Page 88 of Lost and Stolen Gods
“Have you seen Araz this morning?”
“We don’t care about the muscle-bound monolith, remember?”
“I know, I just…I want to be prepared if I’m going to see him.”
“No sign of him.”
I glanced at his neatly made bed. Had he even come back last night? Maybe he’d slept on the roof again. Maybe that was for the best.
Not my problem.
I opened the door and almost stepped on a neatly tied bouquet of white flowers.
“Where the feck did those come from?” Blue scampered down my body to peer down the corridor.
I picked them up. “I wonder who they’re from.”
“No card or note?” Blue sniffed the air. “Don’t like the way they smell. Ditch ‘em and let’s go.”
I sniffed them. “They smell fine to me.” I didn’t have a vase, so I put a stopper in the sink, filled it with water, and propped the flowers in there.
“Today, chickadee. Time’s a wasting.”
The kitchen was busy with potentials scarfing food and drohi tidying up, but there was no sign of Araz, thank goodness, or Pashim, not so good. Priti told me he’d left to help set up the gauntlet event.
Event…as in it would be watched.
Everyone would be there.
My stomach rolled, and the oats I’d just eaten threatened to come back up.
By the time we were on the trail to the complex, I’d broken into a light sweat.
“Leela.” Blue touched my cheek. “You all right, chick?”
“Nervous. I’ll be fine.”
The arena, the wall, the platforms, every space was filled with unfamiliar faces. Drohi and demigods, and anchors. I spotted Umbra, Guru Chandra, Guru Mihir, and Pashim standing together.
Dressed in his black armor outfit, hair pulled back in a severe knot, Pashim looked stern and forbidding. And if I didn’t know him better, I would have beenintimidated, but I’d spent the night sleeping in his arms. I’d seen his smile and felt his kindness. He didn’t frighten me. Not one bit.
His gaze snagged mine for a moment and softened. It was good to know he was rooting for me.
Ravi was on the wall with several of his packmates and an older, grisly-looking dude with sideburns you could comb and eyes like flint. He zeroed in on me as I followed my peers onto the main platform that accessed the main gauntlet, and a shiver of unease skipped up my spine.
“Fuck it’s scary,” Blue said.
I focused on the gauntlet. This was the real thing. One huge machine built to challenge us. The space below the logs was filled with jagged rocks. The spikes were real. The blades were real. The chasm filled with more jagged rocks was real. And the tantrik mages scattered close by, staffs at the ready, were testament to the fact that one misstep here would maim and in worse cases, kill.
Guru Chandra confirmed it a moment later, his voice booming across the arena as if he had a megaphone to his mouth. “Today we hope to welcome a new batch of recruits into pareekshan. Not all will pass, but those that do will take the first pareekshan in a week’s time, bringing them one step closer to potential ascension. The gauntlet is not only a test of physical agility and acuity, but also of determination. It can prove lethal for some. But the rules are clear.You must all attempt it, whether you complete it or not.”
I searched the crowd again, looking for the one face that, despite my resolve to the contrary, still mattered.
He wasn’t there.
Dharma and Priti were ahead of me in the line leading up to the ladder that connected to the platform that was the start of the gauntlet. Chaya and Keyton had already taken positions below us, ready to jump in and save them if something went wrong. The other drohi waited on the sidelines for their demigods’ turn.
But I had no such safety net.
