Chapter 25 #2
The next obstacle was a twelve-foot wall with a rope that many were using to hold onto and walk up the wall. A few Dragonkin jumped halfway up, grabbed the rope, and finished climbing, earning cheers from the spectators.
Squatting down, I took a deep breath, then jumped as high as I could, my fingers brushed the top of the wall, but I couldn’t grab it. As I started to fall back down, I grabbed the nearest rope and pulled myself up and over the wall.
“What in the fire? She can’t be a Caltyrelan if she cleared that jump,” someone snapped behind me.
The next obstacle was to crawl under a net through shallow water. Some swam through instead of using the net, but a few used the net to pull themselves along.
As I neared it, I noticed a few of the ones who had glared at me waiting near the obstacle, but not going through.
Could they be any more obvious?
I opted to face upwards and pull myself along with the net to be able to see around myself easier. And it was a good thing I did, as not even two feet into the obstacle, one of the female Dragonkin dramatically fell onto me, trying to keep me pinned beneath the water.
Since we were underwater, my punches weren’t very effective against her, but with a few sharp pinches and twists of sensitive skin along the upper back of her arm, she reluctantly moved away and I was able to finish the course, gasping for air as I surfaced from the water.
I didn’t bother to wait for her to exit and instead took off, running as fast as I could to get to the next obstacle, which was yet another wall to scale. This wall had handholds and footholds, and was well over twenty feet tall.
As I climbed, I noticed a female keeping pace with me, her eyes full of fire as she glared at me. “You’re not worthy of them,” she spat as she kicked me in my side.
Seeing what she was about to do, I gripped my handholds extra firmly and tightened my core. The kick hurt, but it didn’t knock me off, thankfully.
“Neither are you, you jealous bitch,” I spat as I continued my climb. Part of me wanted to retaliate, but I knew that would just make me look bad to the royals and spectators. Instead, I would do everything to show that I was playing fair while these others were the ones playing dirty.
I heard a few boos from the spectators when she kicked me, so hopefully I was accomplishing my goal.
On the other side of the wall, there were more handholds and footholds. Smiling wide, I glanced in the direction of the royals, winked, and dropped down, landing lightly on my knees.
The spectators gasped in shock and I could practically hear the eyerolls from my guys.
With a small laugh, I took off at a run towards the next obstacle.
So far, there were only about six competitors in front of me. Many of them were fighting with each other, trying to pull the others down and prevent them from going first.
Their distraction worked to my advantage as I vaulted over several of them and started the crawl on my elbows and knees under what appeared to be a spiky bush.
My hair got snagged a few times, but I kept going.
As I was about to exit, someone grabbed my ankle and jerked me backwards.
Instinctively, I kicked back at them and they made a shocked sound of pain before releasing me.
There was only one more obstacle and three competitors in front of me.
I was definitely winded now, but I had to finish strong. The next obstacle required you to jump over a log, then crawl under the next log, and repeat that five times.
Taking a deep breath, I headed to the obstacle and pulled myself over the first log. While crawling under the next one, someone stomped on the bottom half of my leg, right on my calf muscle. I screamed in pain and heard several growls in the distance.
“You’ll never survive to the ceremony,” a female growled at me. “We’ll ensure you don’t sully our race with your non-Dragonkin genes.”
Pulling myself up to the next log, I tested my leg, but the muscle hurt so much that I couldn’t put full weight on it.
“Your High King negotiated the agreement. Are you telling me that you think the High King made a mistake?” I challenged her. She was a gorgeous woman, tall, curvy, and incredibly fit with abs showing through her tight tank top.
“The only use you have to us is dead,” she growled and launched herself at me, trying to use her claws to scratch my face and likely my eyes.
Ducking under her claws, I punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her, and shoved her to the side. Her claws cut through my sleeves, leaving long gashes on my forearm.
Jumping over the log next to me, I continued on my way, trying to focus on finishing the race in the top five. She tried to attack me again, but I dodged her attacks as I limped and hopped my way over and under the logs.
Finally, the finish line was ahead and I ignored the pain as much as I could as I limp-ran my way to it.
The spectators cheered as we finished and I was proud to finish in third place. The woman who had attacked me finished in fifth and started to move towards me, but a group of people came over with water bottles for us all and she stopped.
A man approached me where I sat on the ground. “Can I examine your leg, Princess?”
“Will you be examining everyone who was injured?” I asked, wanting to be sure they weren’t playing favorites since I was a princess.
“Yes, all participants will be provided care,” he answered immediately.
I nodded. “Go ahead.”