Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
ARYELLA
I don’t care how you slay the evils that hunt you.
Just do it.
Do not give up. Do not yield. And for the love of the gods, don’t you dare die.
—FROM THE BUTCHER OF NYRIDA’S LAST KNOWN LETTERS TO QUEEN ARYELLA I
“Stop!” I ordered mind-to-mind. The scaly white lizard obeyed, rearing back just enough for me to free my right hand, unsheathe my dagger, and stab its right eye.
The beast’s pained howl pierced the air.
It thrashed around, half-blind. Sharp rocks bit into my palms as I dragged myself out from beneath its body while it spun and swung its tail like a bludgeoning weapon.
I dodged one lethal blow, but spikes as hard as bone slashed across my forearm through my leathers, splattering my blood across my face and chest.
I clamped my teeth together, tucked my injured arm into my chest, and rolled over it to dodge the beast’s tail slamming down to crush me in one fell swoop. Scattered gasps and screams echoed from the cliffs above, where everyone had a full view of the fight.
No , I told myself. Today is not the day you die.
Puncturing the monster’s eyes was one thing. The thick, pearly scales were too thick for a knife. I needed Mavic’s sword, now laying discarded a few feet away.
Refusing to give the beast my back, I retreated and squatted low until my fingers brushed the worn leather of the sword’s grip behind me. The beast stalked closer, infinitely more terrifying with the dagger stuck in its eye.
Another step closer.
Do not give up , I reminded myself.
Click, click, click, click…
Do not yield.
Its tail thrashed, sending pieces of sharp gravel flying toward me as it backed me into a corner.
“You don’t get to kill me,” I seethed.
I had to stay one step ahead. Even though I had been the one to drown that beast on the way to Brinnea, Gavin had never needed me to.
I was only letting it think it won , he’d told me.
I pretended to stumble, trip, and fall in fear, but my grip was still tight on the hilt of the sword. I held it below my hip, angled up and ready to strike.
The way the eyelids of its one good eye shuddered open and closed sent ice up my spine. My body begged me to escape before it could pin me again, but I needed it closer. I repressed a whimper when it straddled me, teeth inches from my face.
And then I thrust Mavic’s sword straight through the roof of its mouth.
My scream tore from my throat, barely audible over the screech of the beast. My forearms burned, even as I doubled the strength of my grip with my free hand and pushed the sword up into its flesh.
Its gaping maw nearly engulfed my whole head.
But the beast’s weight was a weapon against it now.
As it succumbed to gravity, it sank further onto the blade until blood and putrid saliva drenched my skin and clothes. Its echoing screech faded into silence.
For a few moments, all I heard was my own breathing, until the beast spoke five more words. Distant, weak, but clear enough to decipher.
“She is searching for you.”
At its words, I felt a strange burning sensation along the fingerprint-shaped bruises on my neck from my nightmares.
“No!” I screeched as I unsheathed another blade from my side and drove it through the monster’s unwounded eye, right to the hilt. “No, no, no!” And again.
Blood gushed and spurted down my forearm, and the beast was finally dead.
I did it. I was alive. I won.
You won, you won, you won…
My mind believed it. I repeated it until my body did, too.
My vision struggled to focus, but I managed to crawl free, panting and covered in blood, brain matter, and drool.
When I looked up, Elias had his arms crossed over his chest, and he wore a satisfied grin.
Still an asshole. Even more so, for this.
My body buzzed with adrenaline as I scanned the faces of the other fighters and cadets. Everyone else was silent and wide-eyed as they stared down at me.
With my head held high, I crossed the enclosure, ignoring the snapping jaws of the other four beasts as I passed. My legs wobbled a little, though I did my best to hide it. The attention made my skin itch as I climbed out of the enclosure.
The twins greeted me at the top, their freckled skin unsettlingly pale, but both smiling in relief.
“You fucking did it.” Mavic reached to pull me into a hug but stopped upon realizing I was covered in gore. I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have touched me right then, either. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
I grinned and took it as a compliment.
“Next team!” shouted a lieutenant from the other side of the enclosure. “Please descend into the pit!”
“Wait!” I darted through the cadets toward Elias. They parted for me. Jumped out of my way, rather, to avoid touching blood and guts. “Commander!” I shouted, walking right up to him. He dragged his eyes up my body, widening as they went. I kept my voice low. “They could die.”
He merely chuckled. “You didn’t.”
“Yes, but…” I looked around. A quarter of the cadets, Draven Finch included, looked eager for the challenge. The rest were terrified. Some cried. One was currently vomiting behind a tree. And the twins .
“Let me help them with the other four beasts,” I insisted.
Elias arched his critical brow. “The others aren’t on your team.”
“So what?” I hissed. “I’m not going to let my peers die!”
“This is my training, Fera.”
“Yes!” I snapped. “Training! Not a mass execution!”
Elias scrutinized me in that way that raised my hackles and made my skin prick.
His lip curled in disgust at the sight of something on my leathers.
I stiffened when he reached forward and removed a bloody piece of tissue from my shoulder, studied it between his fingers, then flicked it away.
It might have been a piece of the lizard’s eye.
“Go back to the fortress,” he ordered. “You have succeeded. You are no longer needed here.”
“But the other cadets?—”
“Go.” He tightened his jaw. “Now. The rest of them are not your responsibility.”
But they were my responsibility. If I showed him who I was, I could put a stop to this. He wasn’t going to listen to me as Fera. The time for sacrificing lives in the name of war might come, but today wasn’t that day.
I was seconds from undoing my disguise when I recalled what he’d said to Valda the other night, about not throwing his own cadets “to the wolves.” For him to throw them literally into a pit of ravenous beasts didn’t make any sense. There had to be some sort of catch. This conversation wasn’t over.
“Fera!” Mavic called from behind me. I turned and moved quickly toward where he and his team waited. He reached out and squeezed my hand. “We have to prove ourselves, too.” He gave me a reassuring nod. “And you have to go.”
I muttered a prayer to the gods that everyone would be okay and obeyed, making my way back to the Barracks.
I threw up twice while waiting for the twins. Once on the way back, once inside the walls. I couldn’t stand the thought of pacing alone in the cabin we shared, so I paced in the courtyard until the door to the fortress opened, and I saw two flashes of red hair.
Seeing they were unscathed, I ran straight for them, refraining from launching myself into their arms upon remembering I was still covered in blood and vomit.
Mina informed me that they’d gone up against the bearlike beast with antlers. For long minutes, they circled and dodged it, but the moment it looked at Mina, Mavic had shot it through its brain with Hoss’s bow and arrow.
The twins wouldn’t let me into our cabin until I showered, changed, and sent my leathers to be laundered. I couldn’t blame them. Now, I sat on Mavic’s bed in a linen set of lounge clothes while fidgeting with the ends of my wet hair.
“I think they sent each team away once they were finished.” Mina was twiddling her thumbs. “I saw them come back in groups, and no one appeared to be missing from what I could count.”
“Do cadets usually die during training?” I began to twist the chain on my neck. Doing so used to calm me, when there were two rings there instead of one.
“It’s happened once or twice, a long time ago, and only by accident,” Mavic answered. “Since Winterton took over, it’s been more controlled. Lives are too valuable to just throw away.”
I nervously worked my fingers through my hair and bit my thumbnail.
“I can’t believe I’m defending him, but I really don’t think he’s going to let anyone die,” Mavic added. “He’s careful and prepared. Always has been.”
“Maybe.” I folded and unfolded my arms for what felt like the hundredth time. “But I should have stayed, despite his orders. I should have made sure everyone was safe. Maybe I should have revealed myself.”
Mina frowned. “Are you ready to?”
“No.” I didn’t have to think about it. “Not yet. But it’s not just about me.”
“Okay.” Mina considered my words. “Well, if someone died today, you can make your hair go all silver and rip him a new one for it. If everyone’s fine, I say you keep doing what you need to do until you feel the time is right.”
“Agreed.” Mavic grinned. “I like knowing secrets no one else does.”
Mina slapped his arm.
“You are very mean to me, sister, did you know that?”
I opened my mouth to express my gratitude for their support but was cut off by abrupt knocking. I ran and tore open the door to find Valda standing on the other side of the threshold.
“Fera.” She nodded firmly. “Commander Winterton has requested you in his office.”
“Lucky you,” Mavic muttered as the twins approached, one standing on each side of me.
“Is anyone dead?” I rushed out.
Valda rolled her eyes. “Just five vile beasts. Now hurry up.”
Relieved, I slipped on my clean pair of boots to follow her, not bothering to change. The less interested in my appearance Elias was, the better. I planned to approach the subject delicately and express my disappointment with tact and reason.
When Valda opened the door to his quarters and I spotted him lazily leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, the epitome of calm, unaffected arrogance, my plan was thrown out the window.