Page 33 of Trial of Thorns
I flop back, splashing water and floating there for a moment, the bubbles barely covering my most intimate parts. Raven swallows.
“Come on. This might be your only chance at a fae bath.”
She sighs and sheepishly strips down to her underwear and climbs in. She shivers as the warm water covers up to her shoulders.
“What is this stuff?” She holds the bubbles up to her nose, sniffing. “Lavender?”
“Close. It’s probably the fae equivalent.” I shrug.
“So, tell me about today,” she says, drifting closer. “What the hell was that?”
“What?”
“All of it? Those guys tying you up and setting those things on you. Then those dragonish creatures? You RODE one. No one else even tried that.”
I shrug. “Well, I didn’t have much choice. The wires connecting the two sides were severed.”
“So, you just thought: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?”
I chuckle. “Something like that.”
“And the popular kids trying to torture you to death?”
I shrug. “I already told you about that.”
“Barely,” she mutters. “They’re really going to go out of their way to kill you?”
I nod slowly. “I knew I wouldn’t have any friends here.”
“What about the hairy one? He’s your friend now, right?”
“Maybe. We haven’t spoken. I hope we can be allies for the next couple challenges because apparently that’s something I need. If the others are banding together, I’m going to need some help.”
She dips her head back, sudsing up her hair. “Yeah.” She bites her lip, watching me as I attempt to scrub the sticky blood and mud off my arms.
“Want some help?” she asks, her eyes pinned to my shoulder. I watch her carefully, but she schools her features, giving away no emotion.
I nod slowly and then shift to the side of the tub and grab a red rag from a basket near the wall.
She dips the towel into the water, and I turn as she gently pulls it across my skin. “Is even that going to be enough?” she says quietly. “Is this whole thing... really worth it?”
I bite my lip. “I don’t know.”
She doesn’t respond to that, just cups some water, trickling it over where she recently scrubbed.
“That first challenge was exceptionally intense, but it was designed that way,” I say.
“Meaning?”
“They invited all the courts to enter, even ones they don’t want to win. So they can weed out the weaklings as quickly as possible. It’ll make the rest of the challenges simpler.”
“They don’t want some to win?”
I shrug. “The queen seems to be intent on the strongest winning, no matter who they are, but that usually means the ruling courts. They’re the most powerful, with strong blood lines and magic and influence. They’ll want to make sure, if nothing else, a lesser court doesn’t win.”
“Why?”
“Politics. The powerful courts want to keep their power. If a lesser courts win or show themselves as stronger in anyway, it destabilizes their claim to that power.”
