I was here to make a stand, even if that stand was the last one I made. At this point, I was sure I wouldn't come back from this, so I might as well take it as far as I can. Maybe I would get lucky that take out one of the Eternals too.
Just imagining it was a thing of beauty. Thinking of them begging for forgiveness, me spitting at the feet of the man who had killed so many.
That's what was pulling me forward now. Closer to the end. There was only an abyss between me and finality now, at least I think it was an abyss. It was hard to tell when everything around was a black so dark it appeared to be nothing. Even with five makeshift lamps around us, I was having a hard time making it out.
The massive cavern inside stretched across our path as far as I could see, the gaping hole looking as though someone had broken the ground in half like stale bread. There wasn't any way to jump over the thing, and the flimsy stone bridges that stretched over them were already crumbling, the hollow sounds of stone against stone echoing back up to us as pieces fell off and tumbled their way down to whatever hell awaited them below.
Of course, that might have been the people that were blindly running toward the exit and stumbled into the gaping hole. Swallowed by the earth.
My heart was in my chest as I led us forward, giving everyone one silent look as we reached the bridge that looked to be the least likely to send us to our deaths.
"Stay close, but move quick," I hissed behind me, before I bolted over the thing, making the trek first. I wasn't about to make any of my people test the thing. Besides, if it collapsed, I was sure I could figure out how to magic my way back up. Or explode things on my way down.
Either way.
"Eddy, you come last," I instructed as I took my last step, a jagged piece of stone falling from the bridge. The sound of collapsing stone grated against my already ragged nerves. We needed to hurry.
With each step, more rock fell away. By the time we got to Ed there would be nothing left. Hand after hand, I helped everyone else to stable footing as Eddy helped them on to the narrow thing across from me.
So close.
Only Eddy and Aria were left, my hand reaching out to the girl when a rock hurled through the air, zipping right behind Aria before hitting Ed right in the head. With an agonizing howl, he went down, grabbing at the stone in an attempt to keep himself up.
“Gawd!” I yelled, pushing Adrian away as I tried to figure out a way to pull him up. Just like moving the man hold cover, there had to be a way.
Aria turned, reaching down to help Eddy up, just as a second stone hit her shoulder. Her quick movement had put her off balance, and the stone was like the last stick on a dwindling fire.
I watched in slow motion as Aria lost her footing and began to fall, arms outstretched, fingers searching for the hands that were seconds to slow to catch her. I was on my knees, clinging to stone as I reached over the edge, as Eddy turned and stretched, but we grabbed nothing but the air that was warm and swirling as my magic flared, unable to do more than slow her down.
It wasn’t enough.
“Aria!” I yelled, her name echoing over stone as her own scream swallowed my agony. As the dark swallowed her. As everything slowed down, as the world turned red.
“She’s fine. She belongs down there anyway.”
I tensed, my spine stiffening as though it had been zipped up. Every muscle, every bone, every boiling nerve ending was ready to attack the girl who stood on the other side of the bridge, smiling at me, bouncing a rock in her hand.
My anger boiled at the smug smile she gave us, the disgusted twist in her lip deepening as she jumped, using Eddy's face as a launchpad to land right before me. Right in my line of fire.
Inches from her death.
It wouldn't take much.
It wouldn't take anything more than a finger pressed against her heart. But using my magic on her would eliminate my ability to rise against the Eternals.
Against her.
“You all do, you should give up now, there is no place for you in our world.” She flipped her hair in my face before turning toward the red light, ready to run into the massive opening and the figures that were just beyond.
Toward the end.
Perfect timing.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going? No one hurts my people and gets away with it." I snatched her arm before she could take more than a few steps, pulling her back with a tug that should have sent her down into the abyss after Aria, but she held her ground.
As if that would help her.
“Get your hands off of me, Drain, or I’ll make sure the next time the CCC liberates a sewer they track you down as a special favor. My mother would see to it. We could use a new toiletry maid.” She yanked her arm out of my grasp, the shock at what she had said sinking in. The CCC. She knew them.
She was them.
I should have recognized her at once. She had her mother’s eyes, the woman who screamed at her Tarn army, who pushed them to murder us, who spoke for the king. His puppet, and our executioner.
Samantha Demarco. I didn't even know what her spawns name was, but I didn't care. She deserved what was coming for her.
“See you soon." She waved and took off, and I let her go. Let the red light of the ending frame her like the target in a bullseye.
“What are you doing Gemma? Don’t let her get away!” Adrian snapped, his hand pushing against my back and shoving me toward the girl. God, that guy needed to get a grip.
“Shut up Adrian," I snapped, pushing him back with as much force. Okay, maybe a little more. "Remember who you're talking to. I’m going to make sure she is right where I want her before we finish what we came here to do. She will be the first to burn.”
My magic was raging through me with more anger and fury than I had ever felt. It buzzed in my veins. It raged through my fingers.
She turned, the sneer dropping from her lips as she saw me, saw the violet magic. Magic the same shade as my eyes rippled over my skin, it licked the ground around me. The spectacle reflected in her eyes, the wide horrified orbs showing a power that I didn't think I held.
It would be my perfect last act.
For all the people they all killed. For all the people they had taken. For my mother, for my father. For Aria.
For freedom.
They would remember us now. They would never forget.
"All the glitters were never gold."
6
Rowan
Black was everywhere, the room of the last challenge of the Gauntlet nothing more than shades of grey against an ebony world. Those who were running the Gauntlet had to simply get from the open door behind them to the speck of light before them, where the Skȓíteks, my father's people and the guards who live with and protect the ‘royal family’, were waiting to administer the bite of the Vilỳ to the first two hundred runners. There were pitfalls and obstacles in between, of course, but all of them were concealed by the dark.
Dark to test your determination or some such shit. My parents had done something similar to me years before.
I wouldn’t have recognized it if it wasn’t for that, if my father hadn’t proudly given me a tour of his creation just days before, if I hadn’t recognized the depth of his magic as he created the space.
If I hadn’t realized that my dreams were no longer dreams at all.
Damn it. I was trapped in a sight. No, not a sight. I refused to think of it like that. A premonition.
My mind was trapped in the black with everyone else, surrounded by heaves of exertion, gasps of shock, and the panicked threats of the runners. The noise echoed around me as everyone tried to make their way through.
Great. The one place I had no interest in being, and I got stuck here anyway.
“Get your hand off of me, Drain, or I’ll make sure that the next time the CCC liberates a sewer they track you down as a special favor. My mother would see to it. We could use a new toiletry maid.” The unfamiliar girl's snap was so full of acid and hatred that I co
uld feel it twist against my spine as if the emotion was my own.
My head swam with it, the vision shimmering as two indiscernible figures pulled out of the dark and into shadow. Two girls. One, a beauty with chestnut brown hair that fell to her waist, was walking away from the other, taking the light with her and leaving them in shadow.
“What are you doing Gemma? Don’t let her get away!” Some guy snapped, his voice a bark in the smothering dark. Whatever light these people had been hovering around had gone, I couldn’t even see shadows now.
“Shut up Adrian. I’m letting her get closer before we finish what we came here to do.” A familiar voice snarled just as a spark pulled through the ebony nothing. Violet magic swallowed the dark, a spark of power dripping from bare fingers, revealing a scarred hand, a tattooed arm and that smug smile I had seen hundreds of times before.
The girl. The girl from my dreams, from my sight. She had magic. Illegal, damaged, uncentered magic. The Undermortals weren’t using a bomb, she had been bitten by a Vilỳ. We hadn’t caught them all as we had thought.
All of those attacks, the reason that girl had been haunting my dreams.
It was all leading up to this. A rebellion. A dangerous fight that had the potential to hurt hundreds.
That I needed to stop.
I didn’t even have time to be pissed that my Drak power was good for something. I needed to get out of this damn dream, out of this sight and warn them.
“She will be the first to know what we can do.”
Screams echoed through the dark as the violet blast exploded from her hand. Flames devoured everything; the dark, the stone, even the screams as the illegal magic turned back to the red that normally followed a sight.
“No! Stop!” I was up and heaving, hand reaching forward as my mind replayed the explosion. As I tried to stop it.
Stop it.
I needed to stop it.
I tried to untangle myself from my bedding, but cotton sheets knotted around my feet as my thick comforter wound round my knees. My panicked attempt to reach my desk and my phone turned me into a large cotton boulder and down I went.
With a hollow thud, I landed on a pile of dirty shirts and underwear and apparently my TV remote, because the thing snapped on to the worst thing possible: the live feed from the Gauntlet.
My parents stood on the raised platform, Uncle Ryland and Aunt Wyn on either side, all of them staring over the mass of people that clogged the former train station.
Great, it hadn’t started yet. I still had time.
"Quiet please." My father’s booming voice rattled the old speakers on the television set, bouncing over the stone walls of my underground bedroom as the camera zoomed in on the massive platform.
Thank god most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins were with them. Perhaps my mom had already seen something.
"We will begin the challenge in a few minutes.” I didn’t think my dad ever really turned the king off, but right then he was all King Ilyan. His back was an iron rod, his blue eyes narrowed at the crowd in such a way that I was sure he had used his magic on them all to get them to shut the hell up.
I’ve been on the receiving end of that a few times. Glad he was behind the screen this time.
“Okay dad, tell them all about your big plan,” I mumbled to myself as I wiggled my way out of the mess of sheets and blankets and back toward the mess on my desk that was concealing my phone. This was going to be cutting it close.
“I, and my family, are proud to join you for this, the seventieth anniversary of this competition. We are proud of the Chosen that have wielded the magic of Imdalind since we first began this challenge, and are eager to welcome more into Imdalind at the completion of this race."
"Where's Rowan?” The muffled interruption was barely audible through the television set, but it might as well have slapped me anyway. I turned to the static image as it panned from my father to the hundreds of eager faces.
The crowd was massive, full of more Undermortals than I had seen in one place, and more of the Chosen’s children than had run in years past. I didn’t need the question from the crowd to know that Talon’s prediction from weeks before had been correct. I was supposed to be starting at the Academy this year, and they were all there because of me.
Well, not me specifically, but an Eternal, any Eternal, at the school. I was sure some of them had waited to run the Gauntlet just to be in my year.
Sick.
"Our son is preparing to join many of you at Imdalind Academy and has been working with my nephew, Cail, to prepare.” You had to hand it to my mom, she was strangely good at lying. “He will be attending school with many of you beginning next week and is excited to meet with you then.”
Really good at lying. Or being diplomatic. I wasn’t sure what the difference was.
Her voice faded off, the tone growing hollow as her silver eyes dimmed. I knew that look. And not because the tiny strands of hair on the back of my neck were lifting up, my focus drifting in and out as sight had tried to connect me with her. I had simply seen it enough in her.
I turned back to my desk, pushing away the Drak magic that was trying to connect us, but not before one flash of sight was able to wiggle its way through.
It wasn’t the blast I had seen, however, nor the explosion, or the girl with the mohawk, but just an angry crowd, covered with dirt. She didn’t know.
“Shit.”
The King and Queen exchanged a look that the crowd had no chance to interpret, but Talon and Dramin had seen, and Patrice was already shuffling my little sister off the makeshift dais.
“Double shit.” Back to the phone.
“As you know, the Gauntlet was begun as a way to allow the magic of Imdalind to remain strong in our world. After the last Vilỳ was gathered, Joclyn and I built this challenge as a way for all children, from every background and lineage to hold the power of Imdalind. Children are granted access to this Gauntlet for two years after their seventeenth birthday and have three chances to successfully complete the race. The first one hundred to pass through the five challenges will be given a kiss from a Vilỳ that will awaken their magic and are enrolled into Imdalind Academy so as to harness their power.”
Notes from Angie, half eaten bagels, an old record my aunt Wyn had sent me last month. Everything was on my desk but the damn phone. My blood was boiling, fear and frustration rolling through my veins as my magic picked up in one boiling wave. I didn’t have time for this! I smacked my palms flat on the desk, my magic surging through the wood, through the air and buoying every single object above the desk. Papers, records, and half eaten bits of food hovered a foot above the worn wood surface, the cell phone spinning like a top in the middle of them.
“Finally.” I snapped the phone out of the air, letting everything collapse back to the desk with a clatter as my dad’s roaring voice continued in the background.
“On this, the anniversary of the creation of Imdalind Academy, we are pleased to announce that we have worked to make sure everyone who would like the opportunity to awaken their magic is able to. An additional five hundred who are interested in seeking their power have been brought here today. We have also worked to give everyone an equal opportunity to join the tradition of the Chosen, by increasing the students we will welcome into Imdalind to two hundred and introducing brand new challenges to our Gauntlet.”
I was only half way through the text when the screams ripped through the television, rattling the old speakers as fear and anger ripped through the crowd. Ripped through me.
Angie was gone, all of my aunts and uncles and cousins having taken her place as they stood around the King and the Queen. I guess it’s good I hadn’t gone. I would have been shuffled away like Angie. Even at eighteen, I was not considered nearly old enough to be an adult in my family.
My family.
All of which appeared to be there, which meant I was the only one left in the caves of Imdalind. Good for them to stop whatever was about to happen. Bad for me.
“We wish you all luck in your endeavor, and will greet the new Chosen once they have awakened from their kiss with magic running in their veins.” my dad yelled over the angry shouts as they all backed off the stage, the camera panning over the crowd as they flooded toward the double doors that had been thrown open. The crowd had turned into a mob.
The children of the Chosen were climbing over each other to be the first through. But they were the only ones that had ridden their fancy panties up their ass. All of the Undermortals had clustered near the back of the crowd, walking slowly toward the opening as they laughed, yelled, and nodded toward the girl that was in the center of the group, her bright pink mohawk lifting a foot above everyone else.
“Well, holy fuck on a chipped china plate.”
I really shouldn’t have been surprised, and I was more pissed than surprised. Damn Drak magic and all that.
Screw the text.
Pressing my thumb against the phone, I let my magic surge into it, buzzing the thing to life and connecting me right to the one person who would understand and probably not flip her shit about all of this.
“Hello?” Her little voice buzzed through the phone’s speaker, mixing with the announcer as the last of the Undermortals vanished through the Gauntlet doors, the massive things snapping shut behind them.
“Angie, it’s Rowan. I need you to do something for me.”
“Row? What’s going on? Everything here is scary all of a sudden.” I cringed, I could hear the shake in her voice, the sound eating me up. I was about to make that scary a whole lot worse.
“Yeah, Angie, it’s important. I need you to tell mom that you saw an explosion, in the black room. Tell her there is a bomb.”
It wasn’t quite the truth and it twisted in my gut. I knew what I had seen, that girl had magic. They needed to know, they needed to stop her, and I stood thousands of miles away, watching an empty train station on the television, lying to my sister. Protecting the last person on earth that I should be.
“Rowan,” She hissed into the phone, her voice muffled as she held the receiver too close. She may be just a kid, but Angie was nowhere near dumb, or gullible. “Did you see something?”
The Gauntlet Page 6
