Chapter 36 The Unexpected
I woke with a sharp breath, staring up at the clear blue sky above me. The sun was high, it had to be past noon. I blinked, disoriented. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. The meadow stretched around me, quiet now, the grass flattened where I had collapsed.
I sat up, expecting pain to tear through me but it didn’t.
Slowly, I looked down at my hands. There were no burns.
My gaze drifted to the rest of my body, my arms, my legs, my stomach.
There were no burns, no blisters, no raw, melted flesh where the acid rain should have destroyed me.
The fabric of my green uniform was damaged, eaten through in places where the acid had fallen, but my skin beneath it was smooth.
I looked again at my hands and noticed my ring. The blue sapphire was set into the metal.
I stared at it, my breath shallow, my thoughts scrambling to catch up with reality. I hadn’t imagined it.
This had been a test. It had been my second trial and somehow, I had passed it.
Mid-afternoon lights filtered through the trees.
Birds lifted suddenly into the air in a frantic wave, their cries sharp and distant, as if something unseen had disturbed them deeper in the forest. Far away, I could hear the roar of the crowd, muffled echoes carried on the wind from the direction of the nearby arena.
I pulled the map from my pocket, shaking, and unfolded it. The third mark had appeared.
Gold, pulsing faintly, pointing south once more—deeper into the King’s forest, where the sequoia trees grew thick and ancient, and the light barely touched the ground.
My stomach tightened. I glanced at my clock. Too much time had passed. I didn’t have time to dwell on how I had passed the Siren’s test, nor could I afford to think about the sharp pain I remembered enduring to survive it. If I didn’t move now, I wouldn’t reach the final trial before nightfall.
I folded the map and deposited it back in my pocket as I stood up.
Overgrown grass scraped at my arms as I cut through the meadow, my breath coming fast but steady, my legs moving far more easily than they had any right to.
The forest thickened as I pushed south, shadows closing in around me.
I used the sun’s position as an easy orientation through the forest; a Sunheart like me found navigation easier during the day.
I had been walking for about an hour when I heard the screams. They were faint coming from behind me. It wasn’t far. Another scream followed, piercing through my thoughts. The same female voice, screaming in pain. It tore through the trees, sharp and raw, a cry that made my blood run cold.
I slowed and stopped for a moment. Every instinct screamed at me to keep going. The clock was running out, and this was the risk of the trials, you could die in them. There were no guarantees. With heavy guilt in my chest, I took two steps south, towards my third trial.
But the sound came again, weaker this time. I could hear agony in her voice. The forest was so dense that if I were the only one nearby, then only I could save her. Ancient sequoias would mute any sound.
I debated for a long minute. Against all logic, I veered off the path and ran towards the screams behind me.
I found their source without much effort.
The Sunheart lay near a fallen tree, collapsed against its roots, her white uniform darkened with blood. An Emberkeep student inside the forest during the Dragontail Trials was injured. Why this happened was much less critical than Camelia Aric dying in front of me.
Her breathing was shallow and uneven. Acid burns marked her arms and shoulders, fewer than I would have expected given the downpour.
She must have found cover. But it was the wound in her chest that made my stomach drop: a deep, brutal gash just beneath her collarbone, hastily pressed closed with trembling hands.
I dropped to my knees beside her and pressed my hands against her chest, trying to stop the bleeding.
“Camelia, what are you doing here? Stay with me,” I said urgently as blood stained my hands.
Camelia’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, then sharpened when she saw me. I tore fabric from her dress to wrap it around the wound, but there was so much blood, and the cut was so deep.
“They let it in,” she rasped, her voice barely more than a breath. “I followed them.”
I didn’t understand what she meant.
“Don’t talk. We need to get you to a healer,” I said, even though I knew no one would come. No one would hear us. After I was able to wrap her chest, I moved to lift her into my arms, but she spoke again, stopping me.
“Don’t, Thea,” Camelia hissed.
“I need to get you healed. I can’t leave you here,” I said, desperation tightening my chest.
“There is no time,” she said before a rough cough tore from her throat. “The dragon ripped me. The court is infected. I…”
Another violent coughing fit seized her, her body arching as if something was crushing her from the inside. Her breathing turned ragged, strangled.
This wasn’t from her injuries. She was choking as if invisible hands were tightening around her neck.
My face went cold as understanding hit. I remembered my coercion class with Professor Chen. This was the cruel strategy that mind-benders in the Emberkeep guards used to
silence Sunhearts and Moonveils when they possessed sensitive information for the crown.
“Don’t tell me anything,” I said quickly, gripping her hand. “Breathe. Someone is coercing you not to speak the truth.”
The sign of verbal coercion was intense coughing at first. Then, the air was cut off. Then, death, as she kept speaking about the topic she was coerced not to speak about.
She nodded weakly, pain contorting her features. Slowly, air returned to her lungs. Her breathing steadied.
“I overheard them talking, and I followed them into the veil around the Dragontail Trials…” she began, stopping to choose her words carefully before the strangling returned. “I hid from the acid rain under a tree. Then, I used my enhanced smell to track them, and I saw…”
Another violent cough cut her off.
“You don’t have to tell me. It will kill you,” I said urgently.
“I am dying anyway,” Camelia whispered, clutching my arm. Her grip was weak now. Each word came out fractured, her throat closing after every breath.
“They let the dragon in.”
My heart stopped.
“There is a real dragon in this forest?” I asked, scared of the answer. Her eyes widened as she began choking again.
“They want you dead.”
Then the air stopped entering her lungs altogether.
Camelia choked once. Twice. And then went still in front of me. I screamed. I didn’t know what else to do. I screamed and cried, my forehead dropping to hers, my hand still wrapped around her fingers.
I had never seen someone die. Camelia wasn’t my friend but she didn’t need to be for this to hurt this much. Someone had done this to her. Someone had coerced her into silence and left her bleeding in the forest. Let her chest be ripped open, and her truth strangled out of her.
I stayed there for a moment too long. Fear prickled along my skin, sharp and sudden. There was something else in the forest.
The marks were too deep, too wide, and everything became clear. Claws clearly made the injury. The injury was fresh. That only meant one thing. A dragon was roaming the forest nearby.
And if anyone heard its roar, they would think it was part of the Dragontail Trials. That was why no alarm had been raised. That was why no one had come.
However, nothing made sense. Why go through the efforts of mind-bending and silencing her, and not kill her outright? I swallowed hard. My mother herself had told me not to trust anyone, that she didn't trust anyone herself.
Then, I heard a roar. A roar from a creature I already could recognize. A roar like those beyond the veil. It could easily be mistaken for the third trial, but the marked spot in the map was still a two-hour walk from here.
But right now, I needed to trust my senses and facts. Dragon claws injured Camelia Aric, and it was nearby.