CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TEARS OF GLASS
A mound of snow cushions my fall. Which is fortunate.
The snow cushion in question is at the bottom of a pit. Which is unfortunate.
My head is spinning, ears ringing, and I’m winded from the crash.
It takes me several seconds to rise to my feet. The snow protected me from splattering to my death, but it’s powdery and slippery, making my quivering legs as unsteady as a newborn calf’s once I’m standing.
“Mira? Mira?” Luc’s distraught, disembodied voice comes from overhead. He sounds as if he’s on the verge of tears.
“I’m in here!” I try to shout, but it comes out as a low croak. I think I ripped my throat raw.
Footsteps crunch closer, until Luc’s head appears over the edge of this ice cave. His eyes are wild, but when he sees me, alive and upright, his shoulders loosen. “Mira. Stars in hell. I thought—” He shudders and stops himself. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I peer around my surroundings.
The cave I’ve fallen into is carved from jagged stone and coated in a thick layer of silvery-blue ice.
It leaves the surface vertical and smooth.
I’m not a skilled climber on the best of days, but even an expert would struggle to find any grip to pull themselves out.
I’m freezing. Even colder in this pit than when I was hurtling down the mountain on a sled. I reach within me, hoping to feel a glimmer of residual magic, but there’s none left.
My teeth are already starting to chatter. And my ass is sore from crashing into the ground.
“We’re not far from Widow’s Hall.” I choke back my fear and try to sound more assured than I feel. “You can make it the rest of the way. You’ll win and come back for me. Or you can send Sef.”
It’s a bad plan, and I know it. Even if everything goes perfectly with no delays, I’ll be trapped in here for at least another hour. With no magic or additional heat, I doubt I’d last that long, exposed like this.
Luc doesn’t respond right away. He studies me, gnawing the inside of his cheek, lost in thought. Finally, he brightens and blurts, “I have orange hair.” His tone is aggravatingly hopeful.
I’m so annoyed I temporarily forget my fear.
I glower frostily up at him. “You know that isn’t how this works.
” I cross my arms, both because I’m annoyed, and because it’s cold and I need to preserve what little warmth I have left.
“Saying nonsense we both know is untrue won’t fuel my magic.
Unless there’s something you’ve been keeping from me, this is a waste of time.
You have to go. Now.” Simply speaking an untruth isn’t enough to stoke the flames of my magic.
It requires deception—secrets. Unfortunately, Luc and I tell each other everything.
Well, at least he does.
Luc stares at me as though I’ve suggested he douse my body in alcohol and set me on fire. “I’m not leaving you here. Not only would you freeze to death, but I’d never be able to find this place again.”
Fair points. This high up, our only surroundings are snow and ice. There are no landmarks he could use to find me if he ventured too far away. And it’s snowing. If it starts to pile up, I could be buried by the time anyone comes back for me.
My eyes well, but I blink rapidly to ward off tears. I’m not going to cry. Everything is going to be fine. It has to be. Doesn’t matter that I’m halfway frozen already. I’ll find a way out of this. I always do.
Luc lies on his stomach and leans over the mouth of the pit. He stretches an arm down as far as he can. “Can you reach?”
I already know I can’t, but I try anyway. I strain my arm, stretching as far up as I can. Stand on my tiptoes, even jump a bit—nothing helps. The pit is too deep.
He lowers his sjaal to me. I grab hold of one end while he pulls the other. I try to brace my feet against the sheer sides of the pit, but they’re too smooth, too icy. All my feet do is slide, and after a few seconds of pulling, there’s a horrifying ripping sound. The sjaal can’t support me.
Hopelessness claws at me. I’m not getting out of here. “Luc . . .” My voice quivers. I swallow and try again. “You’re going to have to leave.” Now I sound as if I’m being strangled.
“Never.” Luc sounds as close to tears as I feel.
I’m going to die out here. Sef warned me, but I never actually let myself believe it would happen.
“There’s an obvious solution,” Luc says slowly.
My teary eyes snap to him with a glower. “Don’t you dare.”
“They gave us a flare for a reason. If I set it off, someone will come and get you out.”
“They’ll lock me up. You’ll be disqualified from the Tournament for using outside help. We’ll lose.”
“There are worse things than losing.”
A stubborn tear drips down my cheek. Well, it tries. It freezes too quickly to finish falling. I might be completely powerless right now, but I refuse to forfeit this Tournament. “If you set off that flare, I’ll never forgive you.”
Luc looks as if he means to scream at me. “Mira—”
“‘Mira’?” This is a different voice.
My pulse hums with rising dread.
The rest of the world fades away. I hear nothing but approaching footsteps. See nothing but his head joining Luc’s leaning over the edge of the pit.
Kaidren and I stare at each other. There’s a tear frozen to my cheek, my heartbeat is a whir of helplessness, and all he does is stare at me. A myriad of emotions dance across his face, too quick for me to pick out any one of them.
Finally, his expression settles into its usual smug mask. “I didn’t realize this event extended to family members, Remira.”
Kaidren Vale has me exactly where he wants me. He’s been seeking proof that I’m a cheat, and here it is. Irrefutable and conveniently trapped in a pit of ice.
My eyes sting, eager to give into hopelessness and release the floodgates, but I jut out my chin. I refuse to let him see me sob. I’ll save that for later, when there’s no one around to watch. Probably in a jail cell, judging by how things are going.
“What?” Kaidren lifts an eyebrow. “Nothing to say?”
I smile sweetly. “Burn in hell.”
“Only if you come with me.” He thrusts his pickax into Luc’s hands.
I’m a tangled mess of startled and confused. So much so, I hardly register his next move: leaping into the pit to join me.
I’m frozen as he lands practically on top of me, before I realize what’s just happened—Kaidren gave his only tool for survival to Luc and followed me into my ice prison. Willingly.
He lands less than a shiver away, smirking as my eyes widen at his sudden nearness. “You know,” he says, tone conversational, “the polite thing to do would’ve been to move out of the way.”
“Why did you do that?” Belatedly, I stumble away from him. My back slams into the wall, shaking snow flurries loose from the mouth of the pit.
Kaidren turns his back to me. I don’t move. Just watch him, trying to figure out what the hell is going through his head. He bends at the knees and looks at me over his shoulder. “Well?”
“What are you—” I’m so confused, I forget to be wary.
“I’ve never seen you at a loss for words before.” He sounds amused. “Climb onto my back.”
This is a trick. It has to be. “Why?”
Kaidren makes a noise of exasperation. He straightens and faces me again, moving closer so we share breath. “So I can get you out of here. I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing.”
My eyes narrow. “What are you going to do?”
“Carry you.”
“And then what? Climb out? Don’t know if you noticed, but the walls are ice.”
“Don’t know if you noticed, but I have a pickax. Your brother is going to hand it back to me, and then I’m going to use it to get out of here. Whether or not you’re on my back when that happens is up to you.”
I fold my arms. “If you think I’m touching you, you’re delusional. You’re tall. You can just boost me up; then Luc can pull you out after.”
Kaidren laughs in my face. “I’m not half the fool you take me for. Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t leave me here the moment I helped you get out.”
That’s exactly what I was planning.
I round my eyes. “I would never.”
He shakes his head, looking amused. “I told you, Remira, I’m not going to make the mistake of underestimating you.
Not again. Either we get out of here at the same time, or we stay trapped here forever.
” His gloved hand cups my face so suddenly, I don’t have a chance to jerk away.
His eyes are startlingly soft as he swipes a thumb over my cheek, wiping away the lingering frozen tears.
“What do you say, shadow skulker? Are you on or off?”
My eyes search his. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because we’re friends, of course.”
He’s clearly teasing me, and clearly has no intention of answering me seriously. I take a breath. “Fine. Turn around.”
His gaze trails over my face for another moment before he turns and bends. Hesitantly, I place my hands on his shoulders. I’m wearing gloves and he’s bundled up, but there’s a sliver of skin peeking through at the base of his neck that’s making me nervous.
I’m still eyeing the exposed skin when Kaidren grabs me by the backs of my thighs. I yelp as he tugs them up, hitching my legs around his hips. “This feels familiar,” he murmurs. I can hear the smirk in his voice.
I ignore him and wrap my arms around his chest, tethering myself to him.
Kaidren reaches up. “Honored Praeceptor, can you hand me the pickax?”
Luc tosses the pickax into the pit. Kaidren catches it. He rears it back before swinging it into the ice.
The force of it makes me jump. I’m clinging to his back like a child, arms wrapped around his torso, legs coiled around his waist. Touching him like this is disorienting, but I force my brain to stutter back to life.
There’s no need for me to stay on his back while he carves grooves into the ice.
I try and unlatch my legs, but Kaidren gives my thigh a squeeze.
“You’re not going anywhere. For all I know, if I let you down, you’ll take the ax, knock me over the head, and use it to escape without me. ”
I roll my eyes but don’t let go of him. “I’m very violent in your imagination.”
“I’m not taking any risks with you. I want your hands on me at all times. Where they can’t get up to mischief.” He lowers his voice, so only I can hear. “Besides, I like your warmth.”
I don’t fight him. For reasons I can’t comprehend, he dropped into a frozen cave to rescue me. Even though I’m sure he has an ulterior motive, it doesn’t cool the warm glow of gratitude in my chest.
I hang on to Kaidren as he swings the pickax, carving jagged holes up the wall in uneven intervals. When he’s finished, he passes it back to Luc. “You ready?” he says to me.
I tighten my arms and legs around him. “Ready.”
As I speak, my breath skims the back of Kaidren’s neck. He shudders and adjusts his grip on me, shifting his hands beneath my thighs and tightening. Kaidren shoves a boot into the lowest foothold and reaches out to Luc.
My brother takes his arm and, with a grunt, tugs.
With the foothold, Kaidren has the leverage to push himself up, and Luc only has to pull him to the next one.
Kaidren places his foot into the second groove and pauses for Luc to pull him again.
They continue. It’s a conjoined effort. Luc pulls, Kaidren pushes. We keep going, slowly but steadily, one foothold at a time, until Kaidren reaches the top.
With a final grunt of effort, Luc yanks us over the lip of the pit. We collapse into the snow.
Kaidren’s out of breath, lying on his back and staring at the cloudy sky. “Remira,” he pants out my name in between gasps for air. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” I stand over him, and I can’t help the small smile that creeps over my face. “Thank you.”
For several seconds, he stares at me. Doesn’t say anything, just stares. His eyes are softened into an emotion I can’t decipher. “You’re sure? No injuries?”
My heart flutters at his concern. “I’m completely fine.”
“Good. You need to hide.”
I frown, tilting my head to one side. “What?”
“Hide,” he says again.
“Why would—”
Without warning, Kaidren leaps to his feet and seizes Luc’s flare from where it hangs around his neck. Neither of us has time to react before he sets it off and holds it up high with his signature smirk. “Because the decurio will be here any moment to save him. And you can’t risk them seeing you.”
No.
With that flare, Kaidren just won the second trial.
Worse—I lost.