Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
MAVERICK, FOUR YEARS AGO
A wintry blast of wind blew the hood off my head, and I had to quickly tug it back up. Snow and ice pelted me from all directions. I fucking loathed this place, yet here I stood, on the frozen Halfstard Lake, waiting for the white rabbit.
I stuffed my hand into my cloak and pulled out the last note she’d left me, my smile growing as I imagined her voice reading this.
On a scale of 1-10, what is the likelihood that Spirit Sky’s infamous Tower of Terror exists? To answer your question about the spirits’ weapons, why they didn’t want anyone to touch them... well I’m not sure we’ll get those answers unless we actually find one of those mythical weapons. I’m not saying one of them is located in the tower. But I’m not not saying that either. I do wonder if the spirits were just incredibly possessive. Or maybe someone touching their weapons would spell doom— for them or for everyone else. I just don’t know which. A little something for you to ponder, BC.
In other news, I’m bored. Maybe that’s revealing too much of myself? But I feel like the year between our competition drags on and on so that I’m spending my days counting down the minutes until I get to best you all over again. Luckily, the day is approaching. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Yours,
WR
I wasn’t sure how the notes had started. A few weeks after we’d picked our first challenge, I’d come back to our spot and saw a note stuck inside the little hole in the tree where we’d hid the glass jar. I’d opened up the folded piece of parchment, surprised to see that it was addressed to me. From the white rabbit. Some inquiry about a type of wooden paddle she’d come across and what period it might date back to.
So I’d replied. Then I went back a few weeks later, and sure enough, there was a response. I couldn’t count how many notes we’d left each other at this point. I sensed she was as eager to hear from me as I was to hear from her. I loved reading her thoughts, hearing about her escapades outside of our challenges, the artifacts she found, the theories she had.
She was brilliant. She would be an amazing addition to the academy. Something I wished I could suggest to her without somehow giving too much of myself away. In our notes, we avoided any personal details, but somehow, that didn’t matter. With every piece of her I took, I, in turn, gave her a piece of me. She might not have realized it, but it was too late to turn back. I’d never stop this challenge, never stop writing to her, not when it was the only connection I had to the white rabbit.
A connection I desperately needed in what felt like my increasingly empty life that was solely focused on this damn academy job.
The job my father wanted so badly for me. The job I took because I thought I wanted it for myself. But I didn’t feel anywhere near as alive in that academy as I felt out here, doing these challenges with the white rabbit.
I shivered as the wind howled, wondering where in the bloody fire the white rabbit was. I shoved the note back into my pocket and pulled up the scarf that covered the lower half of my face until it rested just under my eyes.
“You’re here early.” The white rabbit emerged from the snowstorm, hood raised, a white scarf covering her face as well, that white fur cloak billowing around her.
Snow rested on my cloak, the fabric already damp.
“I think you’re late,” I said, taking a step toward her.
White blanketed the vast expanse around us, nothing but snow and ice as far as I could see. The chill seeped under my clothes, my toes and fingers already numb. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get frostbite. Not something I was eager to experience.
“You can summon your fire magic if you want,” she said, the wind carrying her voice. “You’re at a bit of a disadvantage here.”
“I never let that stop me before. Besides I’m not going to use my magic and then spend the next year hearing you talk about how that’s the only reason I won.”
Even through the thick cloak and tunic, I could see her shrug. “You’re already planning on winning? Cocky, bone collector.”
She whirled.
“Where are you going?” I called after her.
“Oh, I’m sorry, were you just here to chat?” she yelled over her shoulder as thick flakes swept around her. “Because I’m here to find the lost diadem. May the best historian win.” She wiggled her delicate fingers in the air, making me smile.
The diadem was supposedly underneath the frozen lake in the exact center. No one ventured out here, too afraid of the creatures who lurked beneath the surface.
The white rabbit had already disappeared from my sight, a curtain of heavy snow blocking my view. I wasn’t even sure which way the middle was. Every way I turned looked the same, making it hard to get my bearings .
But I couldn’t let the white rabbit best me again. Not after she’d gotten those damn scrolls at our last challenge. Something she’d spent the last year taunting me about through our notes.
I reached into my satchel and drew out the saw I’d brought with me, one that many ice fishermen used in Fyriad. I’d learned that when I visited a few of them at the docks of the Silver Seas and asked how they went about catching fish. We weren’t allowed to use our magic in these little challenges; otherwise, I could’ve just melted the ice. Though that might have been risky. A saw seemed like the better choice. I wondered what the white rabbit had planned, then I pushed her from my mind. Something that was increasingly hard to do these days.
Another blast of wind made me stumble, but I regained my footing and stalked across the lake in the direction I believed was toward the center. The wind was unrelenting, and I pulled my cloak tighter around me, not that it did a damn thing.
If I got the diadem today, I wondered what I’d actually do with it. I hadn’t thought that far ahead when I’d proposed this little game of ours two years ago. It would be odd to keep something like that to myself, but I also couldn’t exactly waltz into the academy with a diadem that I hadn’t been authorized by the queen to find.
The ice trembled under my feet, and I looked down to see a long sleek body slithering through the water underneath. It should have been a terrifying sight, but instead of fear, a thrill shot through me. A sense that this was what I was meant to do. I wasn’t meant to be in a classroom, lecturing students, going on safe expeditions to fields and caves and hills that had been pored over already. There was so much history out there, history the white rabbit was uncovering herself. She was taking things into her own hands and finding amazing artifacts, uncovering important information.
Information that would help us learn about our past and how to approach our future.
But I didn’t want to lose this job. I didn’t want to have to go back home to my father. To his overbearing presence. To see the way he treated my sister so terribly. Especially if I’d lost a job. He’d focus all his attention on making her suffer for my mistakes.
So what to do with the diadem if I found it? I’d worry about that later. The ice shuddered again, a blue-spotted eel swimming right underneath me. These were the largest species of eel, sometimes as long as a ship and with an appetite to match a dragon. They typically ate fish, but they also weren’t picky about their meat or where it came from.
I blew out a breath, keeping my gaze trained on the ice for any signs of this diadem. In the distance, ice shattered, an explosion and a shriek splitting the air. My heart stopped in my chest as the white rabbit let out another blood-curdling scream.
I stuffed the saw in my satchel and took off, all thoughts of the diadem gone as I ran as faster than I ever had toward the sound. The eels normally didn’t surface to find prey. Not unless there was a lack of food below. Bloody fucking fire.
I hurried through a wall of flurries and slid to a stop right as the eel’s monstrous head erupted from the ice. Huge chunks of the frozen lake floated in the crystal-blue water, the ice jutting up as the white rabbit scrambled backward. She fell onto her back, and in her hand was the diadem.
Of course she’d found it.
The eel wasn’t after her. It was here to protect the diadem, which supposedly belonged to Spirit Frost’s wife. She’d worn it proudly until his mistresses tried to steal it. Out of spite, she put the diadem right in the center of this lake and instructed Spirit Frost’s pet eel to guard it. She might’ve died almost two thousand years ago along with the rest of the Old World, but these eels lived up to three thousand years.
I ran toward the white rabbit, shielding her with my body as the eel shrieked, thrashing its head in the air.
“Just give it the diadem,” I yelled, summoning my fire magic to ward off the eel.
It let out a low hiss, its black eyes flashing with fear, but it didn’t retreat.
“No,” she snapped. “I came all the way for this. I’m not going to let it go because of some threat. Are you really so easily scared away, bone collector? Because I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.”
“Disappointed?” I laughed in disbelief. “That I don’t want to lose my head to a centuries-old eel? It’s just a game.”
“It’s not, and you know it. ”
The eel lowered its head and blew out a frosty breath that extinguished my fire. I rolled out of the way before it could pull me into the icy depths of that lake, and I landed on my back next to the white rabbit.
She held up the diadem as the eel reared back, readying itself to strike. “This is history. It’s a living, breathing thing that can teach us something. So I’m not giving it up.”
The eel plunged toward us and we both rolled in opposite directions as it barreled into the ice. The frozen layer exploded, cracks webbing out toward where I lay, toward the white rabbit. The eel dove down beneath the surface, its body disappearing into the depths below.
“We’re not going to get so lucky next time,” I said, breathing heavily. “It’s puncturing the ice, trying to get us to fall in with that diadem.”
The white rabbit struggled to her feet. “Then I suggest you run.” And with that, she took off.
Ice exploded around her in quick, short bursts as the eel’s tail shot up. Eels didn’t have the best sense of sight, relying on body heat to hunt their prey.
“Fuck.” I took off running after her, jumping over the gaping holes in the ice, shooting out fire at the eel as it plunged its tail upward again and again and again, narrowly missing the white rabbit every time.
She was quick on her feet, but this lake was massive, and I wasn’t sure we were even going in the right direction. The eel let out a deafening shriek that made the ice trembled as its tail once again broke through, creating another huge hole.
The white rabbit shot a look behind her. “Having fun yet?” she yelled.
“Not even a little bit.” It was a lie. This was the most fun I’d had in, well, ever.
The eel erupted from below, blocking the white rabbit’s path. Except she wasn’t looking forward. She was looking back. At me.
“Watch out!” I roared, but by the time she turned, it was too late.
One minute she was running, the next, she was slipping on the ice, falling into the lake. Her white cloak fluttering in the air. And then she was gone.
No. No, no, no, no, no. I shot out a long rope made of fire at the eel before its large body could slip underneath to kill her. The rope lassoed around its neck, and it bucked against it. I held tight, keeping the eel from diving back under, giving my little rabbit time to find her way back to the surface. If she found her way. But of course she would. She was a fighter. She could do this.
My muscles strained as I held tight onto the fiery rope, the eel struggling against it. I braced my feet against the ice, but the creature pulled me slowly toward it, my feet gliding with ease across the slick surface.
“C,mon, little rabbit,” I said under my breath.
She wasn’t surfacing. Soon she’d run out of air. Muffled cries sounded from below, barely heard over the eel’s roar, and I looked down to see two fists beating against the ice right underneath my feet.
Fucking fuck.
The eel stilled, head tilting. It had heard her, and I couldn’t keep restraining it, not when she needed air. Now.
I gritted my teeth, letting go of the rope and whipping the saw from my satchel. I lowered it to the ice, cutting away while the eel let out a screech that shook the entire lake, slowly sinking into the water. I tugged at the thread of magic inside of me, summoning the biggest ball of fire I could muster. One that would deplete nearly all of my magic.
The fists pounded with more urgency.
Then I struck. I hurled my magic at the eel, who opened its mouth in surprise, right as the fire flew into it. The eel yelped, sinking away from view. That ought to keep it away long enough for us to escape.
“I’m coming,” I yelled, sawing through the ice as fast as I could. My muscles quivered, and despite the chilly air, sweat gathered on my brow.
Her fists stopped pounding.
“No,” I breathed. “Hold on. Just hold on a little longer, damnit!”
I sawed over halfway through the circle, then stomped on the ice, breaking it open. Pieces of it bobbed in the water, along with a white fur coat surfacing. I gripped the back of her coat and yanked her out. She landed on her stomach, and for one heart-wrenching moment didn’t move. I was just about to flip her over and pump on her chest, when she came to her hands and knees, sputtering and coughing out the blue lake water.
“Took you long enough,” she rasped, back still to me .
The diadem lay at her side, a curious blue dust surrounding it. I didn’t have much time to ponder it as the white rabbit, soaking wet and still on her hands and knees, reached for the object.
She was safe. Alive. Joy filled me, and so did a competitiveness. I scooped up the diadem and took off.
“Are you kidding me?” she yelled. “That is not fair!”
“Well, considering I just saved your life and defeated the giant eel,” I yelled back, “I’d say it’s plenty fair. Until next year, little rabbit.”
The diadem wasn’t the only thing I’d managed to get away with. I also had the kernel of an idea. That I could do this. I could be this at the academy too. If the white rabbit could be this brave, this bold, then so could I. I was going to change the trajectory of my career.
I was going to be as fearless as my little rabbit.