Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
ARA
I guess I have to take back the words I said to Lorcan, because in front of my blinking eyes stands a goddess.
The hood of the cloak, normally shadowing her face, is thrown back, gleaming red curls spilling out over the soft leather and cloth of hunting clothes.
Brown and green replace the previous white of the statue’s garments, and a quiver and bow rest on her back.
Glowing as if there is more than just the sun illuminating her, she smiles down at us. But her smile isn’t reassuring or soft. It’s sharp-edged and cutting, her eyes assessing like a hunter gauging its prey.
At the clap of her hands, the sky above us swirls, dark clouds move in and build up, stacking, twisting, growing. I wonder if she asked her brother Tempos, the god of weather and winds, for help in this.
The clouds gather above the arena until a giant diamond-shaped cloud blots out the sun, plunging the city into shadows. The structure is restless, moving, lightning illuminating it in flashes. Harsh winds whip at it, some parts swirling.
Everyone stares at it.
“What is that?” Zaza breathes, and Tate shuffles closer, his presence reassuring and protective next to me.
“Welcome to your first trial.” Iza’s voice vibrates around us. “You’ll prove your abilities in the cloud maze today.” It’s a statement, a challenge with no room for doubt.
“Not one to waste time,” Joel mutters, and I have to agree, the goddess caught all of us by surprise. No one mentioned that today would be the actual start of the trials.
“Every team starts at one of the golden lights. Trust is the key. Whoever reaches the center first is the winner and takes away a clue for the last competition. The teams that lose a member or fail to reach the center in time are out.” She pauses, an expectant silence dropping over the arena.
“How do you know the time is up? Oh, you’ll know.” She cackles. “Have fun.” And with a boom and a flash of light, she vanishes from sight, her statue once more unmoving, resting at the place she was before, unchanged. Or is she? I didn’t study her closely enough to truly say.
Unsurprisingly, the men from Kystis are the first to leave on their writhing mounts, getting smaller and smaller, and soon seeming no bigger than a fly against the mass of clouds.
“Now, doesn't that look like fun?” Calix murmurs, his eyes on the maze that’s waiting for us.
“Do you think it will be just a maze?” Mariel asks.
“No,” Calix and I answer simultaneously. “Her ominous ‘have fun’ at the end…” I shake my head. “This promises to be much more than just a maze if you ask me.”
“Trust is the key,” Mariel mutters. “Couldn’t she have been clearer than just that?”
“We're no more than game pieces for her. Risking our lives is her entertainment.” Tate’s eyes are on the dark, boiling mass above us.
Our birds land, and while everyone heads to their bonding partner, Tate catches my hand, keeping me in place just a moment longer.
“No unnecessary risks, Ara, please. And I'm not saying this because of the trials.” And when I catch the plea in his eyes, I rest my hand on his cheek.
“I promise,” I say. He covers my hand with his, leaning into it for just a second before letting go. We both walk over to our birds, ready to tackle the first trial.
I don't know what I expect, but not the sinister, murky darkness enveloping us as soon as we enter the labyrinth. It reminds me strangely of the mists, which puts me on edge. Will something be lurking beneath the cloud cover?
Tate's command is simple. “Stay close.” But it turns out it’s not that easy to implement. Crosswinds threaten to scatter our flight before we even enter, turning our orderly structure into chaos within seconds.
Every bird fights to stay on course, but the Rukhs, the smallest and lightest of our group, have to fight the hardest against the winds.
At least the surrounding walls are built from clouds, so there is nothing to collide with … or so I thought.
Only seconds later, a high-pitched screech has me whipping around. Tempest, Mariel's Rukh, careens into one of the walls. And going by her sound and Mariel's expression, it must hurt.
“Tempest says not to touch the walls. It feels like being struck by lightning,” Solaris informs me.
“Well then, we’ll do our best.”
On Tate's command, we change formation, taking the three Rukh in our midst, so the Strix, as well as Solaris and Daeva, shield the smaller birds.
“Is it only my imagination, or are the walls closing in?” I ask Solaris, and he curses but confirms my observation, relaying it to Tate via Daeva.
It gets worse the deeper we delve into the maze. As it turns out, the paths are not just getting smaller, but are also changing and moving, as if the clouds were living things, trying to trap us.
Soon, the tunnels get too small to keep up our clustered formation, and we have to spread out, flying in a stretched-out V, too narrow to harbor anyone in our midst.
With every turn that gets us closer to the center, something else comes on top of what we are already dealing with.
“Scatter.” Daeva passes down Tate's command. Our birds react before they even relay the message to us, and not a second too early.
A giant cat—no, a Sphinx—pounces for the spot where Calix and Aella had been only moments earlier. The creature throws her head back and laughs, but the voice spilling out is the goddess’s.
“Avoid the black mist,” she purrs, but the warning comes too late, since it materializes right in front of me. Solaris flies through it, and for a second, I think we are fine. But then his wings falter.
“Solaris,” I call out to him, but his presence is muddled, sleepy.
“Solaris,” I try again.
“I’m so…” He doesn't even finish his sentence before his wings still, and we nosedive.
“Solaris.” I try to reach him again, panic slowly taking over my stomach. We head for the wall below us. The sting has to wake him up, right?
Only we pass through it without a problem. It just swallows us up.
We’re surrounded by a dull grayish white, with no signs of up or down, no sign of where we come from or where we need to go. Solaris spirals, and I cling to the harness, trying to stay awake and upright.
I might not see much, but we are falling … quickly.