appetizer. Believe me, I shall relish the main course once I get to it.”

Gray then ran down the steps, pushing his squad to go faster.

It wouldn’t take long for the demon to go through the orcs and the fae. Sure, Bellichor could’ve just given the idol to Duskdrop, but to that thing, bloodshed was the point.

Suddenly, Gray and Squad 23 were playing a very different game.