“God, is he ever not a douche?” I asked as we slowly picked ourselves back up, Dramin moving me out of the way as the magically reappearing chairs tried to land on our heads.
“I’m still waiting for that magical moment,” Dramin sighed. “First to witness it wins a hundred?”
He stuck out his hand and I gladly took it.
“Deal.”
We shook once and headed toward the door, Dramin silent and still and wise beside me. Just like always.
“Dramin can I ask you a question?”
“Always.” He smiled, though he was still looking at the door, hands plunged into the pockets of his bloodied jeans.
“If you knew someone was good, would you fight for them, even if everyone else disagreed?”
He exhaled, his eyes darting to me before focusing back on the door.
“Rowan, do you know why Talon does not approve of my wife?”
I could only shake my head no, the two had been bonded before I had seen five years. Far too young to have concrete memories besides that the cake was good, and the hair braiding boring.
“Because you didn’t turn into a womanizing whore like he did?”
“No,” he shook his head, chuckling at the truth in my statement. “It all stems from where she--”
“Rowan,” my mother called from the middle of the hall, cutting off what Dramin had been about to say. I froze in place, turning to where she sat in a chair, a mug of black water perched on her knee. “It’s later.”
A rock lodged itself in my throat, it swelled and burned until I couldn’t do much more than sputter and gasp, everything from stomach to throat suddenly tight and uncomfortable.
I knew exactly what later meant, and why she had that mug on her lap.
I hadn’t been brought here to witness Talon throwing a hissy fit, or join Council. I was sure she thought this would be more comfortable than the frightening underground cave she had first taken me too.
I still wasn’t interested.
“We can talk about that later,” Dramin whispered, his hot hand on my shoulder feeling like a bomb. I gave him a brief nod, suddenly struggling to find the power to speak. “Good. See you later, baby brother.” Dramin clapped me hard on the back, sending me stumbling forward. “I’ll see you at Friday night dinner, Ma!”
She lifted the mug to him in farewell, the slam of the door closing coming only a second later. But I still couldn’t move, I was trapped. There was no running away from a powerful, immortal Drak, and after what I had admitted earlier I might as well be locked in a cage with what was about to happen.
“I really don’t want to have this conversation, mom.” I finally forced out, the words distorted by that damn rock that was now trying to fuse itself in my chest.
“If you are having sight then we need to have this conversation, Rowan.”
“I’m not having sight, I’m having drea--”
“Dreams, I know,” she cut me off before taking a slow sip from the mug. “I had dreams too. Some good, some bad. Your Uncle Dramin, whom you never got to meet, was the only other Drak I really knew. He taught me that those dreams were sight forcing their way out.”
“Or they are just dreams,” I said stubbornly, still refusing to move.
“Fine. Then how long have you been dreaming of her?”
There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t give me away.
“A while.”
“And how long have you known she was the one behind the attacks?” She didn’t seem nearly as disappointed as she should be. Especially after seeing my Dad and Talon go at it. She was still looking at me with that same gleam of pride her eyes. Her son, the Drak, who could do no wrong.
The truth of it cut against me like a wire brush, digging into my emotions until they were all raw and unwanted.
“A while,” I was grinding my teeth together now. “Mom. I haven’t changed my mind. Not from ten years ago. Not from last week. And not from this morning when you left that mug on my desk.”
“Different mug,” she teased, ignoring my rambling frustration.
“Same poison.” I pushed “I’m not going to drink. I don’t want to see where all these bloodstains came from. I don’t want to see what’s burning. I don’t want to feel responsible when I can’t stop another death!”
“No one has died--”
“But they will,” I interrupted her, grateful when she didn’t go all commanding Queen on me. “And I don’t want the blood on my hands when that happens. When I fail to stop it.”
“Honey, I think--” Her words cut off as though she had hit a brick wall. Her face going blank as she turned to the main door of the room a second before Ilyan burst back through, Ryland and Mira right behind them.
They all looked terrified.
I had been ready to argue, to put my foot down and make a stand, but seeing the panic and fear that was peeling away from them all took it all away.
“How bad?” Mom asked, the mug left in the middle of the floor as she rushed toward them, my father opening the door wide.
“The roof is gone from what the guard saw.” My father began, his voice the same dark rumble of before. “There are a hundred on the ground. It looks like they cleared the Northside Way-home out right before then.”
“The Way-home?” I asked, not that anyone paid me any attention. Way-homes were the shelters for Mortals with no place to go. Homeless shelters, my mom had called them once. I had been to one years ago after the first Gauntlet I attended. The place was clean, nice, but full of teens turned out by their Chosen parents after they failed the Gauntlet. Full of mortals who were starving and desperate.
It was shortly after that that my dreams began.
That I began to see how wrong this world is.
But to clear out a way home? To attack a cathedral?
It didn’t make sense. Something had happened and I wasn’t about to close my eyes and take a peek to find out what. No matter how much my head was spinning.
“We know of at least twenty that have died, although the Skȓíteks are battling it, they aren’t fighting. And they can’t find the original attackers.” Mira said as my mother finally reached them, throwing the door wide to escort her through, and let it slam behind them.
“Wait. What happened?” I called after them, seconds before the door shut.
Ryland pushed it open again, he and my mother stood there, my mother's hand wrapped around his bicep as though she had tried to pull him back. My father and Mira had already gone.
“There was an attack, Rowan,” Ryland said with as much dread on his face as in his voice. “The Cathedral in Prague is burning; something was written there...”
He pressed his lips together, my mind flashing with a million dreams of Gemma and her people and all their raids. All the times I should have said something.
“But that girl, Gemma…”
“No,” Ryland said, shaking her head. “It wasn’t her. This time it’s the Chosen. They are fighting back.”
My mother's magic flared then, a pop pulling both of them out of the cave and into the city where everything was burning. The door slid shut, leaving me alone in the dim room, with the bloodstains that were starting to feel like dark omens of what was to come.
12
Sia
The air didn’t smell so much like blood, and the world didn’t feel so much like pain. In fact, everything felt amazing. It was as though I was made of light, and air, and sparks.
Sparks.
Magic.
My magic.
The last thing I remembered was Thomas pressing the fangs of the Vilỳ into my wrist while Wynifred held me down. Pain was everywhere, growing worse as the poison flooded my veins, awakening my power.
Now, that power was everywhere.
I sat bolt upright in bed, sucking in a breath that felt like my first in years and saw the world with a glimmer that didn’t seem real. Like everything was brighter. Cleaner.
Although that could have been becaus
e of where we were.
An underground cavern, the ceiling covered with mirrors and metal sculptures that let light shimmer over everything like stars.
“The Caves of Imdalind,” I sighed in recognition. I swear I could have felt the buzz of energy in the air.
“You’re awake. Shame, I was hoping you would last longer.” The low drawl didn’t chill me as much as it usually did. Everything was too warm and sparkly for that.
“Hello, Mother,” I said as I turned, taking a glance at my wrist and the raised brand in the center. It looked like a fairy, or a dog with wings. I couldn’t quite make it out.
I would have to examine it later.
My mother looked as sour as she always did, staring at her phone as she tapped the screen a few times before glancing up at me.
“Your father is on his way,” she said. I smiled and she soured further. “This will not be a pleasant reunion, Sia. You nearly failed us.”
“Nearly. But not quite. All things considered, I think this is an even better outcome,” I said, looking around the massive hall that I had been placed in.
The place was lined with old metal framed beds, each one stripped down to an old blue and white striped mattress. A few were stained, some were ripped, some were missing altogether. But that was it. Me, my mother, and hundreds of forgotten beds.
“Where are we?”
“Imdalind,” she snapped, back on her phone already. At least I had gotten that one right.
“Where is everyone?” I tensed, her dark eyes lifting from the phone to bore into me. Although after getting the same look from the Queen I doubt the glance would ever have the same impact again.
The Queen could accomplish it much better.
“Gone, Sia. Gone home, preparing for the first day of Imdalind Academy. You slept through all of it.” She wasn’t smiling, considering what she had said I would have expected even the tiniest nudge of one.
If I was the last one here, my magic was the most powerful in my year.
“I knew it,” I gasped, the old metal bed whining as I twisted, double checking that I really was the last one here. “I was meant for this.”
“Meant for what exactly?” My mother snapped, the phone falling down to her lap with a tiny thunk of metal against her starched wool skirt. “Meant to be the last through? Meant to finish behind hundreds of Drains? Meant to fail? Because you did all of that.”
“The test was rigged, mother. The tasks, they changed them. They were made for the Drains. Those damn rats all rushed through.”
My mother said nothing, she was back to tapping on her phone, her dark eyes darting up to mine when the loud grind of a stone door echoed from somewhere in the distance, the loud echoing taps of expensive leather shoes following right behind. Only one person I knew could walk with such power.
“They cheated, mother. I’m sure of it.”
“You think we don’t know that?” my mother hissed under her breath as my father stepped into the light. “Everyone has been talking about it. Hardly any of the Golden Children made it through. You, and Tasha, and Miko are three of only a handful. And you barely made it.”
She looked up from her phone at that last part, her eyes narrowing as my father wrapped his hand around her shoulder. He was staring down at me with as much intensity.
“Father,” I nodded my head as I had tried to do with King Ilyan what felt like hours before.
What was it really? Days? Weeks? Months?
“Glad to see you are finally with us. They were considering beginning the school year without you.” There wasn’t a drop of emotion on his face or in his voice.
You would think after a meeting with the King and Queen and being honored with their recognition they would be showering me with flowers.
“How long was I out?”
“Nearly three weeks,” mother provided, setting her phone down to look at me. To smile at me. Finally. “The longest awakening in nearly thirty years.”
“Three weeks? Then why are you…?” I caught myself before the accusation tumbled out. If I had the strongest magic in thirty years, they shouldn’t care how I finished. I knew them well enough to know that.
Something else must have happened.
My mother’s phone buzzed, a familiar image flashing on the screen.
Gemma. I was sure I snarled with how fast both of them turned to me, eyes narrowed.
“What happened with the girl? That one with illegal magic?” Yes, I was snarling.
The two of them, however, did not answer. They stared at me, vitriol and malice dripping from their eyes.
“Did they recycle her?” It was a polite term we used for when we pulled the Drains out of the sewer and forced them into The Wastelands. The old work camp was close to the radioactive waters, hundreds of unusable Drains lived in old factories and communal camps and were monitored by barcodes implanted in their wrists. A constant reminder of the bite mark that would never be there.
It was the perfect place for her, but I could already tell she wasn’t there.
“Where is she?”
“At the Academy.”
“What?” My shriek echoed off the far walls of the cave, it bounced in my ears and pricked up my anger into a bubbling wave of heat under my skin.
Magic. God, I was going to love this.
“Shut up and sit back down, Sia,” My father growled, his wide hand flat against my shoulder as he forced me down to the bed. I could feel his magic more acutely now, the little sparks of his power reacting against mine. “They don’t know you’re awake, and we would like to keep it that way at the moment. We need to speak with you before they whisk you away.”
“This is a conversation we would rather not have the Eternal scum overhear,” My mother continued, tucking me back into bed.
“Eternal Scum?” I shot back up, attempting to keep my voice low, but they pushed me right back down again.
“Yes. They have betrayed us, Sia. They have betrayed all of the Chosen.” My mother’s tone was a snarling whisper as she leaned closer. “They have brought the vile sub-beings into Imdalind Academy, into our lives, and praised them. Last week they announced their plans to unite us all again, to have the demented mortals live among the Chosen as family. As equals.”
Equals.
The word burned through me, muscles tensing as my anger boiled, the sparks of power and magic bubbling right with it.
“‘One culture. One future’,” my father quoted, his voice twisting around the words as he spat them back out at me.
“They enrolled that girl and her friends even though they did not complete the tasks. Even though they hurt hundreds of our people. Their kind has stolen the magic from hundreds of Goldens. And they let her in.”
“She should have been punished. She should have been killed,” I cut my mother off, that molten heat that was rolling through my veins picking up a notch, heating straight through to the tips of my fingers to the bed sheet and filling the air with the smell of burning cotton.
My magic was shooting from the tips of my fingers in dripping energy, like liquid lightning. Just like that girl’s, like my parents.
It was beautiful.
“Yes, we think so too,” My mother tucked her phone away as she leaned closer, both her and my dad hovering over me. “The Eternals are out of touch with their people. Something needs to change, but not this way.”
“What can we do? What can I do?”
“You were enrolled into the Academy on a technicality, Sia.” My father began, the bed frame squeaking as he sat on the edge. “You nearly failed us, and if it wasn’t for the negotiating skills we have bred into you, you would be home with so many of your friends. Disgraced.”
“You nearly are,” My mother began, back on her phone again.
“But your power is strong, the strongest in years. You have been raised with the right upbringing, and the right knowledge of the vile, under-bred Drains. You will be going to Imdalind Academy, and you will be helping us from the insi
de.”
I didn’t like the way this was building. I would always help my parents, always stand by them. But I had spent my entire life working to become one of the Eternals, and now they were cursing them. No matter the confusion inside of me, however, I had to lock it inside.
“Yes, Father,” I said, pushing myself back to sitting as the heavy grind of the door echoed over to us again, this time accompanied by an army of feet. “We need to prove that all that Drains need to die. This bubblegum bitch is the perfect opportunity.”
No matter what he thought of the Eternals now, that I agreed with.
“Good,” he continued, leaning closer as the footsteps did, his eyes digging into mine. “It will be your job to take her down. Accidents happen inside of Imdalind Academy after all, and with the prince there, perhaps you can continue with your plan. Bonding to them one thing, but to bring one of the Eternals into our cause,” he clicked his tongue, “I believe only you can accomplish that. Besides, the prince is young, he may be the weakest among them, but that only gives you more opportunity.”
“Opportunity to what?” I asked in a hush, leaning toward him as Ilyan, Ryland, and Mira came closer, the darkened edges of the room releasing them.
“To use him.” He smiled, patted my hand before leaning closer, and wrapping his arms around me.
I stiffened; he never gave hugs. He certainly was putting on an act this time.
“It’s the only way to make amends for your near failure, child,” he hissed into my ear, holding me closer as my head turned right to my mother, the phone gone now. She nodded in agreement.
I tightened my jaw. He said that like it was a threat. I would gladly kill the Drain, but he sounded like he wanted me to end the Eternals too.
“I am so glad you are okay. We were so worried,” My father continued in full voice, his voice cracking in false emotion. He leaned away from me, brushing some of the tangles of brown hair out of my eyes.
The Gauntlet Page 13
