Chapter Twenty-five
The flames in the fire pit sway like living entities. They dance and flicker, casting shadows that play upon the faces of the four teams surrounding me.
What remains of the stew is simmering at the bottom of the cauldron, the rich scent of meat and vegetables having long given way to a haze of wood and smoke, clashing with the crisp evening air.
I sip slowly on my stew where I’m perched on a roughly hewn log close to the flames, letting the warmth seep into my aching bones. I like the silence. It allows Aurora Isle to serenade us with the wild symphony that is the jungle at night.
The rustling of leaves. The chirping of crickets. The distant calls of creatures nestled in the dark, untrodden corners of the foliage.
I keep forgetting we’re on an island, and that somewhere beyond the trees lies a roaring sea. Now and then, I catch whiffs of its salty tang. But mostly the air smells like fresh earth, not so unlike the forest back home.
I stare into the fire at my feet, the heat from the flames twisting and curling into the night like ribbons. They rise towards the stars, and I imagine reaching out, grabbing hold of a ribbon to see if I could yank a star right from the sky.
If only it were that easy. I’d give it to Madame Vera, let her make her wish and, in return, I’d get my sister back. No trials. No bloodshed. Just a single star to end it all.
Kara and Savannah catch my attention beyond the flames. Their arms are wrapped around each other, and their loving gazes are softened by the firelight. There’s a tenderness in the way they look at each other, a quiet intimacy that seems to block out everything else.
I suppose it’s romantic – entering the deadliest tournament of the Triumstellar Accord together, facing death as one. Fighting, and perhaps dying, side by side. I can only hope their love for one another is more sincere than their smiles have been.
Beside them is Cyrus. He’s sitting with his back against a log, while Gideon struggles with the task of tidying his unruly plait.
The firelight flickers against Cyrus’s face, mirroring his disgust as he takes another spoonful of the broth. “Yuck,” he mutters for what feels like the thousandth time. “I wouldn’t feed my horse this bathwater…”
And for the thousandth time, Taron performs an eye roll next to me. “He’s too spoiled for his own good,” he mutters, his fingers absentmindedly playing with a shard of grass.
Luckily, Cyrus doesn’t hear him.
“I don’t know about yours, but our cabin only has one bed,” Gigi says, poking the coals with a stick. Their now-tangled red hair almost resembles flames.
“Hope you’re all comfortable with spooning,” Gunther agrees. “Because tightly packed is an understatement.”
Cyrus snorts. “Gideon will be sleeping under the stars tonight. He knows I don’t like to share.” Then his dark irises drift in my direction, and his expression shifts into something more suggestive. “Though I suppose I could make an exception.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. Instinctively, I look at Taron, whose expression of indifference spawns an odd shrinking feeling in my chest. Much like Gideon, he remains an impassive canvas.
“No one?” Cyrus asks. “OK, suit yourselves.”
The crackling fire continues to paint the clearing in flickering shades of orange and yellow. I stay quiet as stale conversations ripple through the group, punctuated by the occasional ring of forced laughter.
It’s ridiculous, all of us sitting here. Pretending everything is fine when we’re all aware that the final trial awaits, a looming storm that could break at any minute.
“Are we taking bets, then?” Savannah asks, twisting a strand of Kara’s golden hair round her finger. “What does everyone think the final trial will entail?”
“Another monster, for sure,” Mei says. Her voice is hoarse, and I can’t help but notice the beads of sweat pooling around her temples.
One hand is clutching the wound where Cyrus’s rogue scale lacerated her before. The other is resting on her thigh, trembling slightly.
My own wound prickles. It’s warm, almost sizzling. I try to reach for it, but it’s right down the middle of my back.
“Sounds about right,” Gigi agrees. “They’ll need to up the ante after all this.”
“These Astrals love their theatrics,” Rhius agrees.
Cyrus leans closer to the fire and dumps the remainder of his stew on to the coals, making them hiss and sputter. “Whatever it is, it’s everyone for themselves, right, Gideon?”
“As it should be, Your Highness.”
There’s a collective nodding of heads, and the agreement is sealed.
“If it comes down to it,” Kara says, half-dreamily next to Savannah, “I’ll do anything to win that wish.”
Cyrus sniggers.
“Did Kara say something funny?” Savannah snaps.
“Oh, it’s nothing…” He smirks. “It’s just, I don’t tend to lose.”
Gigi laughs. “That might be true on the mainland, Your Highness, but remember, your daddy isn’t here to help you now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cyrus shoots back.
“Your old man is on the High Council, isn’t he? Which means he was part of the selection committee.”
“The ballot is chosen at random.”
“That’s what they say.” Gigi shrugs. “But who knows … High Prince Hevio could’ve had a hand in your getting chosen for the tournament.”
Cyrus’s expression hardens.
“Stop it, Gigi,” says Gunther. “Didn’t you see how his family treated him at the banquet? His father doesn’t care enough to help him in that way.”
“Or maybe,” Gigi sing-songs as they lean forward, sharing Gunther’s grin, “your father entered you in the tournament hoping you’d finally make something of yourself.”
“Hoping that you’d either win or never return,” Gunther agrees.
I feel a flicker of sympathy for Cyrus. Not that he deserves it. But the memory of him at the banquet, surrounded by his perfect siblings, the weight of everything he’s expected to live up to – it strikes a chord within me.
I’ve never been good at meeting expectations myself. Half Emo, half nothing. I know all too well what it’s like to never be enough.
“Are you done?” Cyrus asks, and he sounds bored. The hazy coils of seething energy steaming off his skin say otherwise.
“Actually, if you’re inviting people to insult you—” Mei slurs, before choking on the words. She sways where she’s sitting, eyes narrowed as though she’s struggling to focus on our silhouettes around her.
“Mei, are you OK?” Rhius puts a hand to her sweat-smeared forehead. “By the grace of Ignis, you’re burning up.”
“Uh, I guess it’s a little hot out here…” Mei tries to clear her throat and it turns into a cough. Blood dribbles from her mouth. Then her nostrils. And her ears. The blood is hot, literally steaming. And as it cools, it turns a horrible, swampy green colour.
Kara claps her hand to her mouth. “Mei, your arm…”
Her wound is steaming, too. Popping. Sizzling. Streaking her sleeve with swampy green blood. I bite back the bile swimming in my throat.
“Hey, the stars are winking at me,” Mei whimpers. Then she giggles and her eyes roll back in delirium. “They’re waving. Look, Rhius … so pretty! Can you see them?”
She tries to stand, arm extended to the heavens, but she stumbles and falls. Mei convulses. Her body shakes uncontrollably, limbs pressed together like a rod.
“Mei!” Rhius cries. He reaches for her, but immediately recoils as though he were touching hot coals. “What’s happening to her?”
We all scream when, before our eyes, Mei bursts into flames. She doesn’t have time to yelp in pain. The fire consumes her from the inside out, too quickly to comprehend.
When the flames subside moments later, only a black shell remains. Hollow features that droop. Bark-like skin that flakes with peppery ash.
“What the hell?” Gigi exclaims.
“It wasn’t us – I swear,” Gunther adds.
I gag at the stench. It’s smoky and rotten. The world spins and I tug at my collar. It feels like I’m glowing. Sweat pools around my neck and slides slowly, searing-hot, down my back.
“Her wound,” I mutter. A boiling sensation prickles at my temples. “The dragon scale must’ve been poisonous…”
My heart skips a beat. I was cut, too.
“Tar— Wren,” I try to say, but my voice is a whisper threaded with panic.
“Poisonous?” Rhius looks around where he’s hunched over Mei’s corpse, eyes welling with tears. “That means … he killed her!”
He leaps to his feet and throws himself at Cyrus. Gideon intervenes. He elbows Rhius and drives him back with a heel to the chest.
Their figures begin to blur and I squint. I see snapshots of movement. Rhius gathering a storm of emotions, black and seething, in his palm. Cyrus snapping a sunblade leaf. A flash of light and a spear taking shape in his hand.
A low whistle in my ears means I only catch snatches of their argument.
“You murdered her!”
“I didn’t touch her.”
“She died here in camp, which means you broke the truce. You cut her with the dragon’s scale and now she’s dead.”
“The hell with that! The cut happened during the trial – I didn’t break any rules. We don’t even know if it was the dragon’s scale.”
“Maeve,” someone says. I recognize Savannah’s cool tone. Her face is warped in front of me, all sharp angles and squished features. It makes me want to giggle. “Maeve, what makes you think it’s the scale?”
“B-because…” I slur.
“She’s also been cut,” Taron declares. I feel his hand on my forehead. “Where is it?”
I lean forward. “My back. It feels w-warm.”
Taron curses.
“Is she going to combust, too?” Kara asks, still with her hand in front of her mouth. I know I should panic, but all I can think about is how much her fine hair looks like gold. The amount of milk buns I could buy with only one strand. The amount of cakes Elara could bake…
Something tugs at my utility belt, and I realize it’s Taron retrieving both healing tonics I brought. “Which one is better?” he asks. “Are they both the same?”
My mind feels muddled, like it’s wading through mud. My fingers graze the vial of the grade-three healing tonic. If a grade-one tonic can heal broken ribs, then maybe, hopefully, a level three can counteract a poisoned dragon’s scale.
He tilts my head back, and I swallow the potion in a single gulp. I don’t bother wiping away the trail of liquid running from the corner of my mouth.
“Come on,” Taron says. He grabs me by the waist and hoists me up on to his shoulder. The world is a dizzying blur around me.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To get you under a cold shower.”