Page 71 of The Ordeals
I blink quickly. My word, I know, would be claimed by Argus the just and mighty, but I’m wondering if I can trick her into more specificity. ‘Any specific god?’
She smiles. ‘For you, it would not be Aline the gentle and giving, nor Gwydion, the lesser goddess of trickery.’
I hesitate, but her response would fit. The word pushes to the forefront of my mind, rising up my throat to pool on my tongue—
‘And here’s another truth, DeWinter,’ she says, focusing back on me. ‘The first three Ordeals have weeded out those without courage, or cunning, or conviction. They’ve played on your fears and tested how you overcame them. But you may have noticed, we have not yettrulytested the depths of your magic. The fourth and final Ordeal, Initiation is the real test. And if your magic is not strong enough, you will not make it through.’
My breath hitches and I gulp down my drink. It’s eerily close to the Collector’s warning. Her answers twined together are like a carefully constructed word puzzle, which all lead me to the one word: ‘truth’. My code word is the old word for the opposite of lies, spoken by the gods themselves, if the church’s teachings are still to be believed. I look her in the eye and say a single word.
‘Veritas.’
Chapter 23
A Taste of Blood
Professor Silver smiles, glitter flecking her eyes. ‘Very good. You have passed the third Ordeal. Let us hope your partner also passes so you may progress to the fourth and final one.’ And before I can thank her, she turns away, gliding through the crowd, regal as a queen.
I down the rest of my toquay, divided over my victory. Elation and foreboding war inside me at the truth I have heard now from two different mouths. I place the empty toquay glass on a low table, turning for the door, and step out, past the entrance, into the hollow silence of the chamber beyond Keeper’s Hall. I need to find Alden. He should be here by now, and if he’s stuck in the first part of the Ordeal, I have to rescue him and make sure he also passes. It’s a game of information, of trading secrets and discerning the truth, and I have to tell him all I’ve gleaned.
But I find a woman barring my way.
A cold one.
My heart stutters in my chest. There’s a likeness I almost can’t pin down, yet I know, deep in my bones, in that feral, instinctive part of myself, that she is the same breed of monster that killed Dolly, and that Greg killed in the Morlagh. Perhaps it’s the pale gleam of her skin, or the grey hue that marks her edges … or just the sense of wrongness, of ethereal viciousness she wears like a dread shroud.
I stumble back as her grin stretches across her skull, eyes manic, gaze pinned to mine.
‘Hello, my dear …’ she purrs. ‘Your scent is …divine.’
Then she grips me by the throat and slams me into the wall.
My head cracks back and I claw at her fingers, the chamber tilting around me as my vision blurs. I fight down panic as her grip tightens, those manic eyes pinned on mine. I can’t reach the holders on my thighs with the stake or my switchblade, all I can do is try to breathe, try to stay alive. She’s slender and small, shorter than me with bone-pale skin and watery blue eyes, lips bloodless as she licks them and sniffs. She closes her eyes, as though in rapture, and I struggle in horror as she drags me down the wall, lowering my face to hers.
‘Itisyou,’ she breathes. ‘At last, I’ve found you.’
She opens her mouth, revealing perfect, glinting teeth—
And clamps her jaw around my throat.
I scream, thrashing against her grip as pain explodes in a vice around my neck. I can barely move, trapped like an animal, whimpering as her teeth sink deeper into my skin. I drag my fingernails through her hair, raking them back like claws, and every bit of training, every reflex, every strategy drummed into me sharpens to one singular thought:
I’m going to die.
My heels drum against the wall, the breath stolen from my lungs as a line of sticky warmth threads down my chest. The creature, the monster groans, as though in ecstasy, tilting my neck further in feral desperation.
A body barrels into her.
I slump to the floor, wheezing violently, heat rushing through me as I try to suck down a breath. I bring a hand to my throat, feeling blood,myblood in a cloying, warm mess … and when Idrag my hand away, holding it, shaking before me, I find a smear of scarlet. When I look up, the chamber doubling and swaying, I find Knox, pinning her to the ground, magic pulsing through him, bright, electric and dazzling in its intensity, illuminating his entire being as he draws a wooden blade laced with iron, and stabs. The raw magic, his powerfloodsthat blade, and the creature shrieks, scrabbling for his eyes with hands that extend like claws, features bulging hideously, teeth, those vicious teeth, sharp and pointed, still ruby red from … from …
‘Fuck…’ I cough, crawling towards them, reaching out to help him somehow, to hold her down. But Knox’s magic has overwhelmed her, burning her heart at the point of the blade thrust inside her. He rips it out in an arc of dark ruby and I freeze in mortal terror. Blood sprays across my face,herblood, hot and sour, and I’m aware of others, of hopefuls and scholars crowding in the doorway of the hall … and the chamber descends into chaos.
Knox’s eyes meet mine across all that red, the corpse between us, prone and dying. His magic fades, the illumination dulling so he appears as he normally does. But I’ve seen it now, and I can’t unsee it. The terrifying power Knox Darley commands.
Suddenly Alden is next to me, sinking to his knees, gripping my face in his. All traces of the smouldering tilt of his gaze are wiped away, leaving only raw panic. ‘Are you all right? Sophia?Are you all right?’
‘I …’ I wheeze again, closing my eyes as nausea claws at my insides. The blood,myblood, coating her teeth, how she fed on me, how she tried to … to … ‘The … that cold one—’
‘Knox got her,’ he promises, hands moving away as he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, bracing it gently against my throat. His arms come around me, shielding me from the gawping stares ofthe other hopefuls. ‘You’re safe. I don’t think she managed to take much from you. Knox tracked her in time.’
