30. Finally, the day of reckoning
FINALLY, THE DAY OF RECKONING
ENORA
Despite odds that felt like they would rip me limb from limb at times, the first event of the Agon Ferr had at long last arrived. Maybe it would finally be what drew and quartered me instead.
Last night, an unfamiliar guard whisked me from the peace of my room to the barracks to be given a pep talk with the rest of the contestants, facilitated by none other than the king, whose face I had little interest in seeing.
The last thing I needed was for the days of careful work I’d been doing with Gallan to unravel.
Thankfully, I found a spot in the back of the hall, buffered by a crowd far taller than me, and there was enough dull rustling of clothing and bodies that Maksym’s voice was barely audible.
I was sure it was the usual: “You’ve been selected for a reason. What you face will not be like anything you’ve contended with before. Some of you may not make it out the same as you went in.”
Blah. Blah. Blah.
Not words that I or my confidence needed to hear, not after spending ten years hearing a thousand different variations of them before I was ripped away from my home.
When the speech ended, the contestants were instructed to head into the bunk rooms, where they would stay for the duration of the trial—not me, though.
Gallan was weaving through the crowd before Maksym had even finished issuing his orders.
Apparently, with my safety in mind, I would continue to stay in my quarters.
As if segregation would do anything to stem the distaste most other contestants held for me.
I’d grown a definite soft spot for Gallan, though, so I didn’t fight him. He was just following orders he had no say in.
With the effort he poured into training with me over the last week, on top of managing his other duties, I’d give him a pass.
He didn’t treat me like I was a princess, or like I was fragile, or lesser than.
No, he held me to terrifyingly high expectations and made me prove I would meet them blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back.
Between that and Eilir’s lessons, my confidence was at an all-time high.
Not seeing Maksym or Jasper probably had something to do with it too.
My head was clearer than it had been in weeks. Hell, maybe even months. That would all change as soon as the events ended; a new reality would wash it all away, of course. But I was basking in my newfound sense of grounding and clarity.
Despite the endless scathing looks and snide comments I got from the other Elixia members and some of the citizen contestants as I came and went from my training, I wasn’t bothered by it. They could hate me all they wanted. It was more of a burden on their conscience than it was on mine.
Even when the time came to be packed shoulder to shoulder with them in the preparation room at the arena, the childish energy that swirled all around them just rolled off my shoulders.
I had a task, and I would not fail it.
That morning, Eilir had let me know our first event would be a gauntlet of sorts.
Obviously, the sprite couldn’t go into great detail about true specifics, seeing as my captor-turned-betrothed would command the arena to his will for each competitor, but they could tell me I had to prepare myself for the trial that would be the most unassuming on the outside, but likely the most physically demanding.
I’d be running, climbing, swimming, and dodging obstacles that may or may not have a life of their own, all while seeking and destroying three nytefire lanterns.
Time wasn’t a factor, thankfully—they’d yet to have a competitor stall out on the course in Eilir’s memory. But there was only so much tolerance for injury. If you lost complete use of an arm or leg, or rendered yourself unconscious, you would be disqualified.
One event disqualification meant elimination from the Agōn Ferr.
But that didn’t worry me as much as it should have.
I may not have been as intimately familiar with the Grimmorian landscape Maksym was likely to conjure in his illusions, but I’d run gauntlets in the upper reaches of Odessa’s mountains—terrain so hostile, nothing lived there.
I’d be fine. The only thing that was getting to me was the brutal passage of time. We’d been at the arena since the morning, waiting and waiting and fucking waiting.
Only one contestant could run at a time, and even a successful run took more than a few quick minutes. The dozens of competitors compounded it. I’d initially hoped that maybe, just maybe, I’d run first. Get it out of the way and get to soak in that satisfaction for the day.
How foolish.
Contestants came and went—Elixia first. Meals drifted in and out.
The air became a little less stifling. Once the crowd thinned enough, I paced and stretched, as did the rest of the prospects.
Gallan even distributed some reading material at one point—a brief history of the first Agōn Ferr in thin tomes barely clinging to life.
But now? Only three of us remained.
Myself and two young Umbrite men from Embervale, both of whom had thanked me for my help with the sick shifters the other week. Only after we were the only ones left in the room, of course. Appreciated, but unnecessary. I had no use for cowards who were afraid to speak up in front of others.
“Enora?”
I shot upright from where I stood, folded in half as I tried to loosen out my lower back and hips. Gallan was there in the doorway, wearing a grin like a proud father and gesturing me over.
“You’re up, princess.”
“Good luck!” the two other contestants called out from behind me.
I almost didn’t bother looking back, but something urged me to stop just as I was about to pass through the door.
“Luck has nothing to do with any of this, trust me.”
As prepared as I thought I was for the Agōn Ferr, nothing could have truly readied me for the rumble of animalistic energy that tore through the stadium when Gallan led me onto the raised platform jutting over the lowest level of seating.
I’d been in the arena a handful of times during my training, imagining what the intensity would be like with those seats filled, but my mind had done it a terrible disservice. I could barely hear my own thoughts, or the now-rushing of my heart, but the knot in my stomach was impossible to ignore.
“Breathe,” Gallan mouthed as he extended a single, sheathed blade to me. “Your only tool outside of your body. May Mina be with you, soldier.”
He held my gaze for a second as I took that grounding breath, then bent to fasten the sheath around my upper thigh.
As I straightened up and shook out my limbs, I focused on pulling my attention back into my own body, imagining a barrier between myself and the cacophony of distracting noise thundering all around, just as Gallan had taught me.
Slowly, it quieted, but I nearly lost hold of that tenuous focus when Maksym’s voice boomed out over the stadium, amplified by magic, announcing my name as the next contestant.
I refused to lift my eyes from the platform beneath my feet.
I didn’t need to see him perched in some royal booth, waxing on to his subjects who were thirsty for my blood to be spilled. I didn’t need to process anything else he had to say either, other than how a contestant had yet to fail. I wouldn’t be the first.
And when Maksym proclaimed, “Let us begin!” I braced myself.
Gallan had given me plenty of warning about the surge of magic when the arena was manipulated to life. How a magic-void body like mine might respond unpredictably to the outpouring of ambient aether my dark fae competitors had grown accustomed to over their entire lives.
An awful metallic taste washed over my tongue first, just before every hair on my body stood on end and a shiver tore through me.
Energy crackled across the arena like the first charged gust of a frigid storm, and a low tremor started beneath my boots.
Warmth that was a little too pleasant rolled up my spine, and I braved a cautious step forward, peering over the edge of the platform.
A blast of air sent me stumbling back.
With a deafening crack, sharp gray cliffs and valleys shot upwards, blocking the spectators from my view. Snow and pine trees spilled down the jagged slopes in every direction. A gorge tore across the arena to my right, and the once-roaring crowd was no more than a muted rumble in the distance.
All the air rushed out of my lungs at once.
Mountains.
Fucking. Mountains.
I should have felt a sliver of relief at the familiarity that washed over me, of the cool scent of alpine air running a reassuring touch over my soul.
Gratitude, even. But neither of those things existed on the platform with me.
A lick of inarguable fury had me clenching my fists at my side, waiting for my cue to start.
Maksym had no faith in me. Not in my strength, nor my fortitude.
Never mind my ability to assess and strategize or my years of experience.
At some point, he’d decided I didn’t stand a chance.
I was just a feeble, void Odessan. A woman at that, who didn’t stand a chance against his illustrious dark fae brethren. So he had to coax the arena to accommodate me. Get it to scale things down to my level.
Fuck. Him.
The moment the bellow of a horn echoed out, I hauled myself over the edge of the platform and broke into a run as soon as my feet touched the ground.
Find the markers. Destroy them. Make it out in one piece.
I could deal with the rest later.
The starting trail ended at a wall of sheer slate, easily ten times my height, and the frigid wind whipped back from it viciously enough to make my eyes water.
At the very top, a glass lantern brimming with blue nytefire taunted me.
There’d never been a cliff I couldn’t scale back in Odessa.
Scrapes and cuts, sure, but never anything worse.
This wouldn’t be any different.
“Child’s play,” I muttered, and a gust nearly knocked me on my damn ass. A living arena; how could I forget?