CHAPTER 16
I arrived to breakfast the morning after the second Trial to find the seven other remaining candidates seated in one large group.
With so few of us left, it didn’t make sense for us to stay separated.
Not when the first squad had only one remaining survivor: a young woman, whose name I found out was Keila.
Rayna’s group was still the only team not to have lost a single member. The men in her squad comprised Caleb, the spectacled man from Koli who introduced himself as Mattieu, and a third man by the name of Nox.
Lana, Moric and I spent the rest of the day running laps and sparring.
At dinnertime, I saw that not much in the way of seating arrangements had changed.
Moric sat beside Rayna, looking even worse than usual.
Although the ghoul hadn’t attacked him yesterday, I could tell the entire ordeal had shaken him.
After training all day, I felt weary, my brain like soggy parchment.
It also probably didn’t help that I hadn’t slept a wink last night after the challenge. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw the ghoul. I smelled its putrid breath. And I wondered why it had spared me.
I’d told Calendula what the ghoul had said to me, but she didn’t have much insight. “Perhaps it didn’t like the taste of your blood. Some ghouls prefer younger blood,” Calendula had said.
“I’m twenty-three. How much younger does it want?” I had replied. “Besides, it said my blood was ‘perfectly aged.’”
Calendula had shrugged dismissively. “What does it matter? You’re alive.”
But it did matter. Something felt off. And I couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Lirah,” Lana said, snapping me out of my reverie. “You should eat. Your food’s getting cold.”
I hadn’t been eating properly, not since Anama had died. Even that felt like eons ago, the older woman’s face a distant memory against the backdrop of last night’s fresh death.
I speared a piece of honeyed carrot on my fork and brought it to my lips.
“We should start preparing for the third Trial,” Lana murmured between bites of steak. “If last night taught me anything, it’s how woefully unprepared we are.”
“It just feels like no matter what we do, it’s never good enough. We get into the challenge and chaos reigns.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “The research helped. If Rayna’s lighter hadn’t run out of fluid, your initial plan would have worked.
You figured out a key weakness of the ghoul.
Don’t discredit that or yourself. Anyway, I suppose there’s not much we can do in preparation of the challenge until tomorrow. ”
Tomorrow. When we would attend the author signing, hosted by Augustine Devior. Hopefully, he would have answers for us.
My stomach twisted nervously, but I ate the rest of my food and by the time the end of dinner bell chimed, my plate was empty.
I felt restless. I didn’t want to go back to my room just to lie in bed and turn over the events of last night’s challenge, or consider how little we knew about the third one.
I wanted a distraction. And I knew exactly where to find it.
I muttered a quick excuse to Lana before crossing the mess hall to where Septimus stood, speaking with Ayden.
Ayden’s green eyes flickered to me, and I could have sworn fear crossed his perfect features.
He said something to Septimus that caused the golden-eyed elven to glance over his shoulder, and then Ayden was hurrying out of the mess hall.
“What’s with him?” I asked.
Septimus grinned. “He’s scared.”
“Of me?”
“Of Kilian.”
“Oh. Is he back from Greyhaven?”
“Yeah. He was a bit delayed, but he got back an hour ago,” Septimus said.
I felt it then, the quiet wrath I was slowly becoming accustomed to. It burned in the back of my throat, along my fingers and deep inside my chest, consuming me in the most delicious way.
“Thanks,” I said, backing away.
“You don’t even know where he is.”
I didn’t respond. I was already rushing out of the mess hall, my feet tripping over one another before reason could overrule insanity.
Before I could remind myself exactly why this was a supremely bad idea.
I followed the steady stream of anger, tugging on the link all the way to the fifth floor.
When I stood outside his door, my breaths ragged from having run upstairs, I lifted my hand to knock.
The door swung open before my fist made contact.
Kilian stood in the doorway. He was dressed for war.
A broadsword was strapped to his side and a bandolier hung across his chest, several onyx-hilted daggers gleaming in their sheaths.
It looked like he had run his hands through his dark hair several times with how ruffled it was.
His eyes were silver moonlight. I could stare at them for hours and still miss them the second I blinked.
He was fucking devastating.
“You’re hurt.” He reached out to touch my face, his thumb gingerly brushing the thin cut on my cheek.
“Hardly.” The word was a whisper of all the things I wanted to say, but just couldn’t. His hand dropped back to his side as he studied me, waiting.
Now that I was here, I found myself stalling, avoiding the real reason for my visit. My gaze skimmed his gear. This close, I could see the elven inscriptions etched into it. “Why are you always dressed for battle? No one’s going to attack Lomask.”
“You never know,” he answered. “It’s good to be prepared for anything.”
I didn’t even know who would attack. Certainly not the mortals; that was a losing battle before it even began. Maybe the lower elven, in Greyhaven? My knowledge of elven politics was dismal.
“Why?” he asked. “Does my attire bother you?”
“Why would it bother me?”
“Everything about me bothers you.”
“I find your dressing to be the least offensive part compared to all your flaws.”
The corners of his lips quirked, amusement in his eyes. “Of which there are many.”
“Naturally.”
It didn’t matter though, how many flaws he had, or how fatal they were. I still found myself standing here, outside his door. It was like trying to change a prophecy that had already been engraved in stone.
He leaned against the doorframe. “How was the second Trial?”
“Awful,” I admitted.
“You called on the link.” There was a hint of approval in his voice.
I shrugged. “It was either that or watch my friends die.”
“You’ve used it twice now. I don’t doubt you’ve noticed what a useful tool it can be. I could help you practice, if you’d like.” A suggestion. Not a forceful command.
I glanced away, glanced back. “I’m doing fine with it as is.”
“Right. But you’re sloppy. You have no sense of aim, no precision. It’s a wonder you didn’t hurt anyone last night.”
I bit my lip guiltily. He was right. If Lana hadn’t cast a bubble around the others, I could have seriously harmed them.
Fine. Maybe I did need to work on it, but I didn’t need to do it with him. “I can practice on my own.”
“Sure you can,” he said. “But you’ll learn twice as fast with guidance.”
“I’ll be fine. I can train with Lana. She’s been learning from Septimus.”
“You don’t want to train with me,” he surmised.
“I don’t want to spend any amount of time with you.”
“Then what exactly are you doing here?” Not accusatory. His voice was gentle, questioning. The first time I had seen him at the governor’s house I had thought there was nothing soft about him. But when he looked at me now, the ice in his eyes melted.
And as usual, he’d won our imaginary game, because why was I standing at the threshold of his bedroom?
I knew I needed answers to all my questions – why the ghoul had spared me and why he had been cursed, first and foremost – but they shriveled up and died as I gazed up at him.
I was so fucking tired of thinking. Of constantly strategizing how best to survive.
Of death and pain stealing every waking moment.
I settled for a pathetic, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I shook my head.
A soft smile curled the corners of his lips, and I forgot everything. “Are you sure?”
“Categorically.” I wet my lips and his eyes tracked the movement.
“Do you want to come inside?”
“No.”
“No?”
“If I come inside… I don’t think I’ll want to leave.” The admission was more vulnerable than I wanted it to be.
He straightened, eyes darkening. “What do you want, Lirah?”
I paused and he stepped over the threshold. The power emanating from him enveloped me, dark and crushing. Beautiful in its terror.
“What. Do. You. Want?”
What did I want? I wanted everything to return to normal.
I wanted to wake up in the morning and know Umma was alright.
I wanted my life to not be in danger every single week.
I wanted to know that Lana and Moric would be safe.
I wanted to expunge the feeling of hate and anger and grief that wrecked me every day.
I wanted to forget the Trials, forget everything.
And the only person that could give me that – who could make me forget – was the elven standing before me. The one who had caused all this pain and misery in the first place.
I wanted to be selfish. To take something I wanted. Even if it was something I should not, it didn’t change the frustrating fact that I still wanted it.
I peered up at him and breathed, “You.”
“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
I swallowed, placing a hand on his breastplate. “I want you.”
Desire and ravenous hunger pulsed through me. He trailed his hands along my arms, sketched the curves of my waist and I shivered. His fingers traced my hips and then my feet were off the ground. I straddled his waist, my gaze level with his at this angle.
He did not break eye contact as he carried me across the threshold and into his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.
He pressed me against the closed door as my feet sank back to the ground.
His lips dipped to my neck, and I tilted it, giving him better access as he drew a line down my throat, his cool breath skating along my skin.
“You have no idea how much I want you to never leave this room,” Kilian murmured against my collarbone.
“Then show me,” I rasped.