Page 89 of Trial of Thorns
“I guess that’s good for her.” I nod toward the blond without looking at her.
“I’ll know my way around it,” she agrees.
“Although, the scourge passed through that area. We might have to face that tomorrow.”
“Really?” she whispers.
Did she not know?
“Where did it hit?”
“Just one corner of the Whisperwood and some small mining town before moving on.”
She bites a lip and looks down at her lap. Does she care about her homelands? She hasn’t set foot there in a decade so far as I know. It’s hard for me to imagine her feeling anything at all.
She doesn’t look up, so I take the non-threatening moment to examine my enemy closer than ever before. Her eyes darken as she stares at the fire. Her eyebrows gently pinch together. Otherwise, she shows no evidence of pain.
Is that what it is that covers her eyes? Pain? I suppose if someone is full of rage and pain, it would be her. She’s so messed up inside, her blackened soul covers the true color of her eyes. Her essence.
I blink away the image of the golden eyes of the girl in the vision.
I can’t feel sorry for her. Even as her voice echoes through my head, begging my brother to stop as he held her down.
I stand suddenly. “I’m going to take a walk.”
They don’t stop me. They don’t say a word, and I don’t ask what they did to take away the pain in my side. My muscles are still stiff and sore, but my abdomen doesn’t pain me at all.
I take a long walk around the mountain top and stare out over the star-streaked sky for several long minutes. The skyline is vaguely visible in the moonlight. I wish I’d had the opportunity to study the valley while the sun was still up. But no, I had to be a stubborn fool and push my body to its breaking point to prove my worth to an enemy.
So foolish.
Their theory is interesting—that we’ve walked through portals, transporting us hundreds of miles without us knowing it—but potentially ludicrous. Luckily, the clue is transparent enough. Whether our arena is as basic as it seems or something more complex—they did say it would be a maze—southwest should take us where we need to go.
I suppose the real question will be if we pay enough attention to our surroundings to make our way back by the week’s end. If there are portals, they might be showing us the way through the maze without us knowing, and we’ll need to retrace it to finish the trial.
I consider this as thoroughly as I can, alone with the wind and the stars’ calming hue. I close my eyes and think through everything I’ve learned. Though each task will be a challenge in a different way, testing us physically, mentally, and emotionally, the trial itself is surprisingly simple. The more I think about it, I suspect their theory is correct or close to it. We are meant to notice our surroundings and figure out the difference between real and fake. Notice when what we’ve left behind has changed. Realize when our paths have switched on us.
A maze that doesn’t appear as a maze.
If we are literally travelling to the other side of our country, they’ve taken out hundreds of miles between making it a y possible journey in the five days. I will certainly be keeping my eyes open for how these planes may have been folded. Are they directing us through small portals? I recall a bridge over a river that may have held some clues. Or are the portals miles wide so we couldn’t miss them? Is that even possible? There will either be one route we must memorize or a pattern we must uncover.
They’d told us at the beginning of this trial that we’d need to travel to each corner of the arena, so it’s easily assumed we’ll travel to the exact southwest corner. We traveled at least ten miles to reach the Ruby Well, which was apparently the northeast corner. We are now moving toward what must be the southwest corner. If we are to hit all four corners in five days, and we’ve already missed one day, there is no other option.
My eyes begin to grow heavy again, my mind satisfied with enough information for now. I’ll be very interested to see how our journey goes tomorrow. Not only the destination but every twist and turn between.
This challenge, much like the trials in general, will easily become more and more complicated as time passes.
