Chapter 4 #3
But he’s cut off by a scream. It seems to come from outside the passageway, beyond the cramped space we are navigating, and yet it rents the air around us, leaving a shiver of foreboding curling along my spine. We both pause, waiting for more. But all I can hear is our shared breaths in the dark.
‘Best continue,’ I say, trying to keep the tremor from my voice, even as my limbs weaken from the terror, the sheer terror that I may not get out of here.
Alden moves forward once more. We stop three more times as cries and screams echo through the quiet, leaving prickling fear in their wake.
I wonder if it’s other hopefuls like us, dying in parlours and hidden passageways around Alabaster House, unable to escape the immobilant in time.
Or if they are facing other challenges in the Crucible that we have not yet found, fresh horrors to test and trick us.
‘Ah, at last.’ Alden breathes as a door opens, soft light flooding the passageway.
I almost choke with relief. Taking a beat to calm my thoughts, I shuffle forward slowly, ducking my head as I pass through the doorway into the soft light beyond.
We step out into a courtyard and I instantly drop my hands from Alden’s back, severing the connection between us, and drink in the cool night air, pressing my palms into my chest as my heart thunders beneath them.
But the night air isn’t clear and sweet; it smells …
awful. I gag, pressing my hand over my mouth and nose, swivelling around to get my bearings.
We are no longer alone.
There must be ninety or so others, eyes wide or narrowing on us as we join them, all glittering and glowing in the scant light thrown out by a set of burning torches lining the space.
Overhead, clouds drift past the full moon in the square of night I can glimpse and below, in front of us, is a huge courtyard mostly bathed in shadow, surrounded by walls on all sides, set out like a chessboard.
I cringe back as a sudden plume of flame ignites in one of the squares near me, then disappears a few seconds later, sending my heart racing.
I glance left and right, eyeing the other hopefuls lined up along the wall, sizing up my rivals first, assessing any potential threats.
But they’re all staring dead ahead. I peer into the darkness of the courtyard, wondering why none of them are moving, wondering why it smells like charred fat and burnt feathers—
Then I see them.
There are two bodies on the ground, a few feet apart.
They’re not moving.
Another sudden shot of flame ignites near one of the bodies, and I catch a glimpse of twisting vines, of limbs splayed at impossible angles.
It’s a man and a woman, about the same age as me, and all I can see are the man’s broad shoulders, the back of his head and the woman’s eyes, wide as marbles, as though staring down death itself.
The rest of their bodies are suffocated by coiling vines.
‘They tried crossing about ten minutes ago. We’re meant to cross the courtyard to complete the Crucible,’ a young woman says on my left.
I look over at her, finding someone my age, a little shorter than me with dark, curly hair fighting to escape a tortoiseshell clip at the nape of her neck.
She blinks up at me, then at Alden. ‘No one has attempted to cross since.’
‘It’s not hard, hopefuls,’ a woman calls from the other side of the courtyard.
My eyes snap to hers, a torch on the wall near her illuminating her features.
It’s the woman who showed me into the parlour.
She stands primly on the other side, clasping her hands before her, twinset and wool skirt unruffled.
‘Surely if you’re here, you want to complete the Crucible?
And remember, the first three to succeed in crossing the courtyard win the first favour of the Ordeals.
You may pick your partner for the first one, and also the second – people you believe you will work well with to succeed in each Ordeal.
If this is all too much, if you believe you are in the wrong place, you may exit now.
There is a door to your left … otherwise, you must cross.
Your choice. But when you cross the courtyard, it’s a point of no return.
The Crucible is your gateway to a new life at Killmarth.
But only if you’re brave enough to cross. ’
The Ordeals? It’s the first time I’ve heard this expression. Does this mean … the Crucible is only the first step of the Killmarth entrance exam?
‘What are the Ordeals?’ I ask the woman next to me.
A crease forms between her eyes. ‘The semester-long trials for hopefuls to become full scholars of Killmarth?’
‘Oh. Of course,’ I say, blinking quickly. A semester of this. A semester of trials and tests … Ordeals to even become a scholar of Killmarth. I’m beginning to wonder if this is a mistake. If this path to freedom I have painstakingly uncovered may in fact lead to my death.
But I want this. Desperately, I remind myself.
I can’t be put off, the unknown is just that, unknown at this point.
What I do know, the fact I’ve acted on, is that passing through the gates of Killmarth will likely give me freedom.
I cling to that, my hand fastening around the bracelet on my wrist as I calculate what the odds may be.
Taking the exit to the left is not an option.
The woman across the courtyard smiles knowingly. ‘You all seem so afraid of stepping into the unknown. How about we show you what you face?’
She looks left then right and I notice two people flanking her. Two men, one white-haired with age, one with slicked-back red hair. They raise their hands as one and the courtyard erupts in a chaos of light, illuminating the courtyard and the game board of death before us.
This is … what the hell is this ?
Some squares are doused in flames that ignite, then recede, only to reignite, some sprout coiling plants that slither over those unmoving bodies whilst a few others are just …
empty. I blink furiously at the wall of intense heat, trying to discern the real from the illusion.
If the squares with nothing in them are harmless, why has no one succeeded in crossing them?
‘Now you have a clearer view of the challenges in the Crucible,’ the woman calls. ‘Perhaps now you will brave the courtyard.’
‘DeWinter, talk to me,’ mutters Alden next to me, eyeing the flames. ‘I’m guessing that all seems real to you? You don’t seem in any rush to shove a limb into it this time.’
I swallow, eyeing the nearest square, roaring with green flames. In moments, one of the empty squares nearest us also ignites, a fresh blast of heat forcing me to turn my head away. ‘It seems pretty real to me.’
‘I can’t go home and tell them I’ve failed,’ a beefy dark-haired man to the left of us says. I look at him, the sweat prickling along his hairline, his shirtsleeves thrust up to his elbows. ‘I’m second-generation. They’ll disown me.’
‘Better a failure than baked, my friend,’ says the young woman standing next to me. She shrugs, pointing at the nearest body, that plant slowly devouring it. ‘Or eaten by a damn vine.’
The man shakes his head, stepping from side to side, as though gearing up. ‘There’s got to be a way. Those two walked in a straight line, but what if I just run? Maybe it’s not a test of magic, maybe this is agility, maybe they just want the strongest, the fittest wielders, the most courageous—’
‘I really don’t think—’
‘I’m doing it!’
‘Oh, here we go …’ I mutter as the man emits a feral cry and leaps through the square of green flame.
He makes it halfway, charging from square to square before a vine lashes out, gripping his ankle.
He trips, falling flat on his belly, and rolls quickly, angling a blade for the vine.
He cuts himself free, twisting as the vine slithers aside.
Then he’s on his feet, moving again, ten paces away, five—
‘Watch out!’ a woman further down the wall shrieks.
But it’s too late. The vine he cut snaps towards him again, coiling like a snake along the courtyard, wrapping around his head.
His gasp is cut short as his head snaps to the side.
I flinch as his body collapses to the ground, just three squares shy of victory.
The vine coils around him, tighter and tighter, his head lying at a sickening angle until all we can see are his shoes.
Fuck.