Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
- MARCELLA -
The second trial—one week later.
I stare at myself in the bathroom mirror as the lady’s maids flit around me, tugging my arms through the long sleeves layered in red dragon scales.
The shrug reaches up my arms and shoulders, framing my neck in a high, stiff collar that clasps at my throat.
Underneath it is a thick bodice hugging my curves and angles. Also made of fire dragon scales.
Every night I’ve spent with Lyra, pushing her harder to seer, has done nothing to diminish her fear.
If anything, it’s only been heightened. She explained what this trial is to be—in a foggy forest, hunted by a creature.
That many of us will die today. And that the vision never showed if her and I made it out alive.
I never let her know it’s beginning to scare me.
I’m the strong one. I have to be. The other women are dressed in varying shades of red dragon armor, shuffling about in the hallway, smiling and cheery.
Having not a single clue we might be heading to our deaths.
These women are batshit crazy to be so chipper heading into another trial.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have avoided Cyrus all week.
Maybe I could’ve changed our outcome somehow—but I couldn’t dare face him.
Not after his sudden urge to kiss me. And I definitely couldn’t share it with Lyra.
Or at least, not yet. I didn’t need to add to everything else swarming her mind.
Neither was she able to get Devin alone to ask why he’s keeping her what he called ‘illness’ a secret from Cyrus.
I catch the eye of Lyra beside Aelia in the crowded hall, and join the two of them.
“Nervous?” Aelia asks us both. Her blonde hair is woven into a crown braid.
I answer, “No—”
“Yes,” Lyra says at the same time.
We exchange a quick glance before Aelia’s cheeks lift into a smile. “Oh, just don’t look it in the eyes and you’ll be fine.”
“What? Who told you that?” I ask.
“Lady Bethany,” she answers as we squeeze out of the double doors into the courtyard.
Lyra and I both toss her a wary glance, but Aelia doesn’t have any time to elaborate. Because Lady Bethany at the front of the group calls forth Devin, who comes from behind us.
We all fall quiet and shift to let him through.
He leads us down a new stone path snaking around the castle, toward the southeast. Through a locked gate and into the land beyond of rolling hills, rocky outcrops, and grass swaying in the gentle breeze.
It’s far too calm for what a second trial should be.
Like the serenity of the ocean before a storm.
We walk around the side of a massive rocky feature to a dip in the land. Where two circular green mazes combine in the center. The endless twists, turns, paths, and dead ends are impossible to memorize. For a moment, I allow my shoulders to relax.
I toss a glance at Lyra, hoping she feels as relieved as I am. Not a foggy forest. Perhaps it was just a nightmare that keeps bubbling up to the surface, clouding her visions. I’m not exactly the most equipped to handle training her, so it was somewhat the blind leading the blind.
“Ladies,” Lady Bethany calls out with a smile. She stretches her arms out wide as she addresses us. “Welcome to your second trial. Your goal is to get from the center of the left ring to the center of the right one.”
All of us scan the direction Lady Bethany motions toward.
She continues, “Though, I must caution you. The last three to finish shall be excluded from any private dinners with King Cyrus until the next trial. And if you find yourself stuck in a rather…challenging situation, then you too shall be considered as having failed.”
I rip my focus off her and scan the mazes, trying to etch them into my memory. But it’s difficult to completely see the maze, as the hedge walls are high enough to obscure many parts of both rings. Lady Bethany says something else, and then all of us are herded down into the valley.
Devin stops at a hedge wall, stretching at least forty feet into the air. He reaches in, twisting and shaking the leaves until a hidden door opens for us, and we all follow him in. To our right and left are green walls disappearing around curved paths.
After a right and left turn, we enter into a circle, with only one way out. The same spot we came in. Lady Bethany is no longer with us.
Devin scans us, attention settling on Lyra, Aelia and me for a moment before he dips his head and says, “Your trial begins…” He slips off the way he came. Once he’s out of view, he says, “Now.”
We all rush to the exit. But as we turn the corner out of the circle, we are only met with empty paths. He’s gone.
“Right and left turn. Which means, to get back to that door, we’d need to take a left and then a right,” I call out to those in front of us.
We all take a left and walk down the path. Confusion races through us as everyone stops when we turn the corner to the right. I nearly collide with the woman in front of me. As one of the taller women, I lift my chin to look over the crowd.
The pathway before us slips down into a body of water.
“How is that possible?” Willow murmurs at the front of the group. “We just walked through here?” She looks over her shoulder at me, and all heads snap back to follow her attention. “Are you sure it was supposed to be a right?”
A heavy, repeating echo of displaced air rises in the distance as I open my mouth to respond. A roar follows it, and the sound gets louder.
Lyra gasps, and Aelia and I turn to look at her. Her pale skin is ashen, eyes wide as she takes a shaky step back from us. “Run!” she screams and bolts down the opposite direction from where we came.
Aelia and I race after her as a massive red figure appears in the distance and glides over the maze toward us.
A fire dragon.
It opens its jaws, screeching again as it surveys the maze below it. Then it dives down closer, locking in on our group. All of the women burst into screams and are hot on our trail, with Lyra now at the lead. We pass the center circle we were left in, and Lyra stops at a fork in the path.
“Pick a direction and go!” I scream.
“Go right!” Aelia yells beside me.
Lyra skirts right, and we swallow up the distance between us, a few paces behind her. She’s not fast. We get to a dead end, and someone slams into the back of me. I catch myself on staggered feet and whip around.
All of us are crowded into the small dead-end square. Some of the women begin to push and shove, hard enough that some fall and others trample around them.
It is utter chaos.
Lyra winces, curling in on herself and clenching a fist to her head.
I rest a hand on her back and whisper, “What, what is it?”
“We’re sitting ducks here!” Willow barely whispers over the crowd, then begins to squeeze and elbow her way to the front. “We can’t stay here!”
Panicked, all the other women follow after her in an unorganized stampede. Shoulders and elbows jostle us as I try to hang on to Lyra. “We have to move, Lyra,” I grunt.
Aelia asks from the other side of her, “What’s wrong with her?”
I grab Lyra’s arm, trying to pull her forward. When she doesn’t move, I grab her chin and tip her face to me. Her eyes are completely white.
She’s Seering.
Shit. There’s no telling how long she’ll be in it for, and we can’t let any of the women notice her. I glance up and meet Aelia’s gaze.
“Go ahead, we’ll catch up.” I jerk my chin toward the exit.
She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving her, she’s my friend.”
I link my arm into Lyra’s with a grunt. “Fine, then. I’m not fighting you. Grab her other arm and let’s move.”
Aelia follows my instructions, and we’re the last ones to leave the dead end. The other women are nowhere in sight. All that surrounds us is the beating of distant wings. That, and three separate paths to take.
“We have to take a right!” Aelia blurts.
I look at her over Lyra’s hunched form. “How do you know?”
She rolls her eyes and it’s the most aggressive thing I’ve ever seen her do. “I don’t, but just move! No time for hesitating!”
We pull Lyra with us, her dragged footsteps slowing us immensely. Another endless expanse of green walls greets us. All with random paths leading away. I turn to the closest wall and slip my hand through the leaves, hissing as thorns scratch at my skin.
There goes my idea of trying to hide until Lyra snaps out of her vision.
A loud roar vibrates the blood in my veins. But my heartbeat competes to be the loudest.
“Quick, flatten back against the wall!” I bark at Aelia.
We hobble to our left, flattening ourselves as a red blur whips by overhead our path. My braid is whipped into the direction it left, the walls rustling around us.
The beast takes a sharp left and circles back. The jagged muzzle of the fire dragon edges across the top of the maze a split second before Aelia tackles both Lyra and me behind a corner.
We all collapse onto the ground as another screech sounds.
It’s hunting us.
We scramble to our feet, but Lyra is still on the ground. She groans, pushing her chest up off the floor. I grab her arms and lift her, finding her eyelids half open but eyes clear as she steadies herself on her feet.
“You alright?” I ask. “Can you hear me?”
She nods, though her expression is that of someone half-asleep. “The water.”
Aelia snaps her fingers. She has her index finger held up to her lips, flattened against the green wall, before she peeks around the corner where the dragon was last.
The flapping wings are farther away, but melded with it is an entirely new sound. A roaring, forceful blast.
Fire.
The sound stops, halted by the snapping shut of jaws.
“She’s alright?” Aelia asks me over her shoulder. When I nod, she tears away from the corner. “Great, we need to go!”