Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
“Anything?”
The word tickled my finger slowly, the tapping as long and drawn out as the days that had gone by since the last competition. Beckham had barely had time to drop off food and leave recently, so there hadn’t been any opportunities for him to bring me a letter.
“No,” I replied. I hadn’t gone into detail about my plans to contact the Guardian, only that I was waiting for the chance to contact them.
Atlas was trustworthy enough to work with, but not enough to truly trust. “Anything?” I echoed his question, growing more stir crazy by the day as I waited for the next round of events to begin.
“No,” he replied.
Apparently, the competition was an afterthought for the king, because he had no issue making the competitors wait for days between each event. Either that, or he wanted to see how well we performed after suffering from isolation.
There was no telling what kind of torture he planned to put us through.
I twisted my ring as my thoughts drifted to Mara.
How was she faring through this period of waiting?
Was someone assigned to bring her food? Worrying about her would have been enough to drive me insane, but talking to Atlas helped keep me from spiraling too far.
He was in the dark as much as I was about most things, but sometimes it was nice to wander blindly together.
The servant door opened, and I stopped my pacing to eagerly watch Beckham step inside. He was carrying the usual meal tray, but the dishes were clattering more than normal. Was he shaking?
He sat the tray down on the table, wiping his palms on his trousers as he bowed and took a step back so I could approach the meal. There was no one else in the room with us, but he was acting like the head housekeeper was actively breathing down his neck.
“Good morning, my lady,” he said politely. “Here is your breakfast. Please note that there is a letter from the king included on the tray.”
A letter?
Sure enough, a folded piece of parchment with the king’s seal was nestled beside the bowl of porridge. Seeing the seal electrified my blood. It was finally time to get back in the game.
“And,” Beckham whispered, his soft voice startling me as he leaned closer to my shoulder. “You’ll find another letter under your bowl.”
That would explain his shaking. I fought the urge to upturn the bowl and uncover what he’d brought me. The game was getting more interesting by the second.
“Thank you, Beckham,” I said sweetly. “I’ll be sure to look it over thoroughly.”
“My pleasure,” he said, bowing one more time before turning to leave. He seemed to walk a little easier now that the tray was out of his hands. Once he stepped out of the door, I waited a whole three seconds before shoving the bowl aside and inspecting the envelope beneath it.
My breath hitched as I picked up the purple-tinged paper. It was just as Beckham had described, a normal envelope that could have been from anywhere, but with a light lavender shade spreading out from the center like some sort of infection.
The Guardian’s magic.
I flipped the letter over, seeing two layers of ink written over top of each other.
The first layer stated that it was being sent from a cobbler in the city, with a vague address blurred in black.
But on top of it was a shimmery silver ink that sparkled like fish scales in the sunlight.
My pulse quickened when I read the name of the true sender.
Your Guardian…
I traced my fingers over the ink, amazed by the manufacturing of it. The Guardian was clearly intelligent, or had someone on their team who was. Anyone capable of magic like this could surely be smart enough to save Mara.
I opened the envelope, scanning the black ink first before getting bored of the fake tax document. I then skimmed over the magic silver ink, finding the note to be only a fraction of the length of the fake note.
Four more found, safe, and recruited.
A list of four names that I didn’t recognize followed, but even without knowing who they were, I felt peace knowing that they were safe. Whoever this guardian was, I was forever grateful to them for looking after my people, though the word recruited made me question that gratitude.
Survivors were hardly ever recruited. Followers were recruited. Soldiers were recruited.
Ivalon was still mine to claim someday; doing battle with another potential leader wasn’t a fight for which I had the energy to spare. At least, not now. I wasn’t looking for a fight today; I was looking for an ally.
I folded the letter back up and stashed it under my mattress to keep hidden for the time being, then turned my attention to the other letter that I knew contained my most pressing fight. I tore through the seal, surprised to find both a note and a silk blindfold inside.
Breakfast will be with your fellow competitors today.
Prepare wisely.
“Breakfast?” I set down the note and looked back at the bowl of porridge I’d been served. On a closer inspection, it didn’t look right. I scooped up a spoonful and gave it a quick sniff, crinkling my nose as I recognized the tang of spoiled milk and sawdust. “Very well then.”
I dropped the spoon on the table with a clatter, clearing my nose with a long breath. Breakfast meant morning, and morning would only last another two hours at most before they chose to drag me into the next event.
Without wasting another moment, I donned a simple dress that would serve me well in multiple scenarios, then strapped on a pair of sturdy boots. I then sat down in front of the vanity, twisting my hair up into a functional yet elegant hairdo that was perfect for showcasing a hairpin.
I didn’t have much in terms of accessories, but I was allowed a few pieces of fine jewelry when initially courting the princes, and a few hair pins—pins that had become impressively sharp after I’d spent my long days filing them on the stone walls.
The message did tell me to prepare myself, after all.
The knock on my door came only a few minutes after I’d finished getting ready, and two guards stepped inside to pull me away.
They made me put on the blindfold from the envelope, and I let them guide me out of the room by the shoulders in silence.
My thumb found the familiar grooves of the iron ring, and I tapped out one final message into the limestone as I felt my feet cross over my suite’s threshold.
“Now.”
There was no response as I tried to mentally map our path through the castle, but I wasn’t feeling nearly as nervous about this event as I had the previous.
The path we took was the same one that led to the dining room where I’d been tested in front of the princes in the past, daring me to think that I had a home-ground advantage.
Until we missed our turn, and then made a different turn, and then the icy air stung my cheeks.
My haughty breaths froze in my chest as the cold air humbled my confidence. There was no dining space outside that I knew of, but then again, I had only been outside while still within the walls of the arena.
But this didn’t feel like the arena.
The snow that crunched under my boots was padded with grass and soft dirt, alerting me that we were truly outside of the castle. I felt even more blind than I thought possible as we walked for what felt like an eternity deep into the cold.
My rings were especially frosty, causing my fingers to ache. I wished I had let my hair hang loose so it could at the very least warm my ears, but there had been no way to know that the only breakfast bites we’d be offered would be frostbite.
The sound of whistling wind grew louder, and when we finally stopped, I heard the breathing of more than just my escorts.
“You may remove your blindfold now,” the guard on my right side said as he finally released my shoulder.
I did as I was told, my eyes struggling to adjust to the bright glow of the snow and the expansive forest that we were looking out at.
I understood why the wind was whistling so much louder now; we were standing at a higher elevation point, and the forest below us seemed to be surrounded by sharp cliff sides that served as ramps for the strong gusts to flow up.
The other girls were lined up alongside me, a few of them still squinting against the snow after regaining their sight.
I felt a little relieved to see that none of them had dressed appropriately for the weather either, meaning that I wasn’t the only one to be caught off guard.
Princess Avalyn especially looked ill-prepared, wearing only a knee-length dress that fastened around her neck, leaving her shoulders, arms, and legs exposed to the elements.
I spotted Mara at the end of the lineup. Fortunately, she wore a long-sleeved gown made of thick fabric, but it wasn’t enough to stop her from shivering violently. I hated seeing her so miserable, but all I could do for now was focus on the task at hand.
Now hurry up and give us the task, Septimus.
As if reading my mind, the king himself stepped out from behind a cedar tree, dressed comfortably in a thick fur cloak with an insultingly warm smile. His cheeks were barely even rosy from the cold as he gawked at his miserable competitors.
“Good morning, ladies,” the king greeted us with a chilling voice. “Thank you for joining me for breakfast. I do hope you’re hungry.”
Perfectly in sync with one another, the guards stepped in front of us, extending a bow and a quiver full of arrows to me and the others.
The sudden gesture caught me off guard, and I found myself studying the weapon for a moment before taking it.
The bow was light, and the arrows looked flimsy at best, but they were still strong enough to kill.
But what were we aiming them at? I didn’t feel so hungry anymore…
“Welcome to my personal hunting grounds,” the king said proudly, gesturing at the eerie forest. “For today’s event, you will be participating in your own hunt.
You have one hour to secure any prey of your choosing.
Anything you kill can be traded in for a hot meal at the end of the contest, but the quality of your meal will be determined by the quality of your kill.
Scores will be awarded based on your catch as well.
” He reached into his cloak, pulling out a hand bell and raising it high into the sky. “Happy hunting.”
The bell rang.