Chapter 11
11
I n the darkness, there was nothing but screaming.
I awoke on a cold floor with a pounding headache. The room I was in was all smooth obsidian—just slightly translucent so that some of the faraway moonlight shone through. As I struggled to my feet, I clung to the walls?—
—but I nearly slipped, the material so smooth it flowed like water underneath my fingertips.
Another scream split through the air. I lifted my head in the direction of the sound, which had come on the other side of the large wooden door. The same kind of door I had seen in the palace.
Palace. I was in a palace.
The last moments of consciousness flooded my mind. I had been in the Saltspire Palace—and after one drink of that drugged champagne I was?—
Here. In the second trial.
I didn’t need my intuition to know that. To know why only us prisoners were drugged. Taken into a slumber to wherever… here was.
I looked down at myself—I was still wearing the sparkling dress. Great . I cursed myself for not asking Callum for his dagger to hide underneath my skirts. I was once again unarmed and at the mercy of those around me.
Once again a defenseless maiden.
I tried to steady myself by looking around the room. I was in a small bedchamber. Just a bed and a small sofa. Nothing to fight with, nothing to wield.
THUMP!
I jumped to my feet as something hard hit the door. Someone was trying to break in. I dropped into a fighting stance, when?—
—the door splintered into a thousand pieces, and the twins, Priscilla and Felicity, came rolling in, all sharp screams and punches. One of the twins was shoving her hands into her sister’s throat, trying to choke the air out of her. But she wasn’t just trying to choke her. The two twins were smoking… flames licking off their bodies. Writhing and screaming at each other. Going for throats. Going for the kill.
Fire sprites.
That’s what they were, without their magic leashed. As I dodged their flaming bodies, the twin who was pinned tossed her sister off, her flaming body setting fire to the tapestry behind the bed. As smoke started to fill the room, one twin—who I recognized a Priscilla—turned a blazing gaze toward me.
“Kill them, Saffron,” Priscilla forced out through gasping breaths.
“Why are you trying to kill your sister?” I asked. The twins were much more bloodthirsty than I had thought.
Priscilla shifted her gaze to her twin, who was starting to pull herself off the now burning bed. “Don’t let them live.”
And then she pounced. With a feral scream, the fire sprite went at the throat of the other.
I took no time running out of the room, choking on the black smoke as my eyes stung and my lungs burned. I slammed the door behind me, taking in gasping breaths as I looked up. I was in a spire of some sort. The way the tower grew narrower above me made me think of the spires on the Saltspire Palace. It felt so similar. Identical, but in a dark and twisted way.
I need to get out of here. Especially if that fire spreads.
I decided to go down the steps, and I began to hurry down them. It was unusually quiet in the spiral staircase now that the screams had stopped. Had the others already separated? I had been the last to drink the drugged champagne. Maybe they had gotten a headstart.
“Priscilla!” a voice screamed from above me. I leaned over the banister to see Felicity—the other fire sprite twin—covered in blood, running down to the spiral staircase to the burning room I had just exited.
Wait… hadn’t I just seen Felicity and Priscilla battling in that room? How did Felicity get all the way up there?
Something was wrong here.
I hurried faster down the stairs. I was halfway down the spiral staircase when suddenly a wave of darkness swept across the stairs?—
—and I yelped, stumbling down a few steps.
“Careful, now. It would be an awfully bad tumble if you fell from here,” a voice rumbled through the dark.
I whirled to see Tristen in front of me, his hands in his pockets.
“Get away from me,” I said, feeling the roiling of his power. It hit me so hard—the raw, unleashed force of it.
“I’m only here to help you. You were headed downstairs?” He held out the crook of his arm to me. “Wouldn’t want you to slip.”
I glared. “I can handle stairs myself.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a shrug.
I descended the stairs in silence, my eyes fixed on Tristen’s back as he glided down the steps in front of me. I lost focus as my gaze, like a magnet, fell on the back of his neck, the curve where his dark strands kissed the nape of his neck. His hair was like a brushstroke against olive skin, muscles shifting beneath his inky black shirt with each steady rhythm of his descending footsteps. My pupils widened to drink him in, greedy for every detail. Then, I tilted my head, remembering the feel of a small mole on the back of his neck when my fingertips had brushed his skin when we were dancing. It was missing now—or had I just imagined it?
Get it together, Saffron, I chided myself.
“Do you know where we are? What else is in this palace?”
“Hmmm?” Tristen replied.
“Here. In this palace. What have you encountered so far? I’m guessing this is a trial if we’re all here but none of the King’s court is. Do you know what the objective is?” Surely he hadn’t gotten a concussion in his fall to the floor after being drugged.
“Oh. I think it’s probably some sort of battle royale.”
“Again?” I asked.
But Tristen just stared at me as if he wasn’t fully processing my words. “You look so lovely in the moonlight, Saffron. Has anyone told you that?”
I froze. I had stopped on a step where the milky moonlight dripped through a window in the tower, stroking my face like a lover.
“I don’t know,” I confessed, truth falling from my lips before I could stop it. Tristen had stolen me from my village. Why was he talking to me like this? And why did my body seem to sing when he looked at me in that way?
Tristen rose to the step I stood on. So close to me. He reached out to brush a strand of hair from my face as my pulse quickened. “You can know this. Know me.”
My heart hammered as he leaned closer. Why wasn’t I pulling away?
“SAFFRON!” a shout came from an alcove above me, and suddenly a man was hurtling down from the floor above, knocking down Tristen.
“No!” I shouted, but the hooded figure slammed Tristen into the wall, grabbing for Tristen’s other hand?—
—a hand that had been clutching a knife behind his back, poised to strike me down.
The cloaked figure took the knife, raising it above Tristen.
But Tristen ducked, the cloaked figure slashing through air with the knife. The figure swiveled, his back against the wall as Tristen descended a step.
“If you wanted a fight to the death, you could have just asked,” Tristen goaded.
No.
I couldn’t let this man kill Tristen. As much as the Assassin infuriated me, he had also saved my life. I had to try to help him.
I kicked the back of the hooded figure, who stumbled down a step in surprise. Tristen lunged at him again, kneeing the hooded figure in his stomach. The hooded figure gasped, but dropped down and grabbed Tristen’s ankle, yanking it and pulling Tristen off-balance.
Tristen’s eyes went wide, and he fell?—
—tumbling down a set of those hard stone steps, landing with a crack as his body was stopped by one of the stone walls that bordered the staircase.
“Tristen!” I called, but he held up a hand from where he laid on the stone landing, blood trickling from his head.
“Stay there,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Get to safety.”
The hooded figure advanced down the staircase, holding up the dagger Tristen had held…
…and wasted no time plunging it into Tristen’s chest.
Straight into his heart.
“NO!” I screamed, something hurt and angry slicing through my blood. I watched in horror as Tristen’s eyes glazed over as blood poured from his chest.
I couldn’t stop my traitorous feet as I closed the distance between us, shoving the hooded figure aside so I could get to Tristen.
Tristen’s eyes met mine as he wheezed. “It’s a shame it had to end like this. Right, Saffron?” Then, his face twisted in pain… and then smoothed as his head lolled on the obsidian wall. His final breath escaped his lips as his eyes closed—and I felt my heart still in my chest.
Tristen was dead.
He was my enemy. I should be thanking that hooded stranger for removing him from the trials. So why did I feel nothing but terror? And… sadness? I twisted my feelings into anger, my head snapping up to the man with the cape who still had his back to me.
“You fucking monster!” Revenge pulsed deep in my blood, a kind of wrath that felt at the same time both foreign and familiar.
Without thinking, I whirled, grabbing the killer’s black hood, pulling it back?—
—to reveal Tristen . Alive and smirking in front of me.
“Mourning my death, Saffron?”
I scrambled back, gripping the balustrade as I stared at him.
“How… You…?” I looked at the dead Tristen on the ground. He looked identical to the one standing in front of me… but there was something different pulsing in his power. The Tristen in front of me felt more… whole. I couldn’t put it into words, but somehow I knew the one standing in front of me— alive —was the real Tristen.
Then, the body on the floor—Tristen’s double—started to shift and crack, turning to wood. As the body groaned and splintered into wood pieces, it began resembling a fallen tree bark, and no longer looked like him. I stared, feeling like my mind was splintering along with the image.
“Creepy how the island does that,” Tristen remarked.
“Does what?” I breathed.
“The gods gave too much of their power to this place,” Tristen muttered, and then looked me in the eye. “To win this second trial, you must do two things. First, survive. And second? Kill your double,” he said.
Kill your double . So it hadn’t been the twins fighting—it had been one of their doppelgangers, conjured by The Ash Trials. By the island itself.
An explosion rocked the tower, and Tristen looked up, bored. “Seems like some of the others have already met theirs.” His gaze shifted back to me. “Let’s get moving. We have to hunt down the second most beautiful person here.”
“And who is that?” I asked.
“Your double,” he said with a roguish grin.
I glared at him as we started down the stairs. “How do you even know that I’m the real me?”
He grinned. “A fake Saffron would have merely laughed at my death.”
I scowled. “I would have laughed, but I was merely too shocked.”
“Do you normally shout ‘ no !’ and prepare to take your revenge right before you laugh?”
I shot him daggers with my eyes, but he suddenly stilled.
“In here,” he said, and pulled me into an alcove at one of the landings beside the stairs. He pressed my body against the stone, angling himself in front of me.
The look of terror I saw on his face made me oblige, his strong hands pulling me into the shadow of a curved corner of darkness.
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered.
I felt it before I saw it.
Something large. Not in size, but in power. In potential power. Something icy and horrifying. I felt a whimper rise and die in my throat. Stifled by a horrible chill, a slithering coldness.
Then, it passed right by our alcove. Something cloaked in slithering shadows, hissing like snakes. Red, beady eyes sweeping back and forth. Searching for something. For some one .
The train of darkness around the figure halted for a moment, sniffing the air. I stiffened, my body flattening further against the stone behind me.
The figure kicked back its head and roared . In the wake of the earth-shattering roar was a rotting smell. Death, decay, suffering. All of it so foul it filled my nose, stuffing me with a sensation so rancid it took every ounce of my self-restraint not to double over and vomit on the floor in front of us.
The roar caused all of the snakes that made up the pacing beast to rattle and hiss as it paused. Listening.
And then, it moved on. Descending deeper into the depths of the tower.
I counted my breaths. Praying my legs wouldn’t give out beneath me.
Tristen let his hand drop, and my eyes flew to him, but his expression had eased back to that bored, arrogant mask he so easily wore.
“You told me all we would have to do in this trial was kill our doubles,” I ground out through gritted teeth at him.
Tristen shrugged. “That is someone’s double.”
I stilled. “ Whose double?”
“I’ve read about trials like this in the past. The Isle of Embermere senses the power of each contestant. To keep things… fair … it mirrors the power of the strongest contestant—and then some. The rest of us have to face ourselves, sure, but the most powerful of us? They have to go beyond. Become more . Withdraw the power hidden so deep within the well of themselves that it could potentially kill them.”
I let out a breath of relief. I was powerless, so that creature wouldn’t be my problem. Thank the gods —finally, something was going my way in this trial.
As I ducked out of the alcove and Tristen and I descended the stairs once again, I shot a sly glance at him. “So you’re not the most powerful person in these trials?”
Tristen raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m the second most powerful person on this godsforsaken island. Maybe in all of Luminaria and Stormgard, too.”
I rolled my eyes. The ego on this man was atrocious. “So who do you think gets the honor? Of being the most powerful?” My mind flipped through all of the contestants. Rachelle could shift—something I hadn’t seen the others do. My heart fell at the thought of Rachelle going up against that nightmare. If luck would have it, Ajax would be the one getting ripped apart by that thing.
But Tristen hadn’t replied.
“Tristen?” I asked, but before I could turn back to search his expression, an animalistic growl ripped through the tower. That noise was familiar. Unmistakable.
“It’s Rachelle,” I breathed. I sprinted down the last few steps of the tower to reach the ground floor. For some reason, Tristen was slowing behind me. Had he really tired from the fight with his double? That didn’t quite make sense.
“She’s in the throne room,” Tristen bit out as if he was trying to hold something back, and as I crept into the next hallway, the aching familiarity of the palace made sense as the hallway opened up into a larger room of staircases and the grand entryway before the closed doors of the throne room.
“It’s a mirror of the Saltspire Palace,” I breathed.
Tristen nodded, but his face was still tight. “And to think it was you who said the island had no imagination.”
A screeching growl cut through the air—one that was filled with agony.
“This way,” I said, motioning to the throne room, but behind me?—
—Tristen was starting to dissolve.
“Tristen?” I cried.
He looked down at the particles of himself as they started to disappear. “I’ve slayed my double. I’ve resisted as long as I could, but my trial is over. Yours is just beginning.”
A slice of panic went through me. I would be powerless without his help, as much as I didn’t want to admit needing him. I had survived this far, but what if my luck ran out? I was powerless, a hollow amongst wielders with astonishing powers—and their doubles.
As if reading my face, he shook his head. A wholly undecipherable expression chased his frown. “It’s an honor. Take it as such.”
“What’s an honor?” I demanded, but he was gone, spirited away with his cryptic words.
I turned back to the throne room doors as Rachelle let out another horrible howl. Beside the closed throne room doors stood a suit of armor with…
…a sword. No, not just a sword. The Bluesteel Blade I had stolen from the stone in the first trial. It was there… waiting for me.
“Hello, old friend,” I said to the blade as I strode across that big empty hall, ignoring the shadows dancing in the flickering light. “Stalking me? I’ll allow it. But only if you promise to get me out of this alive.”
“ I go where you go ,” the blade responded.
I stopped at the suit of armor, and reached for the blade. As I grabbed the hilt, it didn’t burn me this time. No, instead, it warmed to a comfortable temperature. I blew out a breath, trying to dissipate the adrenaline building in my blood as I held up the Bluesteel Blade. Maybe it would be what I needed to get out of here alive.
I strode to meet the huge oak throne room doors, pausing for a moment with my hand resting against the smooth black wood of them.
Rachelle fought for me in the first trial. So had Tristen. So had Callum. It was time for me to start showing up for the people I cared about—to be the one doing the saving, and not always needing to be saved.
It was time.
With that, I threw open the throne room doors, ready to start repaying my debts.