Page 94 of The Ordeals
I huff a laugh and groan, Tessa finally stepping away, wiping ather eyes. ‘I was number twelve. Knox, of course, was number one. First person to make it out of the arena.’
‘I was number fifteen,’ Greg says proudly, waving at me from a few feet beyond the bed. ‘Had to transform into a werewolf, but the professors agreed it wastechnicallyallowed, and somehow I got a commendation for transforming back seamlessly without nibbling anyone.’
I crack a grin at them all, pride and relief hitting me in a wave. They all made it through. Weallmade it through.
‘You were number twenty-one,’ Tessa says in awe. ‘How? How did you open a damn portal, when you’d only just discovered your dominant magic? That takes years of honing, right, Knox? Years! And only if that’s your specialism within alchemy.’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I say honestly, swallowing back a wince. My throat feels like sandpaper. ‘And if you asked me to do it again right now, I don’t think I could. It was just … will. And stubbornness. I don’t even know yet what my specialism is.’
‘Sheer dumb luck,’ Alden croaks. Everyone turns to him as his eyes fall on me and he shakes his head. ‘I’m really fucking mad with you. You could have died.’
I grin at him as the others all shuffle aside. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ he says, grinning back.
‘Well, this is fun,’ Knox says, pointing a finger between us. ‘Enjoy your convalescing. No getting frisky in the medical wing.’
I chuckle as Tessa motions to Greg. ‘We’ll leave you to rest,’ she says and they all troop out.
For a moment, the silence deepens between Alden and me. There’s no one else in the beds here. And I’m still so weak, I can barely keep my eyes open. They’re weighed down with lead. But I keep blinking, studying him, the relief almost overwhelming that we both made it out of there.
‘You nearly lost your place because of me,’ he says quietly. ‘You could have stepped through that portal and guaranteed your place as a scholar.’
‘I chose not to leave you behind,’ I reply. ‘You could have gone through a portal long before me. You shouldn’t have waited to check I was all right.’
‘You chose me,’ he says, eyes deep and velvet, all caramels and mahogany. ‘You fought for me.’
‘Yes. I chose you.I choose you, Alden.’
Somehow saying it now, in the stark cold of day after the frenzied turmoil of the Ordeals, I realise it’s true. It isn’t rooted in trauma, it’s something pure and good that has grown despite what we’ve been through. I reach out, reach my fingers towards him, and he winces, holding out the hand on his good, unbandaged arm, his fingertips just brushing my own. That contact is like air in my lungs. It’s everything. I choose him. I choose this man, and I don’t regret it.
‘But you didn’t know if you’d get through, if you’d make it—’
‘And yet we’re here,’ I say. ‘Back at Killmarth.’
I don’t tell him what I was thinking in those moments when I realised there was only one portal left. When I shoved him through. But Dolly flashes in my mind now, smiling, eyes full of nothing but love. She would have been proud of the decision I made; I know it. Prouder still that I fought to find a way through, even when all hope was lost. And she would have liked Alden.
He sighs. ‘So you’re allowed to swoop in and be a hero, but I’m not allowed to protect you.’
I crinkle my nose. ‘Looks that way, doesn’t it?’
He chuckles and I feel those deep, honeyed notes all the way to my toes. ‘This means we’re not even, DeWinter. I owe you, and I don’t like it.’
‘You’ll find some way to repay me, I’m sure.’ I sigh, retracting myhand and snuggling lower under the sheets. My entire being aches and throbs, as though the magic I shoved with brutal force into the air to create a portal, a path to him, left me on the point of burnout. And this is the result: a stay in the medical wing, a mortal body that needs time and rest. And a beautiful face, just next to mine, alive and whole and luminous.
‘How about this: I promise to protect you when you actually need protecting. And you save me when I need it. How about that?’
‘I can live with that,’ I say, eyeing him carefully. ‘But you do still owe me one other thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘You owe me a date, Alden Locke. If we’re together now, I want romance,’ I say, closing my eyes and feeling that distant lure of slumber. ‘You owe me a damn good date.’
I hear his answering chuckle before I’m swept all the way under.
Alden’s arm heals over the next few days, but the scars, the burns of magic, blaze silver. Threads, like molten metal weave over his skin from shoulder to wrist, an ever-present reminder of what he endured. What we both did. He may have survived the final Ordeal, but his arm will forever feel cold, as though a vice of ice wraps around it from the burn of magic and shadow he endured. As the ceremony begins, I touch the mark on my own wrist. The mark of darkness, a spider web of inky lines flaring out over my skin from those twin puncture wounds. When they meet daylight, I’ve found the mark burns with a searing pain. Perhaps it’s because he drew more than just blood. Perhaps he tried to offer something of himself in return.
But I survived him. I survived that monster with the gentleman’s polite smile, the careful tailoring, the wicked, vicious thirst, but barely. And if one of his ilk finds me again, if they come for me, I know they’ll be more prepared. Although, I suppose, I will too.
