“My lady, you look stunning this evening.” Ajax brought a woman’s hand to his lips, smelling the expensive lavender oil on her skin. She peered down at him through her mask, and even beneath the painted grin, her frown was evident. Ajax kissed each individual finger, sliding a ring off as he did so, one that sported a square-cut emerald the size of his eye with a ripple of blue in the center. Only the best jewels for nobles under Volscian rule.

The woman gasped.

“How dare you!” she cried.

Ajax was jerked about by some fancy guy in a silver suit, one positively dripping with clusters of diamond and pearl. The guy’s weak chin quivered with feeling. Oh dear.

“What in the depths are you doing to my wife?” he snapped.

“Sorry. My mistake,” Ajax said. The guy dragged him forward by his lapel.

“If you were not one of the competitors here this evening…” The fellow let the dangling end of that sentence imply something truly frightening. By the blue above, how would Ajax ever feel safe again?

“A thousand apologies, my lord. I didn’t realize that the lady had such a big, strong defender.” Ajax patted the man on his breast; no hard feelings. The guy snorted through his nose in the manner of the affronted rich.

“This is what happens when common blood gets into the Trial,” the man huffed. Taking his lady by the arm (she was now swooning to have been rescued), the pair bustled off into the crowd. Ajax, meanwhile, gazed down at the treasure in his hand: a brooch of platinum and white gold, studded in pink diamonds with a fat, glistening ruby at the center. Much more valuable than the ring. The emerald had been bait to land a bigger prize.

“Prick,” he whispered with a smile, before opening the pouch at his side and dropping the thing in. He surveyed his little magpie collection: a diamond bracelet; two emerald earrings (got off a lady who was five cups of wine into the night and singing drunken songs on the veranda); a gold ring bearing a family crest; a pair of crystal saltshakers he’d swiped from the buffet table; and now this brooch.

Oh. And the grand prize, of course.

He smiled bitterly at the little gleaming jewels as he tightened the strings of his pouch and went in search of another cup of that good, crisp wine. Ajax shouldered his way through a sea of sneers and whispers. Look at him. So short. So ugly. So illegitimate. So wrong for the throne.

He ground his teeth as he snatched a goblet from a passing server and leaned against the far wall. The room whirled on without him, letting him know how little they cared. Couldn’t get an audience with any of the families.

Even his own father hadn’t received him. The exact words Lysander had relayed, delivered with a simpering smile: “What for?”

All the other Houses had decided he had nothing to offer.

Ajax had spent much of his life taking whatever he could, because nothing had been given. Well. Hopefully these rich pricks missed their little bits and baubles at the end of the night. He drank, but the wine soured in his mouth.

They’ll be sorry, those mouth-breathing, weak-chinned idiots.

Ajax thought of that woman again, the one with the green eyes he’d seen outside his room. Maybe one day she’d see her own eyes staring back at her from the dragon throne, and she’d know the shit and the shame she’d gone through had all been for something.

Ajax let the sounds of the party pass through him like water through a sieve.

I’ll make you sorry, you rich pricks. I’ll make you beg on your knees for—

Ajax stumbled, catching himself on the edge of the buffet table as the ground shook beneath his feet. Glass shattered in every direction as the mirrors and latticed windows exploded. Men and women on the dance floor collapsed with cries.

“What the depths?” Ajax froze as a colossal crack sounded throughout the room. He looked up as a hideous fracture tore open the ceiling, radiating outward in a growing spiderweb of damage. A sound like thunder pealing throughout the ballroom. Plaster rained onto people’s heads, and…

Everyone screamed as two chandeliers unrooted with a groan and crashed below. Crystal shards skittered across the floor as the fissure in the ceiling grew wider, like an ugly, looming smile. More plaster fell, the snap of timber started—

“Out of the way!” Petros boomed. The priest appeared as if from thin air, striding into the center of the ballroom. In his orange silk robe, he looked like flame sparking in a sea of ice. Hands up, he concentrated…and the crack in the ceiling began to knit itself as though it’d never been broken in the first place. It was slow going, and Ajax noticed that the old man had to pause and wipe his face repeatedly. The crack grew wider, then smaller, then wider again. The orderly magos was fighting a damned rough battle, it seemed. “Everyone, stay where you are!”

But panicked people don’t listen well. They all rushed for the doors in a stampede of silk. Ajax was pulled along with them, though he kept craning his neck to check out the damage as it was repaired. He whistled.

Chaos.

Ajax knew that’s what it was, a surge of the most evil power imaginable. He felt it in the fine hairs on his arms and the back of his neck. Better leave that disaster to the priests to fix. And yet, as he ran for his life alongside the screaming nobles, he couldn’t help but admire it.

When Hyperia tore into the ballroom, Ajax made sure to lower his head so she couldn’t see him. Though he’d have liked a dance with her, and maybe a chance to nab her pearl earrings, this was not the time.

Damn. Maybe it was the wrong way to think, but if only he could get the power of chaos on his side. No one would turn him away then.