Page 43 of Empire of Flame and Thorns

So I grit my teeth and struggle to my feet. Picking up my knife, I breathe through the waves of pain rolling through me and survey the battlefield. I try once again to force them to calm down. But it doesn’t work. No one feels calm as magic shoots through the air and people fight with fists and magic and everything they have.

Two people spot me just standing there.

I let out a vicious curse as they start towards me.

Anger and frustration rip through my soul. I can’t fight these people off. I don’t have that kind of magic. And with my injuries, I won’t even be able to outrun them anymore. I can’t fight. I can’t run. I can’t calm them down.

So I need to be smarter than them.

A sudden idea hits me like a lightning strike.

Spinning around, I search furiously for Alistair.

I find him close to the middle of the arena, throwing torrents of fire at people and forcing them farther back towards the circle.

The two people running towards me draw closer.

Clenching my jaw, I dart to the left so that Alistair is between me and them.

And then I channel my magic and push at the spark of anger in Alistair’s chest.

A gasp rips out of my lungs, and I almost lose the grip on my magic.

The pale red spark of anger inside Alistair’s chest is so intense, so massive, that it almost sets me on fire too. It shocks me so much that I can barely breathe. That is not the kind of anger that people feel on a surface level during a battle. The rage inside Alistair is the deep kind. The destructive kind that has been burning in his soul foryears.

I raise my mental walls higher, protecting myself from his emotions, and then I pour even more fuel into that flaming rage.

He goes berserk.

Fire roars through the air as he attacks everyone in sight. I dart along with his movements, always keeping behind him. Cries of panic echo through the arena as people are forced to flee out of the circle to escape his flames.

I drag in desperate breaths, trying to block out the pain in my leg and ribs and forearm. But even despite all that, there is still a victorious grin on my mouth as I continue to manipulate Alistair’s emotions.

Because I don’t need to be the strongest or the fastest or have battle magic to win this trial. I just need to make someone else take out all of my competition for me.

Blood runs down my arm and drips from my fingers. I was already lightheaded before this trial even started, but now I feel as if I’m going to pass out any second. There can’t be that many people left now. We have to be close to forty. We have to?—

A roar cuts through the air.

It’s so loud that it almost shatters my eardrums.

I spin around and stare up at the red dragon perched atop the arena. Imar opens his mouth and lets out another deafening roar while his tail swishes pointedly through the air.

The battle staggers to a halt.

Wings boom and clouds of dust rise from the ground as Imar flies back to his empty section on the middle tier. He shifts in a cloud of black smoke and then strides out onto the edge of the platform.

“Congratulations,” he calls. “If you are inside the circle and still breathing, you’ve made it through the first trial.”

My knees give out.

Pain pulses through my limbs as I collapse to the ground.

Lying there on my back, I stare up into the gray sky above and drag in deep breaths. My chest heaves. My head spins. A few of my ribs are most likely cracked. Blood coats my entire left forearm. And I think I’ve torn one of the tendons around my knee.

But I made it.

An insane burst of laughter rips from my lungs.

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