Chapter 19
19
We woke at dawn to prepare for the Light trial.
It had been a week and a half since the spring equinox, and Lara had spent that time practicing meditation and physical exercises. I’d joined her for some of them, although the combat training she’d undertaken with Oriana had been beyond my capabilities. Even without her immortality, Lara had a level of endurance and strength I lacked.
Despite all that preparation, Lara was grim as I dressed her in a shapeless white robe. Her hair was unbound and her feet bare per Light House’s instructions.
“Are you all right?” I asked as I brushed her hair.
She blew out a breath. “What if they torture us? What if that’s the test?”
I could see from the shadows beneath her eyes that fear had kept her up all night. I ran my hand over her hair soothingly. “If it was that awful, I doubt many faeries would pass the test. It might not be pleasant, but it can’t be too horrible.”
“The labyrinth was horrible.”
“But the monsters didn’t actually attack you,” I pointed out. “They wouldn’t risk your lives like that.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I think I’m a coward.”
“You aren’t.” I put down the brush and knelt beside her chair, waiting until she looked at me. “It’s normal to be afraid. Maybe that’s what they’re testing—how to be afraid and do your duty anyway.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You can,” I promised. “You won’t be alone. I’ll be there with you, and if there’s anything I can do to make it easier, I will.”
“How do you stay so calm?” Lara looked almost angry. “You never seem upset.”
It was jarring getting a glimpse of how she viewed me. Realizing that she, a Noble Fae lady with magic and money, heir to a great house, saw traits in me she coveted.
“A lot of the time I’m not as calm as I seem,” I said. “Remember how sick I got after the dinner? But sometimes…” I trailed off, feeling uncomfortable. I didn’t like showing others my vulnerabilities, but Lara needed help. Maybe I needed help, too—the comfort of knowing my secrets rested with someone else, and it wasn’t just me carrying these burdens.
I met Lara’s eyes in the mirror. Not hazel, but the brown of fresh-tilled soil. A new possibility rather than one already lost.
“I’ve experienced some bad things,” I told her. “My father left when I was very young, and I grew up in poverty. There were weeks when we barely ate.” My throat hurt more with every word, as if it wanted to clench until no more truths could escape. “My mother grew sick, and the illness took her slowly and painfully. She passed nearly two years ago, and then it was just me. Except I had one friend, so close we were almost sisters.” I took a deep breath, feeling the echo of too many hurts. “She was chosen on the winter solstice, and I followed to help her out of the bog. But she died behind me, and I never even looked back.”
The expression in Lara’s eyes was horrified…and sympathetic. She nodded slightly, encouraging me to finish the story.
“You think I never get upset,” I said, “but that’s not it at all. Life can be so painful. During the worst moments, all you can do is focus on one second at a time. You focus on staying alive. You make it your only goal, and you forget everything before or after.” The choices, not the dreams. The fight, whether hope existed or not. “It’s hard, but that’s the only way I’ve ever been able to get through.”
Lara grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Your life is better now, isn’t it?” she asked in a small voice.
I blinked back sudden tears. What a terrible, complex question. “Better in many ways,” I said. “I have food and shelter, and I enjoy working for you. I’m learning things I never could have imagined. But…I’m not free.”
Lara withdrew her hand, looking hurt. “None of us are free.”
“I know. Which is probably why none of us are happy.”
She bit her lip and looked away.
The crystals on the ceiling pulsed—a time warning. The Light trial was about to begin.
“Come on,” I said, standing and reaching out a hand to help her up. “We’ll take it moment by moment.”
We joined the other candidates outside Light House. The servants were given simple wooden boxes, which we carried as we trailed the candidates up a spiraling staircase.
We emerged at the edge of a sunlit courtyard atop a rocky hill. The marble floor glittered as if strewn with diamonds. Roland, Prince of Light, stood opposite the entrance with King Osric, and Noble Fae onlookers lined every side.
“Welcome,” Prince Roland said. “The Light trial tests control and discipline. You are to bear whatever happens in stoic silence. Walk to the center of the courtyard.” He beckoned, and the candidates stepped forward.
Karissa yelped, and Lara winced. Smears of red followed each step as she limped forward. I frowned, wondering what had hurt her, then realized that every glittering spot on the marble was a piece of broken glass.
“Lie down,” Roland said when the candidates had reached the center.
Lara’s robe was far too thin; the glass would cut right through it. But she lay down with grim determination and didn’t make a sound as she stared at the achingly blue sky.
“Servants.” Roland snapped his fingers. “Place the boxes at your feet and open them. You will withdraw a vial of orange liquid, then walk to the candidates and pour it into their mouths.”
There were three vials within, each the size of my thumb—orange, purple, and black. The orange liquid glittered in the sunshine the same way the glass shards did. Whatever this was would undoubtedly hurt.
I took a deep breath, preparing myself, then pulled the tie out of my hair as I rose, leaving my curls to tumble free.
I made my way towards Lara and instantly realized I had chosen the wrong footwear for this trial. My thin slippers weren’t suited for walking on broken glass. I struggled to keep a straight face as the glass cut into my feet. Other servants were limping as well—except for those from Light House, who wore thick-soled boots.
I knelt by Lara’s side, trying to avoid cutting my knees. “Open your mouth and drink,” I whispered. As I leaned forward, my loose hair formed a thick curtain that obscured my face and hands.
The vial was small. I surreptitiously tilted it to my mouth, swallowing half of the potion before I gave her the rest.
It burned like fire in my throat. I met Lara’s wide eyes and nodded at her in encouragement, then retraced my steps as quickly as I could. My feet stung, but that pain rapidly faded in comparison to the potion’s effects. Lightning bolts of white-hot agony forked through me, radiating out from my throat and gut. I took my position in the line of servants as my eyes blurred.
We stood in silence for what felt like forever. Even a half dose of the poison was excruciating, as if I’d swallowed fire. It knotted my stomach and covered my vision with a red haze. It stabbed knives into my temples and beat fists against the backs of my eyes. My hands trembled as I bit down on a scream. When my sight briefly cleared, I saw a few of the candidates writhing in agony—but Lara stayed still.
Eventually the pain receded and the haze cleared. I breathed deeply, focusing on the trickle of sweat down my back and the feel of the ground beneath my throbbing feet.
“The second vial,” Roland commanded.
This one was iridescent purple. I could guess what it did.
Lara’s eyes were filled with tears the second time I approached. Again I took half of the potion before giving it to her. “Illusion,” I whispered.
I returned to the servants’ line, only dimly aware of the prick of glass beneath my feet. After the pain potion, those cuts didn’t sting so much.
My mind disconnected from my body.
I was back in the bog, spongy peat beneath my bare feet and grass brushing my legs. For a moment I was wildly happy to have escaped Mistei, but then the path gave way beneath me, and I was sinking into an infinitely deep pit of mud. The liquid forced its way up my nose and down my throat, filling me completely, drowning me, killing me…
I clenched my fists and breathed, despite the urge that screamed to hold my breath and keep holding it. It’s not real , I told myself . Not real. Not real.
I walked across a misty battlefield, clutching the dagger as I splashed through ruby puddles. The jewel in the hilt glowed brilliantly, and I could sense the gallons of blood it had drunk. More blood painted my face and hands and dripped from my mouth, and we were both so glad of the taste…
A monster stood in front of me. It was ten feet tall, with eight arms and two wolflike heads. Its fangs dripped with gore, and each hand bore claws as long as my forearm. Long enough to decapitate me if it got close enough. It howled at the sky and then bounded towards me, impossibly fast.
I ran and ran and ran and ran…
Some distant part of me was aware of the shell of my body standing stiff and silent on a field of white. The gap between my body and my mind felt insurmountable, but I focused on a chant in defiance of Illusion’s lies.
Don’t move. Don’t move. Don’t move .
I lay at the bottom of a lake. The water was murky, but the light of day slanted down enough to illuminate my surroundings. Fronds of some water plant drifted around me like hair.
Something plunged into the water above, a struggling mass I recognized as a woman. Her long white dress dragged her down. She was wounded, great clouds of blood billowing into the murk. As she neared where I lay in the mud, she finally saw me. Her hazel eyes widened as her brown-gold hair tangled in the lake grass. She flailed and screamed, terrified of me but unable to escape.
I tasted the copper tang of her blood in the water, and I didn’t once blink as Anya kicked and convulsed and finally stopped moving, her eyes still fixed on my face with a look of horror.
Don’t scream. Don’t scream. Don’t scream.
I was standing in a white courtyard once more, my nails digging into my palms, my mouth clenched against a cry.
“The third vial.”
I knelt and opened the box with shaking hands, reeling from shock and horror. Was I back in the real world, or was this a hallucination, too?
Was that actually how Anya had died, drowning bloody and alone?
I stumbled upright with a vial of black liquid clenched in my fist and walked automatically towards Lara, my body remembering its duties even as my mind struggled to tell reality from illusion. I fed Lara half of the black potion before remembering I needed to drink some of it to spare her the full effect. I lifted it to my lips but hesitated as her eyes darted frantically, as if she couldn’t see me anymore.
If orange had been Fire and purple had been Illusion, this would be Void. Talfryn let out a moan and thrashed his arms after he swallowed the potion, and Karissa’s hands clutched at the marble as if she were trying to keep herself in place.
I kept the vial clenched in my fist until I stood beside the other servants. While everyone watched the candidates, I bowed my head and tipped the final bit of potion into my mouth before letting the empty vial fall into the open box at my feet.
It was instantly dark.
Not just dark. Black. Empty. An absence of light so profound it sank shadowy tendrils into my lungs with every breath.
Silent, too. I floated in an endless void, free from the constraints of the world, lost in a dark dream. I couldn’t tell up from down or if I was truly floating or frozen in place or falling down an infinite well. My internal sense of direction spun wildly out of control, making me dizzy. I wanted to flail my arms to regain balance, but instead I held perfectly still, or what I imagined still to be in the absence of all other stimulus. It didn’t matter if I was upside down or if I fell. All that mattered was this moment and my control over it.
There was a deep, creeping horror that came with the loss of everything. It wound around me, slid into me, pulled apart the threads that made up my being. People weren’t meant to survive this place. It was as if the universe had been wiped clean and this was the black that had existed long before the stars.
I drifted in that cold, empty place for what felt like an eternity, long enough that I began to wonder if I had died. Was this what the afterlife was? Was I relieved to be here or angry?
Light flooded back in, so bright I winced as tears streaked down my cheeks.
I was still standing among the other servants in the sunshine, still staring at the candidates on their beds of glass.
“Rise, candidates,” Prince Roland said. “The trial will end as soon as you leave this courtyard.”
The candidates struggled to their feet, many of them swaying. Karissa fell back to the ground with a faint cry, slicing her knees on the glass. Lara looked towards me as if I were a candle in the window on a stormy night. She walked slowly, testing each step, but she didn’t fall. At last she reached me, and I slipped my arm around her back, supporting her as she sagged.
There were no celebratory meals or dances. Just Lara and I stumbling back to Earth House together, a trail of blood behind us.