Chapter 69
We’re all carrying our weapons at all times now, strapped to our bodies so we’re ready for the Ofur even if it’s called during meals or while we sleep. I even held my dagger between my teeth while I had my last bath, which had to be at least four days ago now.
As I hauled myself out of the tub and wrapped a towel around me, it struck me that, should the priestesses choose that precise moment to summon us to the next location, the dagger would be of little use if I was buck naked.
So that was it. I stopped bathing. It’s only been once that we were taken without warning, but it’s not a chance I wish to risk.
The lack of cleanliness is hardly pleasant, especially not with all the training I’m doing, but judging from the grime that covers the other six remaining Rettlings, I’m not the only one taking this approach.
I’m actually grateful that Kyor is no longer here with me.
I’m not sure how long the attraction would last if we both smelt like rotten vegetables.
Still, at least my daggers are small. Benny’s sleeping each night with a sword strapped to his back, though I can’t imagine how the hell he’s doing it or how he hasn’t pierced his skin in the process. But it’s what works for him.
As for Jonas … I don’t know what he’s doing. I can’t avoid seeing him entirely, but he’s no longer sitting with Benny and me at meals. Instead, he’s chosen to sit on his own. At least it’s not just us he doesn’t want to team up with.
Despite all our fears over potentially being jerked awake in the middle of the night, unprepared and yet expected to fight, the chimes for the Ofur instead arrive close to midday, when all seven of us are out in the battle yard.
Roderick’s the only other person there, and judging by the shock on his face, he didn’t know this was going to happen.
The instant the first chime rings out, a long trail of priestesses appears through the gate.
One after another they walk in ceremonial pomp, with Mila at the front.
‘How many of them are there?’ Benny’s muttering mirrors my own thoughts.
These can’t just be the priestesses from Wrohelm, even with all the rings included. There must be closer to two hundred of them. I scan through the faces as they enter, trying to see if Dinah is among them, but if she is, I can’t spot her.
Mila waits until they have formed a closed loop around us before she speaks.
‘Rettlings,’ she says. ‘Welcome. You’ve successfully made it thus far in the Retterheld, and the next time we meet, one of you will have met with the Great Etta herself and received her gifting.
The rest of you, may you take the Goddess’s blessing from here and beyond into the rest of your lives.
If you survive the Ofur, that is.’ She smiles as though she isn’t talking casually of our deaths.
I glance at Benny, fighting the urge to reach out and take his hand, but see his arm already stretching out to me.
But before our hands can touch, my stomach hollows and my vision blurs as dizziness takes hold.
It feels like the floor’s fallen out from beneath me the same way it did when we were portated before.
The air shudders as I try to catch my breath, and a moment later, we’re standing in a thick mist.
It’s impossible to tell where we’ve been taken, and it’s fucking freezing. When we were on the lake I could see a little way on either side of me, but here the fog is so dense it’s opaque, and I can barely see my hand in front of my face, let alone anyone else.
‘Where are we?’
It’s Zara who speaks first, though it’s impossible to work out where she’s standing. With the way her voice echoes, it sounds as though it’s bouncing off the side of a mountain.
‘Benny!’ I call out, and then, because old habits die hard, ‘Jonas?’
‘Here.’
‘I’m all good.’
I take a tentative step forward only to remember the way that the carriages previously dropped us precariously close to a cliff edge. If my first suspicion about being on a mountainside is correct, then even a tiny misstep could be deadly. I edge back to where I was and consider what to do next.
Mist is water, suspended. Can I freeze it? If I can, that’ll hopefully clear the air a little. I raise my hand, unsure what I’m about to do, when a voice cuts through the quiet.
‘Moryal? A little help here would be great.’
It’s Del who speaks, and a moment later, he gets his wish. The blast of air from the Galreck wind weaver has me struggling to stay upright, but it does the job. The mist clears ahead, and we can finally see where we’ve been brought.
My jaw hangs loose.
I’m not sure whether I’m proud that I was right or not, because I’m too busy being terrified.
We are standing on a plateau about halfway up a mountain.
I’ve no idea where exactly, though from its size, I guess it would have to be part of the Coltan Mountains, right at the very north of Morathkian territory.
From the blue light emanating from the peak, my assumption is that we have to get to the top to win the Retterheld.
As I move my gaze from the peak, I see I’m not the only one gawking.
Del’s jaw is clicking from side to side as he visibly thinks through what we’ve got to do next, while Benny is a little further away, taking it all in.
It’s only as I turn to see Zara that a gasp leaves my lungs.
Unlike everybody else, she’s not looking at where she has to go.
Instead, her sword is out and she’s heading straight towards Grenda, who stands oblivious, with her back to her.
‘Grenda!’ I scream out as I lunge towards Zara, but I already know I’m not going to be fast enough. Before I can get another sound out, the tip of Zara’s sword protrudes from Grenda’s stomach.
In one swift sweep, Zara pulls it back out and Grenda’s body crumples to the ground.
Blood pours onto the pristine white snow as the air rushes from my lungs.
Moryal covers his mouth in shock as Benny and Jonas both look on in horror.
We’ve all seen death before in this competition.
But like this? It was an assassination, pure and simple.
‘I needed to get there before that bitch had a chance to freeze us all and win this thing,’ Zara snarls. ‘There’s a new top dog, people, and soon’—she smirks—‘I’ll be the only dog.’
‘You are a fucking bitch!’ I agree.
‘Rose!’ Jonas screams at me, but Zara isn’t coming for me yet. Instead, she’s sunk her powers into Moryal, and his leg collapses beneath him. He must have broken his leg at some point in one of the trials, and now he’s suffering all that pain again.
‘Del!’ he yells out. ‘Help me!’
The other Galreckian turns his head and purses his lips, but he doesn’t move.
‘Del! We’re a team. You promised! I literally just helped you!’
‘Side with me and I’ll let you survive this,’ Zara barks at Del. He doesn’t need to think for long. Rather than helping his friend, he turns on his heel and starts to walk away.
‘What the fuck!’ Moryal sweeps out with his power. Even in his pained state, he pummels the air with a wind that knocks us off our feet, though from the way Del flies six feet across the plateau, he definitely got the worst of it.
‘We need to get out of here,’ Benny says, grabbing my hand. In the fracas, I didn’t even realise he’d closed the distance between us. ‘There’s a cave over there. That’s where we need to go.’
I assumed we needed to climb the outside of the mountain, but I trust Benny’s magical sight way more than my random guesses. He was right about the jotnar, and he’ll be right about this. Together, we pound the ground towards the cave.
Jonas is hot on our heels, though when I cast a glance backward, my attention shifts to Del. He’s back on his feet, fighting off Moryal who is having to split his powers between fending off Zara and trying to knock his former friend off the edge of the plateau.
‘Shit!’ Zara shrieks. The only way she’s going to stop Moryal is by getting up close with a blade the way she did with Grenda.
But with the strength of that wind, she doesn’t stand a chance.
‘Fuck it. You’re not going to beat me now,’ she says, leaving the two Galreckians to fight among themselves and chasing after us instead.
‘Tell me you and Jonas didn’t get any crazy injuries in the last trial that I don’t know about,’ I gasp between panting breaths as I follow Benny into the cave.
‘I didn’t. But I don’t know about—’
‘Fuck!’ Jonas yells behind us.
I stop in my tracks and turn to find him clutching his ribs. As he casts his gaze into the cave, his eyes catch mine.
‘I’m fine. You worry about yourself. Go.’
I know I should do what he tells me to, and after the way he’s spoken to me over the last few days – or rather not spoken to me – I’d be well within my rights to leave him to Zara. But I can’t do that. With my heart racing so fast I can barely draw breath, I look at Benny.
‘It’ll be three against one,’ I say to him.
Benny’s jaw juts outwards. ‘Really?’
‘I have to,’ I tell him. A moment later, I change direction and head out of the cave, back towards Jonas and Zara.
‘Why haven’t you blinded her!’ My voice catches with incredulity as Zara continues to stride towards us, clear-eyed with perfect vision.
‘I-I can’t …’ Jonas stutters. ‘I mean, I haven’t … I haven’t since, since …’
Since Kestria. That’s what he can’t say. He hasn’t used his powers since he blinded her in the third trial. No wonder he’s been so focused on training in the yard these last few weeks. He’s afraid to use his magic.
‘Jonas, if you can’t do this, we’re fucked. Zara will rip our old injuries open, and she’ll easily kill Benny and me while we’re in agony.’
‘Run,’ Jonas tells me miserably. ‘At least if you run, you’ll stand a chance. Rose, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—’
He gasps then lets out an agonised moan. Another broken rib, perhaps? I’m not going to waste time asking. Not when Zara is less than ten feet away. Yet before I can even draw my dagger, a welcome voice speaks behind me.
‘Did someone say three against one?’ Benny! If it wasn’t such an inappropriate time for it, I swear I’d hug him.
‘Llin would never have forgiven me if I’d left you,’ he says by way of explanation, and my desire to hug him only grows. But Zara’s got her sword out and is rolling her shoulders, limbering up.
‘If you want to use some of that magic of yours, now would be a great time,’ Benny suggests.
‘Right,’ I say, though I’m not exactly sure what I’m planning on doing.
Make another ice blade? Stab it through her heart, the same way I did with Oke?
I raise my hand, ready to use whatever it is the Gods have given me, only to be barrelled through from the side.
Del. I was so focused on Zara that I didn’t even realise he was still in play.
His strike knocks me off balance and sends me careening through the air.
I land six feet from where I started, and I must have struck my head because my vision swims for a moment.
‘This is not how the trial is meant to work!’ My teeth grind together as I push myself up onto my feet. At this rate, we’re not even going to get into the mountain, let alone up it. I now don’t care how much of my powers I have to expose to Zara. She’s not going to live to tell anyone.
Come on, I urge myself. This is when it’s kicked in before, when I’m in danger.
So where the fuck is it? A new sense of panic surges through me, but with it comes something else: the buzz of magic fizzing in my palms. It’s here.
It’s going to save me. I push myself up, ready to attack, just as a strangled scream tears through the quiet.
‘Fuck!’
My heart ricochets off my ribs at the sight of Benny on the ground, Zara’s sword sticking out of his thigh, and Jonas on his knees, doing everything he can to stop Del from serving him with a deathly blow. I don’t know which of them I’m meant to go to – which of them I can help, if either.
But as Zara withdraws her blade, ready to strike again, I already know the answer. I will not lose another friend. Not a single one. Not today. The word rips from my lungs as power surges through me.
‘No!’
My scream echoes off the mountainside as a wall of ice appears in the middle of the plateau, every molecule of water held within the air now frozen solid.
I’ve created a freaking ice wall that’s ten feet high and at least twice as long.
A moment of disbelieving elation fills me before Benny’s moan reminds me of the situation.
Likely more the product of the Gods’ blessings than actual skill, the ice wall has separated us from our enemies. Zara and Del are on one side, and Benny, Jonas, and I are on the other. But the ice is thin. A couple of good strikes with a sword or Del’s shoulder and it’ll all come crashing down.
‘We need to go.’ Jonas scrambles to his feet. ‘Rose, we have to go now. Before she comes for us.’
‘I’m not leaving Benny.’
The sword struck his outer thigh, which is better than the inside, but the wound is still bleeding. Benny fumbles with his belt, trying to remove it to make a tourniquet, and I hurriedly help.
‘Rose, I’m not hanging around,’ Jonas snaps.
‘Then go!’ I yell back.
Hesitation flickers on his face before his features settle into hardness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. A moment later, he’s running into the cave.
‘You need to go too,’ Benny grunts as I manoeuvre his leg to get the belt around it. ‘You need to go now. I’m not going to die. I’ll bow out. Quit.’
I yank the tourniquet tight, wincing as he grits his teeth in pain. ‘Can you even do that?’ We have no idea what happened to the Rettlings who didn’t make it onto a boat. Or the ones in the second trial who didn’t get to their loved ones in time.
‘I don’t know,’ Benny replies truthfully. ‘But what I do know is that if Zara gets through that wall, the only reason she’ll let me live is if she doesn’t have time to waste on a fight. If you’re beating her, she’ll leave me. Please, if you want to save me, you need to do this. You need to go.’
My heart throbs at the thought of leaving him, but he’s right. I know he is. If Zara knows that Jonas and I are ahead of her, then catching up with us is going to be her only priority.
‘Go win this thing.’ He flashes a smile through the pain. ‘For Llin.’
‘For Llin,’ I repeat. ‘And for you.’
A moment later, I’m blinking back tears as I race into the cave, fighting the hollowness that tears me from the inside. For the first time since I arrived for the Retterheld all those months ago, I’m truly on my own. Benny, Llin, Kyor … there’s no one by my side.
Either I win this thing today or I die trying.