Luc sets his foot back down, and though I don’t see the roots grow into the floor, I hear the hiss and crackle of their movement.

“But you’re not going to start with a house, Cain. First you need to create defenses. You may have left the Arena after killing a Spore, but those were acts of heightened emotion. You need to be able to create and defend yourself in calmer moments too. Like right now.”

“How do I learn that?” Crixus only ever handed me a spear, unlocked the Arena gate, and told me to deny my anger.

“Simple.” Luc lifts his hands, and the room dissolves around us. “I’m going to train you.”

A saber-toothed tiger paces in front of me.

Luc’s version of training me is to put me in another arena—his own created one that’s smaller and located in his atrium atop a coliseum tower.

Instead of fighting other noxiors or Spores, I’m up against his creations.

“He won’t attack until I tell him,” Luc says, standing across from me.

“How comforting.” I don’t really feel like fighting, especially not after the last battle. But I’m going to have to learn eventually.

I spare a moment to consider Crixus’s tips on creating, tips that conflict with Luc’s methods. I’ve never seen Crixus create anything, yet Luc does so with ease and never seems to lose emotional control.

I chose my instructor by his example.

Luc’s tiger arose from a swirl of sand. It isn’t a pet that will come and go or be chained up. It’s at the whim of Luc’s nightmist control. He just as easily could have created ten tigers, or one giant tiger twenty feet high. Is he the one who creates the nightbeasts that enter the Arena? The snake that devoured the noxior? The bull I killed?

The tiger growls.

“He’s hungry,” Luc remarks. “Just because I created him doesn’t mean I can fully control him. Just like you can create a child, but they have their own will and personality. You can only hope they obey you.”

“Have a lot of children, do you?” I keep my eyes on the tiger. Luc is the same age as me. I suppose he could have kids, but it’s not like he’s lived long enough to raise any.

He smirks. “What do you want to create?”

“Ideally, a stick of gum.”

Luc snickers. “Focus.”

“On what? You haven’t done anything other than pitted me against a tiger.” My irritation grows. Maybe it really is because of the lack of chewing gum.

“You’re getting angry.”

“Do you blame me?” I say tersely.

“Channel that anger into a word. Anger makes you want to do something. Destroy. Hit. Strike. Your choice here is to make something that will allow you to do those things.”

Pressure builds in my fists when he mentions hitting. I’ve punched plenty of walls before and learned a painful lesson with a wrapped hand, bleeding knuckles, a furious brother.

Nole hated displays of anger. He always talked about self-control. I was never any good at it. I tried to be, to make him proud. Whenever he lost his temper, he immediately apologized afterward. I tended to stomp away and stew in my bitterness.

“Humble human nature tells you to fight the anger,” Luc is saying.

I want him to stop talking, but I don’t know if that’s just irritation.

“Suppression is unnatural. Your body feels anger for a reason, so you need to give it a target. Instead of choosing a target that already exists, make one.”

I try to direct the waves swelling in my mind. He says I’m feeling anger for a reason, but that reason is that emotions in Tenebra are heightened. It’s this place. It’s Tenebra’s fault.

Saliva slips down the fangs of the tiger and drips on the floor.

“Hurry, Cain,” Luc says in soft warning.

What does he mean make a target? A creature? A thing? Like the dagger?

The tiger growls.

I growl back, and some of the tension in my chest releases. My nerves tingle. I focus on the tiger and think about what I’d do to defend myself, then to release this buildup of energy. My first thought is to shoot the creature if it charges, but then I imagine fighting it. Tackling it the way another tiger might. A stronger, larger, fiercer tiger in a showdown I might see in a documentary.

Another growl. But this one comes from beside me.

A second saber-toothed tiger—larger than Luc’s—flickers with extra tendrils of nightmist curling off its back. Did I create this?

My breathing slows. My anger and emotion settle into something calm. Cool. Detached. I glance at Luc.

He shakes his head with a half smile.

“You truly are amazing, Cain.” He says it the way a professor might. Impressed with my skill but still acknowledging that I’m not as skilled as he is.

I’m okay with that. I’m used to that. I’m not used to being the smart student. Yet here in Tenebra, I’m Icarus. I’m the guy who created wings on his first visit to the Arena. I’m the guy who killed a Spore and befriended the Emperor.

And now I just created a tiger. This is not like a spear or a dagger. Up here the battle of emotion has been far easier than when I’m in the Arena.

“How do I get rid of it?” I put plenty of distance between me and the nightbeasts, now that the two tigers eye each other instead of me.

“Ah, that’s the trouble. You don’t.” Luc gives a clucking sound to his tiger, and it lunges.

With one swipe of razor claws, it slices open the throat of my tiger. Mine falls to the ground dead, liquid shadow blood pulsing from its neck. Then Luc throws a dagger into the skull of his own tiger. It flumps to the ground. A stream of shadow blood comes from its temple.

I stare at the spot where my tiger lays. Killed before its first real fight. Before its first meal. Something feels rotten about the death of the nightbeast even though my mind formed it. It wasn’t real . . . right? Yet somehow I feel dishonorable.

No more than when I killed that girl.

I need to stop thinking about her. I need to stop letting that haunt me. According to Tenebran citizens I did a good thing. I was avenging Nole. Instead of a murderer I’m a Tenebran soldier—or tiro, or whatever—defending his people.

But they aren’t my people.

This isn’t my home.

And Nole would be ashamed of me.