Chapter 19
huge and fanged, the wither beast locks on to me immediately and growls.
The sound reverberates through every inch of me, a cold sweat breaking out on my skin.
It’s twice my height, taking up every inch of space, eyes narrowed and vicious.
Without a weapon, with only the clothes on my back, I have nothing with which to defend myself.
I don’t wait for it to come at me. As a door opens in the wall on my left, I run.
Skidding round corners, heart slamming into my ribs, I race in total panic, calling for Kell or anyone who might hear me.
Distantly, I’m aware of the crowd, but my terror overtakes everything, to the point where all I am is a fast-moving feast. A door begins to close before me and I push back and slip through, my skin scraping against the narrow opening, and force it closed behind me.
But the wither beast thumps into it on the other side, cracking it open.
I cry out, bones barking as I push against it, digging my feet into the ground and shoving with everything I have.
‘Kell!’ I cry on a desperate exhale. ‘Anyone!’
I can’t die like this. Not before a baying crowd, a wither beast mauling me, the glimmer of freedom a distant dream.
I gasp as another body shoves all their weight against the door as well, and the door closes, leaving the wither beast shut away on the other side.
I double over, bracing my hands on my thighs and look up to find Soturi, one of the contenders from the Spines.
He’s got a bow and arrow slung across his back, steel in his eyes, and when he looks at me, a small smile lifts his lips.
‘You will not die here, girl from the islands,’ he says. ‘Not today.’
‘Why are you helping me?’ I manage, standing to face him.
‘Because you were born for more than this. You have not come this far to die for the entertainment of a crowd, or your rulers’ pleasure.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, clasping his fist in mine.
He eyes me carefully and I can only just hear him over the sounds of the crowd.
‘Sember Lockswift spoke to Fey and me. We see what your rulers are, what they are capable of. We will stand with you against tyranny. But we must be careful. If it seems as though we are helping you, this may affect your friend …’
I blow out a breath and nod. So Sember is gathering allies. ‘Thank you. Truly. Just help me find Kell. We can split up, draw less attention. Help us to stay alive so that—’
But my words are snatched away by an almighty crack as the wither beast breaks through the door behind us.
Soturi whips out an arrow, firing it faster than I can see, but it’s not enough.
The wither beast rakes at the ground, releasing a deafening roar, and Soturi presses the handle of a blade into my hand. ‘Fight with me.’
I don’t need asking twice. With a weapon in my fist, I circle as far to the left as the space allows, as Soturi distracts the wither beast, firing arrows into its flank.
As it readies to charge, blood dribbling down its sides, I leap for it.
The beast is still focused on Soturi and his arrows as I scramble up its side.
It starts to buck as it realises what I’ve done, but I don’t give it time to throw me off.
Angling the blade, I slam it into its skull, driving down with a roar.
It bucks again and I’m afraid I’ve just enraged it further, fists still wrapped round the handle of the blade, embedded in its skull.
But then it groans, tilting to one side, and collapses to the ground.
I leap away just in time, landing awkwardly on my feet.
My ankle twists painfully and I gasp, but I can’t give in to it.
I have to keep moving. I have to stay alive.
Suddenly I’m aware of the crowd, half cheering, half disappointed that the fight between us and the creature is over.
‘Soturi, it’s dead,’ I breathe, tugging the blade free from the wither beast’s skull. But when I look down, I find Soturi on the ground beneath it. ‘Soturi?’
He grunts and I slip round the wither beast’s lifeless form, kneeling beside him. My heart stops when I see the blood. A gash, right along his side, bleeding freely.
Fast footfalls sound and I look up to see Kell rounding the corner. Relief spreads across his features as he sees me, then turns to horror as his gaze lands first on the wither beast, then on Soturi. ‘Is he dead?’
I shake my head, then swallow. Blood trickles down to my fingertips and I look at my arm, vaguely surprised to find a cut down the length of my bicep.
It’s long, but shallow, and as I look at it, I feel the first thumps of pain, like a second aching pulse.
‘He defended me. Saved me. He said they spoke to Sember. That they’re with us.
’ My voice cracks on the last word and I look down at Soturi.
Kell swears, kneeling on his other side, assessing him quickly. ‘Soturi, can you stand?’
‘I don’t …’ He blinks quickly, features turning pallid. ‘I will try.’
Kell shrugs out of his shirt, using it to bind the wound as best he can, but the blood blooms over it almost instantly.
We get on each side of Soturi, pulling his legs from beneath the wither beast. He winces but stays silent, and we help him stumble up to stand.
He staggers forward, features pinched and pale, and I think in that moment he’s the bravest person, the calmest person I’ve ever met. And I don’t want him to die.
‘We need to find Fey,’ he grunts. ‘Help me …’
‘Of course,’ I say, still bracing him. We hear a distant scream and I bite my lip. ‘Let’s get a move on.’
Staggering through the maze of walls, we find ourselves in a larger space, many doors leading off it. There’s a click as one of the doors opens, and Kell’s magic ignites in his palm, focused on what might be coming through. I grip my blade harder, ready to defend all of us.
‘Oh, a welcome party,’ Sember says, as the door snicks open and she walks towards us. If anything, she looks almost bored, but I don’t miss how her gaze falters when it lands on Soturi’s side. ‘Well, hurry up. I’ve been looking for you.’
I frown, not believing what I’m seeing. ‘How did you just open that door?’
She smiles, flicking back a strand of her hair. ‘Now that’s a bit of a secret, I’m afraid. Can you manage him? He’s not looking too good.’
‘I found them. I kept my word,’ Soturi grates out.
Sember nods. ‘And kept them alive. Well, come on, places to be and all that.’
She turns back to the door, beckoning to us to follow.
When we’re through, she turns back, hiding what she’s doing, but the door clicks again, as though locked.
Then she’s off, scouting ahead, opening and closing doors as Soturi slowly gets heavier and heavier, slumping further against me and Kell.
I can’t figure out how she’s manipulating the maze like that, but there’s no time to watch closely.
When I’m sure I can’t drag Soturi another step, she ushers us through a final door, and I look up, to the rows of crowd above the great door that leads through the tunnel, out of the maze. Heath is waiting there, arms crossed, staring at us. ‘Took your time.’
‘Apologies, Your Royal Pain-in-the-arse-ness,’ Sember says, hands on hips. ‘Sorry I was a bit late ensuring the survival of our allies.’
‘It’s us that owe you in this Trial,’ Kell says. ‘Not that I’m not grateful, but why help us? And in a Trial, in front of a whole crowd?’
‘You could have taken victory easily like you wanted. You didn’t need to save us …’ I say.
‘It’s simple really,’ Sember says, growing suddenly serious.
‘The ruling council want to block the use of the Straits. They want to control the flow of merchant goods and therefore the wealth. Skylan will be crippled and Leicena could turn on us. It’ll mean all-out war across the continent.
None of us want that. Not even the people of the Spines. ’
‘But if I die they can’t block the Straits,’ I say quietly to her.
Sember steps towards me. ‘If you die, the Straits will boil over with vengeful sirens. And the Rexilium brothers will find another, someone else who can do what you can. And they may not be as good-hearted as you. They may want a war.’
I shiver, seeing the truth in her gaze, what she fights for, what her alliance really means. Sember Lockswift is not just Prince Heath’s keeper. Whatever she is to Skylan, though, she’s playing a dangerous game.
‘Soturi!’ a voice cries, and I look round to find Fey running for us. Soturi collapses to his knees as she throws her arms round him, panic plain in her face. ‘Hold on, just hold on.’
‘It was a wither beast,’ I say in anguish. ‘He defended me. He fought it off.’
She takes a shuddering breath and cups his cheek. ‘Of course he did. He’s the best of us.’
There’s a deep rumble and the sound of that great door to the tunnel opening. We all look across to find a way out of the arena. The Trial is over.
‘Time for us to get out of here,’ Heath says. ‘Best you get moving too. But do you need a hand with him? Sember’s very good in a crisis.’
‘And apparently you’re about as useful as pudding.’ She snorts, worry furrowing her brow, despite her quip, as she looks at Soturi. ‘Fey, can you carry him?’
‘She can if Mira and I brace him on the other side,’ Kell says, waving them off. ‘You two go. We have a deal, don’t we? You need to claim your victory. Thank you for helping us.’
‘Our pleasure,’ Sember says. Then she and Heath step through the doorway into the tunnel, and out of the arena, to defend their position as winners of the Trial.
I look out over the crowd, suddenly aware once more of their presence above us.
There’s no hiding the fact that we’ve worked together now.
An entire audience has witnessed us – from three different territories – working together.
As I scan the faces, the noise of them all bleeding into one, endless din, that’s when I see her.
Agnes.
Flaming red hair, mouth a full O as she screams for me.
I jolt as though shot, nearly dropping Soturi.
My breath comes too fast as I watch her, then I’m calling her name, tears fogging my eyes.
She’s alive. We lock eyes and she grins, tears filling her eyes as she reaches her arms towards me.
Then I see who is beside her. Nero. His lips curl in a taunting smile, eyes filled with cold, as two guards brace their hands on Agnes’s shoulders.
And I have never hated someone so much in my life.
Nero’s gloating smile falters as I glare up at him, a frown deepening a furrow in his forehead.
Then the guards pull Agnes away, and she’s gone.
Fey, Kell and I drag Soturi the final few feet out of the labyrinth in the arena.
He collapses as soon as we get into the tunnel.
The roar of the spectators falls away as the doorway closes in our wake and I only notice it from its marked absence.
The guards flood the space, taking over and hauling Soturi to the witches waiting to heal him.
Kell and I are left to walk behind, and all I can see is Agnes.
Her anguish. Her spirit, still fierce as fire.
And then I picture Nero, the curl of his lip. And wrath consumes me.
Later that night, when my rage has turned to acid, I curl into a ball on my bed.
The cry of a drake echoes across Highborn, over and over.
Soturi is dead. As his drake mourns, the city falls into an unnatural hush and all I can hear is the drake crying for his rider.
A silent tear tracks down my cheek, then another.
So much unnecessary death. And all a show of the rulers’ power, a battle played out in an arena before a crowd.
I wonder if the merchants have agreed to use their route.
If they are impressed. Somehow, I doubt it.
Kell and I ranked second before last – the Leicenan contenders were both cornered by a wither beast and chose to forfeit and ask for help, bowing out of the Trials.
And, somehow, Sapira from Stanvard came first, beating Sember and Heath to the tunnel.
I was so close to death. Again. I can still hear the wither beast’s roar, smell its steaming flesh, feel the terrified thump of my heart.
For the first time, I truly believe I will not make it out of these Trials alive.
But, if it comes to it, if I am alone in the next Trial …
I bunch my hands into fists and cry in earnest. Then I am unlikely to make it.
For the first time, I contemplate the very real possibility that I may never free Agnes.
That I won’t see Rosevear again. That I will die with Eli trapped in another world, and I may never see those I love again in this life.
My spirit breaks for the first time, and in the darkest part of the night I feel the walls caving in. I am truly, utterly alone.