Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Fieran had so much last-minute advice that it was making me nervous.
“You’ll be going out in small teams,” he said.
“All starting in different places in the obstacle course. I don’t know what it’s going to look like exactly—it changes every year—but it’s always brutal.
It’s a race to the end. You should try to take leadership of your team, though they probably won’t listen to you.
They’ll likely be a bunch of arrogant pricks—”
“How novel,” I said, breath short. “I’m really out of practice dealing with those.”
I couldn’t handle the stairs, my nerves, and Fieran’s lecture all at once.
Still, when I glanced over my shoulder and saw all of Clan Bismyth coming with us, warmth flickered in my chest. It wasn’t real—I knew they only wanted to please Fieran—but sometimes for a second, I believed they cared about me.
Fieran started to go on, but I held up my hand. “I’m already nervous enough. I need you to stop talking and let me breathe.”
Irritation flashed across his face, gone almost before I caught it. “You know best what you need.”
“Thank you.”
“Even though I’m the one who’s done this before. And who has led my clan through real combat—”
“Let me walk with her.” Asrael stepped up on my other side, tall and intimidating. “You usually have me guide our new shifters.”
“That’s true. And you’ve never let me down.” Fieran clapped a hand on my shoulder before reluctantly moving away.
Asrael walked beside me in silence. I dared a glance up at him. “Do you have advice?”
“Do you want advice? You need to focus on instinct.”
Had he rescued me from Fieran as a kindness?
“I’m sure my mortal instincts will serve me so well.”
“I’m sure they will,” he said flatly. I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or serious.
Across the foyer, the unclaimed recruits were forming up.
I scanned for Kiegan, then reminded myself I shouldn’t.
He had enough to worry about, hoping a clan would claim him.
If Fieran decided against him, I didn’t want to make that worse.
Proximity to me might be seen as a weakness.
I needed to stay away from him, for his sake.
Still, the thought that he might have made the same calculation and decided to stay away from me hurt.
The other unclaimed all looked so confident, moving with easy grace that probably masked their nerves. They’d trained for this all their lives at the academy I’d never attended.
“I do want advice,” I said suddenly. “Not a list. Just something useful.”
Asrael’s cool eyes studied me. Fieran was easy to read, hard to trust; his face flashed with emotion he didn’t mean half the time. Asrael, on the other hand, gave me nothing. His stillness was impossible to interpret.
“Don’t lean too hard on that luck of yours,” he said.
My cheeks warmed. Who else had noticed yesterday’s success was not just my own?
“And definitely don’t lean on pride,” he added. “Run if you need to. From monsters or from your own team.”
“My own team might attack me?”
“Only if they think they can do it outside his view.” He didn’t have to name Fieran for me to understand.
That was the advice I actually needed. Kiegan was a powerful opponent, and there were probably some out there itching to humble him today. If Kiegan and I were split up, we’d both have to watch our own backs.
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll run if I have to. While the clans judge me.”
“You’ll still be claimed as long as you’re alive. It’s best to stay that way.”
Hard to argue with that logic.
“Anything else?” I asked. The guards were starting to call recruits into final formations. Standing beside Asrael, I felt steadier.
“The healers can fix almost anything, as long as you’ve still got a beating heart.” He tapped the inside of his wrist at his pulse. “Your best chance to keep that heart going is to stay calm. Steady heart, still a chance.”
He was probably just humoring Fieran, but his warmth was calming.
“Thank you, Asrael.”
“Thank me by lasting more than six minutes. I put money on you.”
I smiled uncertainly. I wasn’t sure if he was joking, but that was a very precise number.
The guards called again. He nodded. “Go. You don’t want to almost miss another trial.”
I headed toward the others, only realizing halfway across the hall what he’d said—and what it implied. Did he know that I’d tried to run away from the Dragon Trials? And if so, who else knew? Was Maura smearing that story across the walls?
No time to worry about that now.
“Hurry up, recruit!” one of the guards barked.
I jogged to the guard, who looked me over with open disgust—probably for both my tardiness and my mortal state.
“There,” he said, pointing toward a group of shifters.
Kiegan wasn’t among them. The group’s faces fell when they saw me heading their way.
Well, I wasn’t thrilled either.
As I reached them, another team moved out. Kiegan was there, towering above the rest. Maybe he wouldn’t be too far away when the trial began.
One of the shifters, a sleek, smirking male with styled hair and perfect posture, followed my gaze.
“What’s the point?” he muttered to his friends. “No dragon’s going to claim an orc.”
“Yeah, well.” One of his friends, a tall green-haired shifter who looked slender to the point of fragility, cast a dismissive glance over me. “At least he’ll help them in this trial. There’s no chance that girl is getting across.”
I ignored them, focusing ahead as we moved toward the arena. Through the massive doors, I caught a glimpse of a tower, but little else. Something tall. That already boded so well for me.
One of the shifters bumped into me. Hard.
“Sorry about that.” It was the shifter with the smirk, and he didn’t mean it. “Kaz and I were wondering. Who are you serving to be here, anyway?”
Kaz—the green-haired one—smirked too.
“Shut up, Ensmeth,” one of the shifters near me muttered, shifting away from both of us as if we might be venomous.
That look of dread wasn’t for me. It was the mirror reflection of the fear commanded by Clan Bismyth’s leader.
“Oh, scared?” Ensmeth looked at me, even though he was speaking to them. “You don’t have to worry about Fieran. Once the queen hears those stories that the rebellion found a way to force her dragon mark? She’s done.” His eyes were cold and dead.
“Ignore them.” A woman beside me said. “Ensmeth is obsessed with the idea that some of us belong here…and some of us don’t.”
“The ones who belong here can actually scale that,” Ensmeth said.
I stopped dead, staring at the massive arena in front of us, which had been transformed into the stuff of my nightmares.
A maze of narrow bridges crisscrossed above dark, murky water. My stomach rolled as I wondered how deep it was to the bottom.
Soaring above were towers connected by a web of nets, their bases ringed with cages. Other cages clung to the structure like massive insect nests. The comparison didn’t make me more excited for them to be opened.
I didn’t see any cages near the waterline. That didn’t mean there weren’t any below.
Heights and drowning, all in one convenient deathtrap.
Ensmeth stood beside me, surveying the obstacle course. “First team to get someone all the way across wins.” He pointed toward a distant platform I couldn’t even see clearly. “So maybe just die fast and don’t slow us down.”
“Wow,” I said dryly. “Motivational speeches must be your other gift.”
He ignored me. “If one of us makes it, the whole team wins. I just want you out of the way.”
Two female shifters exchanged looks that said they agreed with him. Fine. Let them.
The announcer’s voice boomed through the arena, amplified by magic. Magical mirrors shimmered overhead, projecting close-ups of each recruit’s face. When Ensmeth’s image appeared, he smiled, perfect and commanding. The crowd roared.
Then my own reflection flashed up. I looked pale and grim in black, my hair braided back from my round face. I didn’t smile. But to my surprise, cheers rose anyway, scattered and muted by distance. From the far, upper rows of the stands.
The mortal section.
They were cheering for me. I wasn’t sure they could even see me from that distance, but I raised my hand anyway. The cheers swelled before fading beneath louder screams for someone else. Still, the moment made me smile, and a heartbeat later, it made me ache as I understood those mortal cheers.
Hope. Pride. Fieran thought I could bring those to the mortals.
Asrael’s words whispered back to me. Don’t lean too hard on luck or pride.
I hadn’t felt tempted by pride before, but I did now, knowing there were mortals cheering for me.
A horn sounded.
The shadows in the cages writhed, then burst outward. Long, enormous rat-like creatures, with sharp teeth, scrambled over the ground with terrifying speed.
“Verin!” someone shouted. “They’re fast, but they can’t climb! Go up!”
Ensmeth shoved me aside, racing for the nearest net. The others were right behind him, leaping onto the ropes with impossible grace, their bodies swinging and catching hold without hesitation. I followed, slower and clumsier.
The first monster slammed into my legs. I leapt forward, trying to catch one of the ropes.
Then, with a sharp crack, one of the ropes snapped.
The entire frame shuddered. A recruit screamed as his rope tore loose, slipping through his hands as it unfurled like a serpent.
“Get to the towers!” I shouted.
No one listened. Ensmeth took up the cry instead, and suddenly everyone was swinging on the ropes toward the towers that stood at regular distances between the ropes.
I reached for the first rope I could reach, one that another shifter was scaling, but before my fingers could close around it, it snapped loose. The shifter fell, his body striking the water with a sickening splash.
I’d leaned too far, overbalanced, and when the rope whipped back, it slammed across my arm. Pain exploded up my shoulder. I clung desperately to my rope, one-handed. But I couldn’t hold it.
I was falling.