CHAPTER EIGHT
Not wanting to risk any entanglement with the others, I sprang forward. But a warm hand wrapped around my upper arm, stopping me in my tracks.
“Wait,” Kodhan warned softly. His free hand lifted, and his fingers went up in flame, creating a beacon that cast enough light for us to make out the first ten feet around us.
Brannon and Theia remained close. Frowning at the six competitors who passed us with overconfident smiles thrown towards the audience. One of them had the nerve to wave.
“I will not be a sitting fawn,” I hissed, shoving his hand away.
“Here’s an important lesson,” he spoke softly, bringing his arm to hover in front of me yet again, like a barrier.
“A creature who demonstrates patience and caution before the strike of an enemy is a wise one. For it can learn exactly how said strike will land, and better yet, know how to use it to their advantage.”
“Incredible,” I whispered in mock wonder. “Did your father teach you that?”
The hand hovering inches from my midriff slowly curled into a white-knuckled fist. “In other words,” Kodhan said tightly, “Watch and learn. If they make a mistake, we’ll know to do the opposite.”
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, tasting metal instantly. He raised a good point. But I would’ve preferred throwing myself over the edge of the platform before admitting that out loud.
The first competitor had chocolate colored hair framing the concentrated pull of her face in lush ringlets.
The second one’s sharp features held pure excitement, entirely absent of the nerves that had my jaw tightening to the near point of cracking a tooth.
His eyes gleamed with hunger—a kind I’d seen in Maverick too many times to count.
He never hid the fact that he enjoyed doling out punishments to traitors or criminals. No, he reveled in it rather openly.
That same crazed gleam was exactly the reason why I needed to avoid this man entirely.
Forty raised footholds stood tall before the two of them, spaced three feet apart in a knotted pattern.
Jumping across them wouldn’t be the main problem.
What proved worrisome was the size of the footholds, their circumference no bigger than a teacup, barely large enough for someone’s foot to properly land on.
The woman only allowed a moment of calculated hesitation before hopping onto the first foothold, arms outstretched like a bird’s wings.
Like Kodhan, both competitors’ hands were coated in flame.
Yet the woman’s strength in the element couldn’t come close to his.
Her magic was bold, and did what it needed to, but Kodhan’s was something else entirely, like a living, breathing thing.
Her ally’s flame was far weaker, sputtering and flickering each time he hopped.
“It’s like a game.” Brannon’s strained smile resembled more of a grimace.
My flat laugh bled with sarcasm. “Certainly, if said game wanted to kill you.”
No one else moved forward. I could only see faint outlines of faces and shoulders, but I knew what nervousness did to a body.
Knew how it tightened limbs like venom, to then allow fear to infuse them, to render them immobile.
They, too, watched the rest of their troupe cross.
Left foot, right foot. The slightest of stumbles would prove deadly.
Light on their feet, they moved quickly, like they’d done this hundreds of times already. In the span of a few minutes, they made it onto the next platform, their bodies barely perceptible anymore in the weak light of their flames.
“Let’s go,” Kodhan ordered. They’d passed whatever test he’d been conducting.
My heart stuttered as Theia hopped onto the first foothold, leg wobbling, unused to bracing the entirety of her weight onto the upper half of her foot. She extended both arms for balance and teetered for a moment before righting herself, then hopped onto the next foothold.
“It’s not so terrible,” she called out without looking back.
Brannon followed suit, arms already straight out. “Of course not. You have smaller feet,” he grumbled quietly as he landed on the first foothold. Despite his complaints, he only teetered for a second, his movements fluid and precise. He made it seem easiest out of everyone.
I toed the edge of the platform, careful not to peer down into the abyss below. No going back. There was only forward. Towards winning. Towards magic.
But my boots felt like they’d been dipped in honey. Frustration climbed a brute path up my chest. Stars, just move.
Kodhan made an impatient sound behind me, his impertinence shooting sparks of anger through my veins like fuel. Enough that my feet moved at last.
Less than half of my foot fit on the circular surface.
The muscles in my thighs and calves quivered as they strained to keep me centered.
I’d trained countless hours in balance and equilibrium with Gideon, but not like this.
Not with the immanent risk of slipping and falling a hundred feet.
And jumping across rooftops was nothing compared to this.
Next to shadows, they were one of the best ways to escape unseen.
People never looked up. Still, they held more space to move than the measly thing barely keeping me alive.
I could make it. I had to make it.
I landed on the twentieth foothold with even momentum before a scream pierced the air, curdling my blood to ice. A different sort of quiver began to curl up my legs, threatening my already burning calves.
“Keep moving forward. Don’t look back.”
By the stars, it was hard not to.
The audience hollered their discontent from above.
“Don’t look back,” Kodhan repeated. “Move.”
The urgency of his order had my limbs locking up. Kodhan wouldn’t push me.
Would he?
Bracing for the worst, I jumped again. And again. A steady rhythm of left-right-left-right. By the time I reached the next platform, sweat trailed down my brow.
Theia extended her hand for me to grasp as I hopped from the last foothold. I took it, allowing her to pull me into her while Kodhan followed and landed closely behind. “Impressive work,” she commended.
I shook out my legs, praying a cramp wouldn’t soon ensue. “I’m not dead yet, so I would suppose it’s something.”
Her lips spread into a wide smile.
But we could only linger in relief for so long.
My muscles screamed as the four of us sprinted across the length of the platform, not trusting those on our tail.
The six overconfident competitors had already begun tackling the next obstacle—the swinging axe-pendulums. They looked so much worse from this close, sharp surfaces glinting as they heaved back and forth in front of the first of the six—a tall, reedy straw-haired man—his mind visibly working to sort out the best possible way for him to dart through without getting a limb hacked off.
The axe-pendulums moved fast. Faster than physically possible considering their size. And only a few inches of space sat between one pendulum and the next. The path leading through them was no better, only narrow enough to fit both feet, one beside the other.
Despite his height, the man was quick. He darted past the first few swinging axes, his fire barely bright enough to light the passage in front of him, blinking in and out of existence.
A gasp involuntarily left me as his foot slipped, sending him crashing onto the path flat on his stomach.
He’d been trained well. That much was evident as instinct overrode his shock, like he’d been conditioned not to feel it at all.
He pushed up just fast enough to narrowly avoid getting cut in half by the axe that swung by him with so much force that strands of his shoulder-length hair swayed in its wake.
He trembled fiercely, his arms struggling to remain tucked tight at his sides.
His lips formed one word. Ice. I couldn’t hear him, not at this distance. But I understood immediately. He shuffled his feet back and forth to demonstrate his point, the soles of his boots sliding with ease.
“Damn it all,” Theia groaned, face contorting into displeasure. “Of every element…” she trailed off with a sigh.
Kodhan tilted his head. A predator assessing its prey. “Quite cumbersome, I agree.”
I scoffed. “Unbothered to the core, aren’t you?”
“I could name a few things that bother me,” he countered, his pointed gaze slashing from my feet to my face. “You, to begin with.”
“As if you’re any more tolerable,” Theia cut in before I could tear into him.
“This is not the time or place.” A heavy reminder that we were standing a hundred feet in the air, surrounded by thousands of prying eyes and a king that would kill us for sport.
“You of all people should know better,” she added, and the glare she gave him surely could have sent even Maverick to his knees with its ferocity alone.
If it were anyone else, I would’ve pitied the person on the receiving end. But Kodhan certainly deserved it.
The competitor wedged between the swinging axes held out one arm horizontally, careful not to get it chopped off in the process.
In his palm, his tiny flame sputtered into something that resembled a ball.
His brow lowered in concentration and his teeth dug into his lower lip.
On the next swing of the axe-pendulum directly in front of him, he tossed the ball of flame, aiming it for where he would need to step next.
Steam rose from the path in faint, curling whisps.
“He’s melting the ice,” I remarked quietly.
Kodhan scoffed. “He’s not melting anything. He’s lucky he’s doing anything at all with the way he’s tossing his fire around.”
He was right. The man missed his next two attempts, his fire either too weak or his inability to master it impinging on his ability to throw it where he needed it. Albeit slower than he’d started, he plowed on, traversing the length of the path. One of his allies followed suit.
The ice didn’t stay melted for long. It frosted over again in seconds.
The next person who followed closely behind had to repeat the fire-step-fire motion after each axe, meaning everyone that crossed after him would need to as well.
His flames were equally as weak, if not more so.
In some places he had to shoot the ice with fire twice to get it fully melted.
It was shortly after that third person began crossing that the first man began kicking his leg vehemently, shouting a slew of curses.
We couldn’t see his face anymore, not with how far ahead he was.
But each kick caused him to teeter dangerously between the swinging axes at his back and front.
With all his focus directed on keeping himself rod-straight, his flames guttered out completely, leaving us all blind to what was happening.
Only a faint outline of his form remained.
His allies called out behind him, but the man ignored them completely, continuing to yell with increased fervor. His entire body then jerked to the side as if his leg had been yanked.
A collective gasp resonated from the crowd above, followed by lesser hollers of outrage while others squealed in delight.
He caught himself on the edge of the path just in time, dangling with nothing but the sheer force of his fingertips. But it was no use. Judging by the strain on his body, something was trying to pull him into the darkness below.
His ally shot forward without thinking, extending a hand to help.
He realized his mistake too late. There was no time to pull back.
An axe hit him, straight across his middle.
The roar of the audience was ear-piercing, but the sound of his body as the axe sliced him deeply enough to practically cut him clean in half reverberated across the kingdom.
His body went soaring, plunging into the darkness below just as his ally lost his own battle, his fingers unable to withstand both his weight and the strength of what pulled at him. His grip slipped, and down he went, his angry cry blending into those from above.
Brannon cleared his throat once. Twice. “Any chance you can ask the king to let us sit aside for this one?” he teased.
My eyes briefly fluttered closed. Behind my eyelids, I cursed the gods. Then I cursed the stars, the entire population of Aedreath, and most importantly, the king who was at fault for this entire mess.
When I was done cursing, I splayed my hands out in front of me, and gave him a tight smile. “Of course. While I am at it, I’ll be sure to request a new pair of boots for you, too.”