CHAPTER 24
The sound of beating war drums met me before Kilian did.
He rounded the corner as I slipped out of my room.
I was dressed warmly and armed to the teeth, although I most likely would not need blades where I was going.
My hair was braided into a tight crown around my head, and I had said my goodbyes to Calendula. I was ready.
“Sounds like we’re going into battle,” I said.
“You are.” He fell into step beside me, following me to the staircase. “You know, you can still change your mind.”
I looped my fingers through his, bringing his knuckles to my lips. I didn’t know how I had not spent every waking minute in Valhan House touching him, holding him, learning the divots and hard curves of his body. I wanted him tonight and for the rest of our lives. “We’ve discussed this.”
“Humor me.” He stood one step below me. One hand dropped to my waist, the other slid softly down my neck. His lips dipped to trace the same line down my neck and my toes curled in their boots.
“We don’t have time for this,” I choked out, even as my hands reached for his hair.
“I know,” he murmured. “But I’d be remiss if I let you go to the Rite without a proper sendoff.”
He pressed my back against the railing, and I let out a soft gasp as his mouth claimed mine.
He was warm against me, and when his tongue brushed the seam of my lips, I opened for him.
He kissed me languidly, like the Rite was not due to start at any second, his tongue idly trailing across mine, scraping along the roof of my mouth and across my teeth.
There was no area of my mouth he left unexplored.
I was panting by the time he pulled away.
I couldn’t help but brush myself against him again. I wanted to kiss him beneath the starlight and hold him in the early hours of the morning. I wanted his body wrapped around mine each night and to hear that he loved me each day.
I wanted time. Time we did not have.
So instead, I pressed my hand to his cheek, ran my thumb across his cheekbone and watched as the steel chips in his eyes softened. He caught at my wrist and brought the inside of it to his lips. It was such a tender, loving kiss that my heart yearned for more.
“You will complete the Rite. And you will return to me,” he ordered.
“Azrael himself could not keep me from you.”
A soft, sad smile touched his face, and I committed it to memory as he relinked our fingers and led me downstairs.
With each step, the sound of the drums grew louder, until it reverberated along the corridors of my brain. The other candidates were already lined up in the courtyard, their instructors beside them. As soon as Kilian and I joined the queue, we began to move.
The night sky was still and the flurry from the summits had ceased; for once, the constellations were perfectly visible up ahead. It was cold, but I welcomed the fresh air. It reminded me that I was alive.
“Where is the Rite taking place?” I asked.
Kilian sketched out a curve along the summits, and I could see tiny lights strung up in a winding path all the way to the top of a peak.
I raised my brows. “We’re hiking?”
“What? Did you think the Rite consisted of drinking hot cocoa and watching the stars?” He gave me a sardonic look, and I rolled my eyes.
Caleb and his instructor led the group. Lana was behind them with Septimus, his head bowed toward her as she spoke softly to him.
I kept my gaze firmly averted from Moric and his instructor, Ayden, who I had not spoken to since that day in the tavern.
Rayna strode ahead of me with Echon, pointedly ignoring everyone else.
She looked tired, and rightfully so. The Trials had taken a lot from us all, and it was patently obvious how small our group had become since the first challenge.
Only five of us would enter the Rite. And none of us might leave it.
I squeezed Kilian’s fingers as we began ascending the mountain. I was pleased to find that my muscles welcomed the exercise. Somewhere between the weeks of grueling training, running, and fighting at every turn to stay alive, my body had grown accustomed to life on Lortan.
The lights – orblight, I realized – were strung up at regular intervals, marking every hundred yards.
At the six hundredth marker, I ate my earlier words as my calves began to cramp.
But it wasn’t much further to the top. I could see the final orblight from the back of the line.
Lana and Septimus were already passing the third-to-last one.
“I can’t accompany you across once we reach the top,” Kilian murmured beside me.
I shot a look at him.
“There’s a border of obsidian sand fencing off the portion of the summit where the Rite takes place,” he explained. “It’ll test your strength, your resilience, as you cross. If it deems you worthy, you’ll find yourself on the other side.”
“Is it like rock salt?” I asked him.
“Not exactly. Rock salt bars entry and exit for elven and fae, permitting only mortals and sprites. Obsidian sand is one-sided. Only a mortal can enter. And only those who possess upper magic can exit. It’s designed so that no elven can interfere in the process.
Once the Rite starts, there’s nothing I’ll be able to do. You can only return if you transform.”
I pressed my lips together. “Right.”
We crossed the penultimate orblight, and I saw Lana at the top of the peak. Her pale hair streamed behind her like a flag. Septimus brushed a gentle kiss to her cheek and her eyes fluttered closed.
This was real. Too real.
Kilian paused, allowing me to continue ahead of him as the trail narrowed.
When I crested the summit, the flat mountainous peak came into view.
It was a wide expanse of snow, razed even and smooth for the most part, but every now and again, I could see tiny bumps and jagged rocks on the surface.
The lighting was too dim for me to make out anything further.
I did notice a line of glittering black sand drawn along the snow, though, a luminous sheen glowing off it.
It remained unmoving even as a wind rustled past, pulling a few strands of hair loose from my braid.
Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, and I shivered involuntarily.
“This is as far as I can go,” Kilian said, my vision filled by him. He brushed a hand across my cheek. I leaned in to his touch. “I won’t say goodbye.”
“Don’t.” It was too painful to bear.
“I’ll wait for you here. Don’t be late.” His smile was soft, sad, and I pulled away from the ache in our link. It echoed the sorrow in my heart.
I took a step away from him and it was the most painful thing I had ever done in my life. My chest twinged like it had been carved wide open with each step away from Kilian and toward the sand. But I forced my legs forward, until I stood beside Lana. She reached out to entwine her hand with mine.
We had said our goodbyes earlier in the dorms. The look that passed between us now conveyed only love. Moric slung an arm around me, pressing a kiss to my forehead before doing the same to Lana. He took position beside her, linking his hand with hers.
“Do you remember when we met?” Lana cocked her head toward me.
“Of course. You saved my life,” I said.
She shook her head. “Do you remember what I told you?”
I thought back, sifting through my memories, before whispering, “Lirah and Lana.”
She looked out at the frozen tundra. “Our deaths will be poetic as fuck.” Her words were carried away on a summit breeze.
I hadn’t told them about the trace magic remaining in me. I couldn’t bear to see the sadness in their eyes as they realized my already slim probability of survival had decreased even more.
Instead, I squeezed Lana’s hand, looking over at her and Moric. “Don’t say that. We’ve been training. Just remember what we’ve learned.”
Moric gave a determined nod, Lana a weaker one.
I could see hesitation in her eyes. The nerves must have gotten to her.
I knew they had continued practicing channeling the excess current while I’d been healing in Greyhaven.
I could only pray it was enough to have given them a slight advantage for what we were about to face.
I remembered what Kilian had taught me. I knew what I needed to do with whatever magic remained in me.
We all just needed to focus, and we would make it through.
“We’re the trio. We’re going to be fine,” I said, as if my sheer will alone would make it true. “We have to be.”
And on that final note, I threw one last look at Kilian over my shoulder as we walked across the boundary line.
There was a pulling sensation. A resistance band snapping around my body, tugging me back.
It was like being cloaked beneath the weight of magic.
A heady, dizzying pressure that pulsed against me.
Testing. Probing for weaknesses. Pain lanced through me as the magic forced me to relive some of my darkness memories.
Being torn away from a voiceless Umma, Anama’s death, my flesh melting and burning.
And then it was done. The pressure lifted. I had been deemed worthy – strong enough – to enter the Rite.
I cleared the boundary, and it was as if I had stepped through frosted glass.
The elven on the other side disappeared completely.
The only thing visible was the flat expanse of land before me and the other candidates.
From the traumatized looks on their faces, they, too, had undergone a similar experience.
Moric released a shaky breath. “What happens now?”
Rayna strode forward a few steps. “We wait.”
I unclasped hands with Lana, my gaze on one of the rocks a few feet ahead. I walked toward it, toeing it with my boot, until it flipped over. I yelped, jumping back.
Lana came to stand beside me, peering down at what I had thought was a rock. “That’s…”
“A human skull,” I finished, bile rising in my throat.
“Gods above,” she breathed.
“I don’t think the gods are going to help us here,” I said.