Chapter 21
The training grounds took my breath away—or maybe that was the lack of oxygen.
I’d taken the elevator to the highest floor, an experience in itself. A curling gazebo carved out of ice shielded me from the wind as I stepped out of the car and onto a plateau that overlooked a slate-gray hollow.
Hundreds of people gathered in this open space between the mountain’s peaks. From here, they dashed around like little ants, running in circles over the barren terrain.
A crumbling set of stairs carved into the rock face snaked to the area below.
Grasping the thick rope railing, I descended the nearly vertical path, my heart thrashing against my ribs at the dizzying altitude.
At least it was free of snow—the steps had been swept clean of stray pebbles and ice, anything that might have someone tripping and breaking their neck.
The height and the angle could do that on their own.
When I finally reached the bottom in one piece, I put my hand to my brow, shielding my vision from the icy glare of the surrounding snowcapped ridges.
My breath clouded in front of me, lungs working harder in the thin air. Elves darted across the flat land, grouping themselves into formations, clinking swords, lifting barbells, climbing the sides of the mountain. Some gathered around a raised platform—the sparring ring.
Craning and squinting for a good look, I could only make out a gloved hand, a flash of pinkish blonde over the audience clustered along the bright ropes. Cheers erupted.
After waiting for a line of soldiers to jog past, I walked over. Anxiety stabbed me in the gut, sharper than any sword or spear I saw hanging on the many weapons racks.
This wasn’t just a standard outdoor training facility. This was where warriors were made.
The mat-covered area I’d initially assumed to be a normal gym sent a shiver down my spine: half the machinery didn’t even remotely resemble workout equipment—it looked more like torture devices.
Beyond those, the base of the slopes were lined with pits: pits with metal spikes, pits with bubbling tar, pits with—oh God—snakes.
Nope. I swung my head in the direction of the sparring ring, picking up my pace. I would not be getting anywhere near those pits.
An elf darted into my path, flushed from their workout, a damp sweatband around their forehead. Three more raced after them, heading for those dreaded holes in the earth. Laughing, smiling, as if they were about to do the unthinkable: enjoy them.
Coming up here was definitely the wrong decision.
I knew I should have just headed back to the comfort of my rooms. I had overexerted myself with the frozen waterfall.
I should take a nap. There was plenty to talk to Eldi about, or I could join Olivia.
I was sure I could disappear back into the elevator, make myself invisible before…
“River!”
Or not.
I swiveled in the direction of my name to see a familiar figure jogging towards me.
“Gunnar,” I said, already feeling as if I’d used up all of my oxygen.
He stopped a few feet away, his hair pulled into a low pony, biceps poking out of his tight black shirt. A trickle of sweat lined his brow. “What are you doing up here?”
“Great question,” I panted, and it was totally due to the air, not the way the stretchy fabric sculpted his chest. “I’m… exploring?”
“I thought you’d be spent after that performance for the queen.” Wiping his forehead on his sleeve, his skin glistening from his workout, he added, “That was pretty badass, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Heat flashed down the back of my neck, up my cheeks.
He nodded towards my clothes. “You changed.”
I glanced down at my black leggings and my matching zip-up. “Yeah,” I said, tucking the short layers of hair that’d come undone from my braid behind my ear. “I did.”
“Hey, angel!” a girl called from the ring. Freyja. She curled her fingers. Beckoning—taunting. “You’re up.”
“O-oh, no.” The blood drained from my face.
“Oh yes.” She leaned on the elastic barrier. “G, bring her up here.”
Gunnar hesitated, wide eyes darting between us.
She tilted her head. “That’s a command.”
“Sorry, River.” Gritting his teeth, he stalked back to the enclosure, legs strong and slow. No threatening words, no touch, no force. They weren’t needed, anyway. I was a rabbit in the den of wolves.
Heels skidding in the dirt, my feet grew heavier, more leaden with each tentative step.
“Shoes off,” Gunnar said at the edge of the mat.
“Gloves off?” Freyja perked.
“On,” Gunnar and I said together.
At least two of us were on the same page.
Pushing off the ropes, Freyja gave me a vicious grin. She moved to the center of the ring—hopping, weaving, punching the air—practicing what she’d inevitably be doing to my face.
More elves drifted over, suspicious glances tracking my every flinch. I could’ve sworn I saw copper and silver coins change hands. Bets were definitely not on me.
“Pick your gloves.” Gunnar gestured to the racks of gear with blue, red, gold, silver, and neon pads on display within the shelves. “I’ll help you wrap your wrists.”
Adrenaline burned through me. How had I ended up here? I just wanted to go for a walk, had wanted to burn off the confusing wave of optimism and power and rage that had bubbled up in me.
I unzipped my hoodie and shrugged it off, my stomach peeking between the high waist of my leggings and my sports bra. Alright, maybe I had wanted to do something, prove something—hit something. That was why I stumbled up here. That was why I changed after chatting with Olivia.
Goosebumps flooded my arms, but I hardly felt the cold.
I settled on a pair of all-black mitts to counter the princess’s hot-pink gloves flashing in the corner of my vision.
Grabbing a roll of ivory cloth, Gunnar took my wrist. His touch was delicate, despite the fact that he could probably kill me with one punch.
He unrolled the material, wrapping it around the base of my hand, then began slowly weaving it between my fingers.
My red, raw fingers, utterly destroyed by my picking.
Heat crept up my neck again. Ugh. It was just a simple task, a mandatory one for a fight.
Still—this close, I could feel the warmth radiating off him, and when his skin grazed mine…
“Sorry,” he murmured. But he didn’t flinch.
I turned away, and a glint of silver caught my eye. The top of a dome peeked out behind a smaller ridge, the rest of it backed by nothing but sky, as if it dangled on the edge of a precipice.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The Terrordome,” he said, not breaking from the rhythm of his work.
“What’s it for?”
“Fighting.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing here?”
“Here, we’re training.” He dropped my right hand, picking up the left with a gentle touch. “There, you fight to the death.”
“Don’t tell me loser goes to the Terrordome, otherwise you might as well perform my last rites now.”
A smile slipped along his lips, but his eyes remained on his task. “Nah, it serves more as a reminder of the past.” He tucked the edge of the material into another layer on my palm. “You ready?”
No. “Yes,” I blew out, swallowing thickly against the rush of my nerves.
Gunnar snagged a squishy helmet and placed it on my head. My nostrils flared at the lingering smell on the inner padding. Bending slightly to clip it beneath my chin, he brushed away the rogue strands of hair tangling in the buckle, fingers lightly skimming my neck in the process.
I laughed. “Sorry.” My shoulders shot to my ears. “Tickles.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, trying and failing to hold back a smile. “Done.”
Folding my lips between my teeth, I then slipped on the gloves.
My opponent hadn’t stopped dancing around—her feet quick, her gloves blurring into swipes of neon pink. Air hissed through her teeth with every jab, the extension powerful and swift. She didn’t even sport a helmet—she was that confident.
I dragged my feet, apprehension making every step unsure and heavy. Gunnar held up the ropes. I slid beneath them and onto the mat.
Freyja waited in the middle, shoulders hunched, smirk gone, gloves grazing her chin in her fighting guard stance. And with the way her silver eyes pinned me… we might as well have been fighting to the death.
Why did she have it out for me? Sure, I’d mishandled my intro and made them drive in circles in the middle of nowhere, but out of anyone, she should understand why.
And it’s not like she didn’t do the same damn thing.
“Hey,” Gunnar called. “Punches only. No Galdur.”
A bell chimed.
Dukes up, she started a slow prowl around me. I mimicked the move, my thoughts stuck on why she hated me so much. She lunged forward, taunting. I scrambled back, almost tripping over my bare feet. Hushed laughter erupted behind me.
I blew it off, gritting my teeth.
Elbows pinned to her rib cage, fists beginning to circle, she scooted closer and closer, pushing me to the edge of the mat.
The world around me faded into a blur of lava rock and snow, as my angel senses took control and homed in on the threat—her.
She launched a fist at my face, fast as a pit viper’s strike.
Somehow, I managed to duck and spin out of the way, keeping myself righted as the very edge of the pleather shielding her hand breezed my shirt.
I took the moment to catch my breath and dodged another punch, my arms aching, lungs out of breath. Sweat tickled my temple. I went to wipe it.
Her fist lunged the second my gloves dropped.
“Oof!” Pain swelled under my chin, radiating up to my jawbone, my teeth. The horizon shifted—oh wait, that was me, going down, down, down.
I slammed onto my back and the wind left my lungs completely.
A silhouette blocked my view of the sky, followed by a heavy weight dropping onto my core. Tears distorted my vision, but I saw through them enough to strike Freyja back, my biceps screaming. She swatted my hand away as if it were a flimsy, irritating paper airplane.
I pulled my elbows in to deflect her, but her fists rained down, her knees digging into my stomach.
“C’mon, River, this can’t be all you have!” She laughed. “Give me a real fight!”
Blows landed on the side of my rib cage, on the sore muscles of my forearms, on the other side of my throbbing face.
I tucked myself in tighter and tighter, closing my eyes, clenching my jaw.
Somehow, I knew this was only a portion of her strength—this was her going easy on me—and it still hurt like hell.
“That’s enough!” I screamed, but she couldn’t hear me—too focused on the brawl, on the moment, the adrenaline taking over, turning her eyes into silver slits. Source pulsed in my veins, strength building in my bones. “GET OFF ME!”
I thrust my elbows up in defense—forgetting how strong I was now. Freyja was flung to the other side of the mat, slamming into one of the padded corners. My words echoed across the hollow, ringing through the white-capped mountains.
Hundreds of feet overhead, the snow shimmied. A dramatic rumble stirred the air.
“Shit,” I whispered.
But it was too late.
The thick layer of powder rippled, dimpled, caved inwards, burrowing into the crag. In a few breaths, it tore off in a sheet of rock and ice and swiftly slid down the side, propelled towards the plateau. Towards us.
A cry rent the air. “Avalanche!”
Someone whistled.
An alarm blared.
Dropping their weapons, the elves training along the outskirts raced away from the base of the mountain’s peaks at speeds not humanly possible.
I flung off my helmet and unfastened my gloves, rolling up to my knees.
The slide was already a quarter of the way across the terrain. I considered getting up and running, but then it slowly tapered out.
My shoulders fell, the far end of the training grounds now covered in piles of muddy snow. No one moved. No one so much as breathed. But their eyes were all fixed on the ring.
Face red, Freyja stomped towards me. “The rules were no magic, angel!”
“I—I didn’t mean to!” I shot up, arms arcing over my face, my torso hunching, readying for a sucker punch.
A flash of dark brown hair and skin darted between us.
Gunnar stuck his arms out, separating us. “Frey, it was an accident.”
Those words meant nothing to her. Snarling, she pushed against his strong body.
“Hey!” he said. It was direct, sharp, spoken like a command. “She didn’t mean it.”
Freyja stopped pushing against him, blinking as if she’d been in some sort of trance.
Gunnar nodded sharply. “Shake hands.”
Crossing her arms, Freyja tilted onto a hip and looked away. My cheeks burned. I put my hands on my waist, my shoulders hardly able to bear their own weight.
“Shake. Hands,” Gunnar repeated, his voice a low growl.
Tsking, Freyja dangled her manicured fingers, the wrappings worn and tinged crimson. At this point, I wasn’t sure whose blood it was.
“It’s just a hand, River.” She rolled her eyes, so nonchalant, like she hadn’t just been trying to beat the crap out of me. Like I should be honored she was offering it up.
I reached out, closing my fingers around hers—at least, as much as I could with the bulky padding bundled around our palms. “What would you call whatever that hand just did to my face for the past five minutes?”
A sly grin. Typical Freyja. “A favor.”
My chest was going like I had just run all the way up the mountain.
“Good match.” With a final shake, she released her grip, ducking out beneath the ropes. Elves flocked her, patting her on the back, handing her water.
“Nice work, angel.” Gunnar slid into my view. “Don’t worry about the snow; the plows will come later and clear it.”
Pulse thrumming in my ears, raging in my chest, I flexed my fingers—the knuckles pink from the cold, the tips tingling with Source. The rush of it all hurtling back to me.
I stared down at myself: weak, breathless, exhausted, not in control of my powers. I was so underprepared—for this mat, for this journey, for whatever war was coming.
And Freyja’s words… An obvious dig meant to annoy me, but they only ignited me.
Maybe she did do me a favor.
“You okay?” Gunnar’s voice snapped me back to the moment.
“That was actually… kind of incredible,” I breathed, grinning. “Let’s do it again.”