Page 58 of Empire of Flame and Thorns

“I would owe you a favor,” she says at last.

A small smile threatens to spill across my lips. She’s too proud to ask the actual question. But I can still hear it clearly in the faint hint of desperation that laces her voice. Asking me this, even without actually asking, has been incredibly difficult for her. But she still did it.

“Alright,” I reply.

She snaps her gaze to me, blinking in shock. Apparently, she was certain that I was going to refuse.

After searching my face for a few seconds, she gives me a slow nod. I nod back.

Ice surges up from the ground. I start in surprise as Isera raises a massive block of ice and uses it to push everyone to the side so that the area in front of the hole is clear.

A few curses rise from some of the others.

“Step aside,” Isera growls.

Those who had been about to stalk back to the tunnel pause. After one look at Isera’s face, they take a step back and motion for her to go first. She, in turn, motions for me to crawl into the tunnel first.

“If I’m behind you, I can make sure that no one tries to mess with you while you crawl through,” she explains while we walk closer to the hole.

I raise an eyebrow at her. “And you trust me not to break my promise halfway through the tunnel and simply crawl away without you?”

“Yes.”

Her response is so immediate, and so confident, that it stuns me. No one has ever trusted me, with anything, before.

It takes a moment to compose myself after that, but once I’m ready, I drop down to my knees in front of the hole. Isera does the same behind me.

“I’ll start blocking it now,” I tell her.

She nods.

Channeling my magic, I push towards the bone white spark of fear in her chest. It’s massive, and we’re not even in the tunnel yet. I pour my magic into it, decreasing it into the tiniest of drops. Then I start into the tunnel.

The walls of packed dirt are so close that my shoulders almost brush against them when I move. And I have to crawl on my hands and knees, and keep my head lowered, to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling of the tunnel.

A scraping sound comes from behind me as Isera crawls in after me.

The moment she’s inside the tunnel, that spark of fear in her chest explodes into a wildfire.

It’s so intense, so all-consuming, that I actually gasp from the force of it.

Isera lets out a small noise, almost like a whimper, at the back of her throat.

I throw all the magic I have into smothering that flame of fear. Once it’s back to the tiniest of drops, I hear Isera release a deep breath behind me.

We start into the tunnel.

It took me almost a hundred years to learn how to completely separate other people’s feelings from my own. If I had tried to do this when I was thirty, I would have drowned underneath the intensity of Isera’s fear. I would have felt her claustrophobia as acutely as she herself felt it. But because I’ve had over one and a half century to practice, I can now fully block out other people’s emotions while still feeling them clearly enough that I can manipulate them.

Only the soft scraping sounds of our knees and hands break the silence as Isera and I make our way through the tunnel. But as we crawl, her words keep echoing in my skull.

Let them. If people fear you, use it as a shield.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s time to start being a little ruthless. What does it matter if the other contestants fear me or despise me or outright hate me? I will be leaving this city as soon as I win the trials anyway.

Glass clinks faintly from the box I still keep inside my clothes.

An idea flashes through my mind. A ruthless and wicked idea.

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