Adena is last, having fought the entire path alone. Miraculously, she leaps off the back of a dying Ghost—the creature still clutching its ruined throat—and grabs the scarlet flag hanging over the path. Immediately, as if her movement had triggered an action, a steel gate slides shut between her and the rest of the path. Two Ghosts hurl themselves at the closed wall, shrieking their rage at being unable to reach her. Adena stands there, her bloody makeshift weapon still in one hand, a sword in the other, breathing heavily.

She has survived. My heart leaps with hope. My limbs weaken in relief.

She looks automatically up toward the Premier. Then, before anyone can stop her, she points her gun at his balcony and shoots straight in the direction of Constantine.

No. I can’t be seeing this. What is she doing?

Adena is much too far away for the bullet to hit, let alone accurately, but she shoots anyway, again and again. Her eyes are narrowed to slits, and her face is a picture of rage that I’ve never seen on her.

My breath hisses through my teeth. Fool! I want to scream at her. Constantine will punish her for such an offense. She has just survived an entire maze only to die because she can’t contain her anger.

And yet, deep down, I know I’m furious because Adena has never, ever hesitated to take a stand for what she believes in. While I stay up here beside the Premier that destroyed my homeland, she is down there, pointing her gun at him, unwilling to give him anything. I’m furious because I wish I could be her.

Constantine doesn’t flinch at her threat, but his posture stiffens in anger. In the stadium, the audience seems to inhale as a single entity, excited by this brazen show of rebellion, awed and eager to witness the consequence of this Maran Striker’s threat against the Premier.

No. No. I swear at Adena in my thoughts, screaming silently at her to stop. You idiot! You could save yourself and live to fight another day! But she doesn’t care anymore. I can tell that any semblance of self-preservation has vanished from her. She fires again. The bullets hit too low, unable to reach us, but they arc instead to ping against the stone below the balcony.

Talin.

Constantine’s voice in my head makes me run cold. I turn to see him staring down at Adena, his face a mask of calm.

Kill her, he tells me.

There is no emotion in his voice. No amusement, no anger. Just … nothing. It’s as if he’s telling me to fetch him his slippers.

Adena is threatening him publicly in this arena, an open rebellion—he would never let such a public threat against himself pass.

I was expecting his command. But it still takes me off guard.

Out in the arena, Red’s emotions surge. He knows what Constantine must be asking me to do. The furious anguish in him crashes through me like a tide, and I want desperately to answer it. To tell him to stay put, to not make a move. To warn him to get out of here.