Page 91 of The Ordeals
I raise my eyes and my gaze locks with Alden’s. His eyes, caramel and oak and the soft light spinning through the woods at dusk are painfully full and brimming. Something twists in my chest and I brush my fingertips against his. Unless I can trick one of those portals, my fate will be the same as Betram’s; I’m sure of that now. There is no raw magic fizzing inside me as my mother hoped in that letter to Ezra Darley. I have even less magic now after being drained. There is no hope.
And I cannot let him see that. Because I know that if I show an inch of the turmoil inside myself to him, he would carry my weight and find a way to sacrifice himself. I cannot let him. So I rip my gaze from his, square my shoulders and say, ‘Best of luck, Locke.’
I catch his slight inhale, I hear him murmur something, low and quiet. Then before my resolve snaps, before I can become his weakness, I take a few pained steps away. When I glance back, his eyes are on the arena, features sharp and emotionless, as before. Good. Let the coldness hone him. Let him make it through.
He has pierced my heart like a burr, something I can’t shake loose. There are words for this feeling, words for the way I feel about Alden Locke that sing in my mind, like a symphony. I ache for him; I yearn to offer him the comfort we both need, to make us soft and tangled. But I cannot. He must be sharp; he must cut like a weapon if he is going to survive this. I must sever this radiance, this chain between us. That is the only way I can love him now. Because now I know two things without a doubt …
I love Alden Locke.
I am going to fail.
I send a wish, a silent hope up to those old gods, not the twisted versions that Fion believed in, not the way the church in Alloway uses them as a form of control, but to the ones of our churches in Kellend, which are becoming forgotten since the Fair Age. Iask them to ensure I’ll survive this. But with the wounds carved into my flesh, the blood the cold one took, the fight with Fion, I am drained. Exhausted. My whole being trembles, on the brink of giving up, and all that’s holding me together is knowing that if I falter now, if I fall apart, Alden or Tessa or Greg or Knox will come for me. And I refuse to put them through that. Or diminish their chances of making it through.
Knox tips his fingers at me in a kind of salute, and takes the first steps. A few other hopefuls begin testing the edges of the Ordeal, the flames, the vines, skirting those prowling shadows. After watching Betram, we’re all cautious. I pull together all I am, all I have left, and split off to the right, angling for a podium near the back. Screams ripple out from the other hopefuls, but I don’t dare look to see who. My fingers shake, blood still oozing from the places those thorns dug in, and I’m just so tired. But as I sweep my gaze over the route I need to take, filled with seeking vines, the shadowy wraiths and gargoyles standing sentinel on many podiums, I lift my right hand in the air, ready to wield. Even if it’s too little, even if that portal blasts me back, I will try. I will not fail without knowing I gave everything to succeed.
I step into the arena.
There’s a tumble of vines before me and I pull out my switchblade, gritting my teeth as I scrape together the pieces of myself. They’re snaking, grasping for my skin, the air growing humid and thick around them. I twist, slash, twist, cutting away a vine that snaps around my wrist and pulls. I’m yanked forward, into the heart of green, and gasp as another vine twists around my throat.
Stars gather, stars and smoke as I choke, pulling its snaking trail away from my neck with my fingertips. Air, I need air, I need cool and light—
I roll, eyeing the flame just next to these snaking vines, feelthe heat and crackle, the hunger. And the vines, they shrink away. I shuffle closer to the podium, easing from the grip of the vine around my throat and take a full, gasping breath as it relinquishes its hold. The fire smoulders and I choke, sweat beading along my hairline. It’s a fine divide between the twisting vines and the flame, tasting the air, undulating like water. But I have to get up, I have to inch along that divide. If I tip one way or the other, I’m dead. With the portal in sight that I’m aiming for, I continue on.
A choking gasp stills my heart and I whip around, finding another hopeful, Charlotte in the vines at my back. Her hand is extended, reaching for the edge, reaching for the flame. But three vines lash out, holding her tight, dragging her back, and then even further back and more appear, curling around her, until she is nothing but a writhing mass of green. All I see before she disappears, her lungs constricted, chest caving in, is the terrified whites of her eyes.
Shuddering, I keep moving, aiming for the podium with no gargoyle atop it. All around are screams and shouts, the whistle and shriek of unseen things, and the crackle and roar of flame. I can barely see any of the others, barely see anything but the flame, and the podium, the shimmering portal above, shooting upwards like a beacon if I just twist and leap. But the podium is almost impossible to climb, made of what appears to be marble, cold and smooth, no footholds, no way of moving up it if you are not able to manipulate non-living matter. I glance to the left, finding another podium, smaller, with no portal. And at the base, it’s cracked.
I am nothing but fear and adrenalin now. That’s all that’s holding me together as I charge for it. Throwing all my strength, whatever raw magic I have inside me, I sink my shoulder into it andshove. It groans, wobbling and I grit my teeth, trying again. A vine lashes out, past the wall of flame, wrapping my ankle but I wrench it back witha hiss and try again. This time I close my eyes, imagining it falling, imagining it pummelling that podium, creating a bridge—
It sways, then begins to fall. As it connects it echoes through the arena so loudly that several eyes turn my way. Other hopefuls, scholars watching on, the smoky wraiths lurking on the ground. One prowls closer, a writhing creature of darkness, shifting suddenly to re-form into a shadow far too close …
I scramble along the podium, keeping my balance on the slippery, rounded edge, heart in my throat as I leap for the portal.
Something slams into my side.
I drop to the ground, narrowly missing a spit of flames beneath me and roll, finding a shadow crouched over me. My side barks in pain as I raise my hands, fear and horror filling my body. This looming creature, this maw of night looks ready to devour me whole.
It bends towards my chest and I smell decay and death and longing. And as though it desires more than flesh, more than my body, it nuzzles my chest and inhales.
I scream in rage and terror, all mingled together, as my heart leaps in the cage of my ribs, as though this creature is prying my very soul from me. I try to grasp it, try to stab it with my blade, but it’s made of nothing but smoke, ethereal and ravenous. It’s feeding on everything I am, just like the cold one, just like that imperious, vicious being.
I have barely anything left to fight with. But right there I find myself balanced, on the edge of a knife, a blade, and I’m not ready to topple off, so I dig deeper. I grip that feral, steely part of myself, the core of my being that does not break, does not shatter—
And push.
Time slows around me, the roaring screams of the other hopefuls fading away, and something inside me, something buried so deep, so much deeper than I’ve ever dug before … sparks.
I’m a lit match. A single flame, a flare in the darkness. I cradle it inside myself, that ember, that slow-building flame, coaxing it out, letting it fill me, consume me. I close my eyes and breathe. Every lesson from the Collector. Every time I’ve quaked and trembled before an assignment, but lifted my chin and done it anyway, every room I’ve sauntered into, stalking a mark, every time I’ve walked the city streets alone, so horribly aware of my own vulnerability, fear prickling at my fingertips, eyes and teeth lurking around every corner, waiting …
The vault. The loss of control, the endless, cloying dark, my nails as a child as they scrape so uselessly at the door, the charged silence, burdened with the horror that he might not let me out this time, that I’m a ghost, that I’m powerless, that I will never be anyone but that.
Then the gates of Killmarth, the fist pummelling me back, the breaking as I shoved and shoved, as I made it through and the bracelet shattered—
I mould all of it. I take all those strands of myself, every weakness, every fear, every time I’ve got back up. Every time I kept going, placing one foot in front of the other, kept fighting, kept breathing—
I open my eyes. And the shadow stares back.
Not today.
