16. SOPHIE
First day of training. Hopefully he takes it easy on me.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I trust you had a good break. Today is test day,” Acheron called out from the centre of the training ring by the Isle’s waterfall.
Test day? Fuck.
Across Acheron’s forehead sat a delicate, gold diadem in the shape of two wings that glinted in the afternoon sun. Each wing for each temple. He stood tall and proud as all eyes in the training room were fixed on him.
“Today, we also have a special guest, Sophie.” He gestured to where she stood beside Nemysis, dressed in black fighting leathers and boots. Sophie waved shyly at the group of twelve extremely fit angels. She felt so out of place. They smiled at her warmly, shouting various greetings and welcomes.
“She may not have wings, but that is no excuse to take it easy on her,” Acheron continued. Sophie’s stomach dropped along with her jaw as she stared at Acheron incredulously. Sophie hadn’t trained in what felt like months and her muscles were atrophied from the amount of slumber needed to quell her sadness. She was hoping to take it easy during her first few weeks of retraining, but it seemed the Fates had other plans.
Acheron grinned at her and raised his eyebrows. A challenge. Oh she would make him pay for this by beating his sorry angel ass into the Shadow Realm when she had the chance.
“Is he always this annoying?” Sophie muttered under her breath, leaning in so that Nemysis could hear. Sophie didn’t let her eyes leave Acheron as he briefed in the rest of the group.
“Eh. I think he’s got a sweet spot for you.” Nemy shrugged casually. Sophie’s cheeks flushed at the words, though she couldn’t think of anything worse. They were just friends, right?
“Alright, two warmup laps then straight onto the obstacle course in pairs. The two slowest pairs will battle it out in an extra round. Losing pair repacks the obstacle course. Reminder: no wings. It’s all about teamwork,” Acheron called out from the front. With that, he beat his chest with his fist once. The Tienthan beat their chest twice in response before breaking away into pairs.
Nemy turned to Sophie, her chestnut eyes coloured with excitement, and started, “Do you want to part— Oh, it looks like you’re spoken for.” Nemy quickly shuffled away, clearing her throat as she did.
Acheron strode toward Sophie with the grace of a god. His muscled body glinted in the sun. He was a sight to behold.
Am I nervous?
“My lady,” he bowed deeply as his wings stretched out behind him.
“Please don’t call me that,” Sophie huffed.
“What should I call you then? My queen?”
A muddy memory pulled at her mind. It was a low male voice that told her she was safe and that no one would hurt her. You are safe now, my queen. Her throat caught at the words and where they were uttered. She didn’t want to be reminded of that moment. Not now. Not ever. Sophie shook her head to clear her mind. “How about the first Fae in history to beat your slow angel butt?” she smirked. Fae and demigoddess, I guess.
Acheron stepped closer to tower over her, but she did not cower. In fact, she stood taller to meet his stare. “I’d like to see you try,” he said lowly. His dimples made an appearance as he looked down at her.
A quiver of excitement and thrill coursed through Sophie’s veins – a feeling she hadn’t felt in so long. The fire within her, the fire that kept her alive and focused, woke up, and a sinful smile filled with promise splayed across her face. Oh, she’d show Acheron what she was made of. She’d show him who the new demigoddess on the block was. And she’d beat his ass while doing it.
Sophie almost vomited at the sight of the obstacle course. She’d never been so eager to eat her own words until now. Before her stood an obstacle course that put the Witcher School course in Kaer Morhen to shame. It turned out that the small obstacle course she spied during her earlier days in the Isle of Deos were cut-outs used for warming up. Smaller versions of what they really trained on. Before her was the real deal that stretched several hundred metres in distance and what also seemed like height.
Like the illusion-stable she stumbled upon weeks before, this obstacle course was hidden in the mountain wall itself. Thick, heavy vines covered the entrance that could easily be mistaken as dense foliage but what really lay behind it all was a giant cave, with an obstacle course of axe-swinging pendulums, rope swings, rope climbs, free falls – basically anything that would send Sophie’s stomach out her throat and into someone’s unwitting face.
Sophie gulped.
She swung her head to Ash who stood next to her, rolling his shoulders, prepping his body for the physical onslaught that was about to ensue.
He noticed her panic. “Sorry, what did you say about beating my slow angel ass?”
Sophie blanched. She’d never regretted anything until now. Sophie grumbled profanities underneath her breath as she narrowed her eyes on the smug angel that stood beside her. She didn’t let him get to her. Instead, she focused on the course that lay before her. They wouldn’t be the slowest team if she could help it.
Come on, Sophie. You can do this, she repeated to herself. If she could survive this, in front of an entire group of gods and goddesses to boot, she could survive anything.
Sophie looked at the large clock in the distance which lit up green. It signalled their turn to run the obstacle. “It’s go time.” Sophie gave Acheron a saccharine smile, before jumping up and diving headfirst. The wind whipped against her ears as she aimed for the small pool of water that lay a several metres below. She felt like an assassin, nosediving off buildings into haystacks.
She heard Acheron softly swearing as he scrambled to dive in right behind her. He let out a whoop of joy as they plummeted toward the fast-approaching water. A stupid grin plastered itself across Sophie’s face as the fresh air of the cave surrounded her. She was wholly in the moment.
Sophie was about to let out a scream as her stomach flipped and flopped around without gravity, but she didn’t give in. She braced her body, tensing as much as she could, so she could break the surface of the water like a pin.
CRASH.
Her ears filled with water immediately. The coldness of the water hit her with such a force she almost inhaled it. With all her might, she kicked up and up to the surface, her boots, heavy stones upon her feet. Sophie broke free of the surface with a large gulp of air and swam as fast as she could to the edge of the pool. Acheron was already on the bank, shaking his wings free of water. He turned to reach out a hand for her to grab onto, but she declined by hauling herself onto the ledge.
Sophie tried to fight a smile as Acheron”s mouth dropped and an incredulous scoff left his lips. He looked positively offended with his dark black hair clung to his neck and rivulets of water propelled down his tattooed arms and chest. He shook his head at her.
Sucker.
Sophie smirked and sprinted toward the next obstacle – a two-hundred-metre rocky wall climb with no rope to catch her fall. Her fighting leathers were sopping wet, and she could feel small rocks finding their way into her combat boots. Shaking the nervousness from her body, she began scaling the wall.
Naturally, Acheron had propelled himself up the wall within seconds, bounding left to right in a show of agility, strength and skill. Sophie looked up to see his head poke over the ledge. She was about halfway up the wall when her left boot squelched and slipped, sending rocks down range. A small yelp escaped her lips.
“Come on, Sophie. You’ve got this,” Acheron called from above, “there’s a rock jutting out to your left.”
“I can’t reach it,” Sophie breathed heavily. Panic began to roil in her chest, but she willed her heart to calm. She had to leap and catch on to the rock before she could easily scale the rest of the wall. It didn’t help that she was half the size of everybody on a course that was clearly made for beings of grander stature. Why did she put herself in this situation?
Sophie looked to the clock that hung up on the cave wall in the distance. They were still ahead of time. If only she could leap.
“You’ve got this, Sophie. What happened to that smart mouth of yours?” he chuckled.
The sound of his rumbling laughter made Sophie’s blood simmer with a vengeance. “This smart mouth is going to give you one hell of a lashing once I get up there, you oversized bird!” she huffed.
“I could think of better things that mouth could do!”
Sophie gasped and let out an annoyed groan. She was going to flay the angel as soon as she got up on the ledge. With a push of her arms and legs, she swung herself upward to the rock that jutted out of the wall. With a grunt, she caught the edge with her fingertips; her forearms barked in pain as her shins slammed into the rocky wall.
That stupid angel, I’m going to kill him.
With a vengeance so fiery, Sophie scaled the wall like a possessed demon. She pushed and pulled to the rhythm of her adrenalin-filled heart and hauled herself up over the ledge ready to pummel the feathers off Acheron’s wings. As soon as she stood, Acheron was there with the biggest, silliest grin she’d ever seen. Something like pride shone in his eyes.
“Get that stupid grin off your face.” She narrowed her eyes.
“Apologies, my queen. I had to get you up here somehow, didn’t I?” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Don’t call me that.” Sophie didn’t mean to, but a little smile managed to escape. Acheron knew how to work her buttons. It made sense considering they spent their earliest years in each other’s pockets.
Together, Sophie and Acheron turned to face the next obstacle. Giant logs suspended in the air swung back and forth at varying speeds. They needed to sprint across and land on the last log where they’d dodge large pendulum axes. Two hundred metres below lay thick, dark mud. While better than hard ground, it would be a painful fall.
Sophie’s stomach turned as she realised that she was the only being without wings. The only being that would fall and splatter themselves on the ground.
As if reading her thoughts, Acheron assured her, “I won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll run first. Just follow my lead.”
With the grace of a jungle leopard, Acheron bounced and leapt across the logs, pausing where he needed to time his jumps correctly. His wings were tucked neatly behind him.
With the adrenalin coursing through her veins, Sophie followed. She wasn’t as graceful nor was her timing the best, but she made it through, landing on the last log where behemoth axes swung precariously close to them.
“Pay attention to my timing,” Acheron stated before sprinting past the first axe. His feathers almost clipped against the sharp edges.
The axes creaked with heaviness and speed, lodging nervousness into Sophie’s throat. She wasn’t sure if she could get across the obstacle. She glanced to the clock. They were doing well compared to some other pairs. They needed to keep pushing. She needed to keep pushing.
With his godlike speed, Acheron dashed through several axes before barrel rolling past the last one.
“Are you serious? There’s no way I can physically do what you just did!” Sophie shouted from across the log.
“Use your mana. You can sense the axes. Trust me.”
Sophie completely forgot about her mana. The gut instinct that lived deep down in her stomach. The force that allowed her to sense danger. She dared not wake it up. She knew she burned it out and a part of her felt guilty. Guilty that while she had mana, she wasn’t strong enough to stop her friend from dying. Tendrils of guilt and pain wrapped around Sophie’s heart again. Though as annoying and insufferable as Acheron was, he was right.
In the distance she heard Eros and Nemy call out, “You’ve got this, Sophie!”
Sophie took in three deep breaths before reaching down to her mana. What she thought would be burned remnants, sat a small pool of mana that awakened at her call. She knocked on the glass box that it had been kept in for the past few months and let it do its . . . magic.
Sophie analysed the swing and fall of each axe, allowing her mana to add in an extra lens of clarity and logic.
Dash. Dash. Sprint and roll.
That’s all she needed to do. Her mana told her so.
Throwing caution to the wind, Sophie broke free of her mental restraints and ran. She dashed. The axe fell swiftly behind her. Another dash. She felt the edge of the second axe nick the back of her boot, but she kept moving. Sprint. She sprinted by the three axes, lifting her knees up as fast as she could. Then roll. Her right shoulder crashed down on to the log with a crunch. She tucked her body close and barrel rolled all the way to the end of the log where strong hands pulled her up onto her feet.
“You did it!” Acheron looked like he was about to hug her senseless but thought better of it. Sophie was let back down on the ground so abruptly it almost made her laugh. Acheron cleared his throat as his wings ruffled. “We’ll need to sprint across the totems and then we’re there. We’re doing okay for time too.” He pointed to the clock.
Sophie nodded as she surveyed the totems. They were tall pillars that varied in height and distance. Some were farther apart while others were closer. What lay below were deadly metal spikes that promised a painful death.
“The only thing to watch out for is—”
“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Sophie cawed as she leapt onto each totem pole like a feline. Sophie could hear Acheron leaping after her and swearing under his breath.
“Sophie, wait!”
Sophie grunted with each leap and teased, “Your cheap tactics won’t work with me!”
“Sophie!”
Sophie’s stomach dropped as she fell through the totem pole in front of her. Through it. It was a mirage.
Mid fall, Sophie swivelled her head to the right where the true totem stood, just a few metres away. A scream worked its way up and out of Sophie’s throat as she plummeted to the eagerly waiting metal spikes below.
Her hair whipped and danced around her vision.
Gravity wreaked havoc on her stomach as she fell. Weightless.
Acheron dived for her. His outstretched arms reached for hers. His face was screwed into a snarl as their fingertips grazed. He sped down, his wings tucked in behind his back. He gripped Sophie’s hand.
His wings shot out behind him, stopping their descent in the nick of time.
Sophie’s boot scraped precariously against the tip of the tallest spike as she dangled midair. Her only lifeline was Ash.
Sophie breathed heavily. Her heart was about to burst with gratefulness as she looked into his turquoise smoking eyes.
Ash pulled her up gently and nudged her legs, so they wrapped around his middle. She wrapped an arm around his neck and rested her head against him, panting. She felt the patter of his heart against her chest as she tried to calm herself with reassuring breaths.
As he flew them both back to safety, several metres up, he held her tightly across the back. Where his hand rested, her skin burned. And she became all too aware of how firm his grip was.
They’d reached the top of the final ledge in silence. With a sort of reverence, Ash set Sophie down on the grass covered ledge, high above the crowd of angels that chattered below.
Before he could say anything, Sophie burst out, “I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you.”
“It’s fine. Are you okay?” Ash brushed the hair out of Sophie’s face.
“I’m fine. A little startled, but mostly fine,” Sophie breathed.
Ash crossed his arms before her and gave a smile that was all I told you so. “Well, you know what happens when you play silly games, Sophie?”
Sophie furrowed her brows in confusion. “What?”
“You win silly prizes.” Ash flicked her nose.
Sophie swatted his hand away with an unwarranted annoyance. If he hadn’t just saved her life, for the second time, she would have argued. Instead, she settled on giving him a dirty look as he stalked off.
Ash chuckled one more time before walking down the stairs that led to the cave ground. “You better get your ass moving. You’ve cost us precious time and given I’ve just used my wings to save your sorry ass . . . it looks like we’re the bottom pair.”
Sophie whipped her head to the leader board that hung below the clock. He was right.
Damn it.