Chapter 38 #2
I flailed for the others, catching at ropes that burned my palms raw, until—by sheer luck—I caught one and stopped, dangling above the water.
I swung toward a narrow rope bridge and threw my leg up, heaving myself onto it. The wooden slats wobbled beneath me, the height dizzying. My arms ached.
A decade of training for this kind of thing would have been nice, I thought grimly.
“Go up!” Kiegan’s shout echoed across the chaos.
He was already on one of the towers, on the lowest level.
He jerked his chin behind me. I didn’t have to look to know what I’d see. I could feel them.
All the monsters were chasing me.
“This is just like a few years ago!” a female shifter near me yelled. “The ropes are going to drop one by one, faster and faster, until the verin are dead!”
“Go up!” Kiegan bellowed. “You’re too slow!”
That was accurate, but not helpful. But Kiegan had pegged that one enemy in the arena with a rock while he was distracted by me. Maybe we could do something similar now.
I’d been bait for the wyrms; I could be bait for the venin. “I’m going to run beneath you! You take them out while they’re focused on me!”
“What?” The female’s voice was sharp with disbelief.
“I need you in the tower!” Kiegan shouted at her. “There are weapons inside!”
Her rope gave way just then. She swung to her backup, yanked hard by the momentum, but kept moving. Kiegan reached down from his platform, caught her hand, and hauled her up with one arm.
I didn’t wait to see the rest. I was already running.
A verin lunged out of nowhere, jaws snapping for my leg. I kicked, but its teeth sank into my calf. White-hot pain lanced up my body. I barely kept my balance, dragging myself forward until—thunk—an arrow whistled past me and buried itself in the creature’s eye.
Kiegan.
I stumbled, half running, half limping. The air around me whistled again with arrows. The other shifters had joined in, protecting me, whether they meant to or not, by killing each venin.
I sprinted under the nearest tower. For one brief moment, shade wrapped around me like safety. Then I burst back into sunlight, and the world was noisy and furious.
When I looked back, only one verin was still on my heels.
Ahead, the bridge ended at a narrow post barely wide enough to stand on. Beyond it dangled more ropes, swaying in the wind.
If I could catch one, I’d lose the verin and give Kiegan a clear shot.
If I missed, I’d hit the water.
I hesitated, but the creature behind me didn’t.
I leapt.
Wind roared in my ears. My hands reached for the ropes. One rope broke loose, slamming across my shoulder like a whip, spinning me sideways.
The water below churned.
It wasn’t empty.
I hit the surface, cold and hard, and the impact knocked the breath out of me. I twisted underwater, reaching for the knife in my boot. But I felt as if I were drowning, trying to curl down to get it, so I swam up instead.
When I broke the surface, gasping, the water was alive with movement.
“Don’t tell me you can’t swim!” Kiegan shouted from above.
“I’m swimming!” I coughed, though it came out mostly as choking. Panic clawed at me. I forced it down. I still had a heartbeat, a frantic one. Steady heart. Still a chance.
Something splashed beside me. A lean figure cutting into the water almost silently.
Not Kiegan, my boulder of a best friend.
The female shifter. Her hair plastered to her face, her expression almost bored.
“Stop flailing,” she said calmly. “You’re calling them to us.”
Her tone was not, in fact, calming.
A furry body dropped into the water near us. The last of the verin.
She seized it with one hand and, pushing herself out of the water, hurled it away from us. There was a flash of silver through the water as several monsters near us unfurled, going for that prey.
“See?” She caught my forearm, grip strong and sure. “Their vision’s limited. They sense movement. If you panic and drag me under, I’ll kill you myself.”
Charming.
She pulled me with her, her movements barely rippling the surface. Around us, the sea boiled with blood and motion. My chin dipped below the surface more than once, but she didn’t let go.
Finally, we reached the post I’d leapt from. The ropes above swayed, their knotted ends tantalizing but well out of my reach.
“Kiegan!” she called. “You ready?”
“What are we doing?” I rasped.
“Probably getting dragged under,” she said, flashing me a wild grin. “Climb.”
Before I could ask how, she lunged upward, dragging me with her. She thrust me up. My hands caught the bottom of a dangling rope.
“Hold on!” Kiegan shouted.
I clung to the rope, boots kicking over the water. My arms screamed.
Below, black shapes coiled and circled.
The female grabbed my boots, her weight pulling at me. My fingers slid down the rope, scraping and burning, but I clung to it frantically.
A monster lunged up toward her, mouth open wide.
Kiegan abandoned the rope to grab my arm, hauling us both upward with brute strength. My shoulder burned, my fingers nearly slipped, but somehow, we made it.
We collapsed together on the narrow platform, gasping.
“Thanks,” I managed.
“Don’t be impressed,” Kiegan panted. “Sera just wants to be one of Fieran’s picks for Bismyth. She’s smarter than the rest.”
Sera flashed me another grin, feral and bright. “Do they really not see how he looks at you?”
If only that look weren’t a lie.
I pushed up to my hands and knees. The platform was not large; I’d seen from below there were several more layers stacked on top of us, each spreading above us like a tree. There was room for the three of us and a trunk with the lid thrown open.
Sera joined me. There was a pile of golden coins and bejeweled trinkets inside. “Kiegan already found the bows and arrows for us, and I got a knife. Are there any other weapons?”
“I don’t see any. What is all of this?” It was enough riches to change my family’s whole life back in Stonehaven.
“It’s a trap, not a prize,” Kiegan warned. “People will weigh themselves down. It’s a good way to drown.”
I sifted through what was left for a weapon, then gave up. I raked my fingers one last time through the coins. I wasn’t stupid; I didn’t take a single one. But I still ached to let them go.
The slats beneath us shuddered.
All three of us froze.
“Climb!” Kiegan shouted. He raced for one of the posts holding up the tower. Sera and I did the same, the three of us each grabbing one of the posts.
And the platform began to fall. Slats pulled away from the floor, one board at a time falling away.
I clung to the post, my feet almost slipping as a board bucked beneath my feet.
I clung to the post frantically, and when the board was gone, my feet found the thin frame for the floor—as narrow as my heel. I balanced, grimacing.
Then the floor was gone, revealing the roiling, bloodthirsty sea. My heels hung over the expanse of air and distant water, and I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling a rise of panic.
In the distance, there were screams, and I caught glimpses of other shifters falling from the platforms.
Steady heart, still a chance.
But the wind was grabbing and pushing at me, so cold and fierce that my muscles spasmed in my wet clothes. There were no grips on the straight posts that Kiegan and Sera had climbed; it would take my sheer strength to keep from plummeting back into the sea.
Kiegan had already reached the next platform. “Cara, you’ve got to climb.”
Sera leaned down beside him. “Pick up the pace, mortal. Once we get to the top, we can take the ropes across to the other towers.”
I followed her gaze. There were ropes that swung between the towers, slack and rippling in the wind, so high above the water that a fall would break bones. I’d barely managed to scale the ropes at all.
The truth was, I’d slow Kiegan and Sera. Maybe cost them their chance.
“Just get across,” I said. “Stop the game.”
“It’s not that easy,” Sera said. “They’ll keep breaking the course until we end those monsters.”
“Then get across it before the ropes snap. I can’t keep up.”
Kiegan cursed. “I’ll climb back down and help you up.”
“And make me look even weaker in front of the stands?” I shook my head. “I’ll be all right. Go. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to deal with those sea snakes.”
Kiegan hesitated, knowing that was an optimistic lie—so unlike me—and I said, “Please.”
There was a wealth of feeling in that word. I hated being so much smaller and weaker, but I especially hated proving Ensmeth right by dragging down my friends.
“All right,” Kiegan said unhappily. “I’ll see you at the end. When you figure out another way there.”
He was telling optimistic lies of his own, but still.
Then he was gone, and I was left alone, with the wind trying to rip me from the platform and my arms aching.