by Everly Frost
With that, he spins and strides from my sight. I blink away my surprise. I have to focus on the trial now. When I reach Jordan, my brain is already working at a million miles an hour.
I say, “Winning at this test is as much about preparation as endurance. I need clothing to withstand the climb and protect me from the weather, as well as food and equipment. I’ll need to survive a night in the mountains. And I don’t have as much time as the other champions to prepare because I need to subdue the Storm.”
She keeps pace beside me, calling the Storm Command to bring the chest. “We still have packs prepared from when we climbed the Rath peaks to collect webs and husks. I’ll modify the contents of one of those. And you can wear the same climbing suits we used—they’re light but thermal to guard against the cold.”
“I’ll gather food,” Elise chimes in.
“No, please, I need you with me in the Vault. I have a feeling it’s going to be hell today.”
13. Baelen Rath
The three friends I trust most in the world wait for me in my room—the room I’m starting to call the Map Room because it feels less like a place for sleeping and more like a place for plotting the future.
I close the door. “Everything’s changed.”
Sebastian sits in one of the chairs, his head in his hands, his features drawn, and his eyes dull. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. I fought them, Baelen. I fought them hard, but my grandfather insisted I had the best chance of making it through the trials.”
I level my gaze with his. “You’re the strongest warrior in your House, Sebastian. Don’t apologize for something you have no control over.”
He doesn’t let it go. “I know what Marbella means to you.”
I place my hand on his shoulder. “I know what Jordan means to you. We will make it right, but right now, we have to focus on the first trial.”
Macsen leans against the table. “The plan’s changed, hasn’t it?”
I nod. “The Elven Command won’t allow me to tell anyone about the new gargoyle nests, but I’ve found a way around their rules. We need to bring Marbella into it.”
The third male steps forward. He’s calm and reserved, a clever fighter, and one of the most compassionate elves I’ve ever met. Other males often misinterpret his compassion as weakness, thinking they can best him in a fight. They always regret it.
“Jasper.” I greet him with a warrior’s grip. He’s the champion from the House of Grace, but as it’s a minor House, he wasn’t allowed to arrive until a few hours before the Ceremony.
He asks, “Are you sure that’s the right approach, Baelen? You’ll be asking her to risk her life.”
“She’s strong, Jasper. She can do it. Particularly because you’ll be watching her back.”
His lips part in surprise, then form a determined line. “It will be an honor. Thank you for trusting me with this, Baelen. I won’t let you down.”
Trusting him is easy. Surviving the trials will be harder, not least because Rhydian Valor was chosen as the champion for his House.
I push away my fears and doubts. Risking my own life is so much easier than risking my friends’.
“I’ll see you at the start of the trial,” I say.
Then I turn on my heel. It’s time to return to the Storm Vault.
14. Marbella Mercy
The wind picks up first, wailing around the walls of the Storm Vault. It’s so fast and thick that it looks like water streaming against the walls. The center where I stand is total calm. My heart sinks. The storm’s only done this once before—the day of Rordan Rath’s funeral—the day I tried to see Baelen.
I’m not an unwitting victim this time and I don’t wait for the Storm to build. I know what’s coming and it’s not pretty. I hold my hand up high, drawing the lightning down to me, waiting for it to encompass my arm and torso like armor made of light. I feel stronger with it around me. Then I scream into the clouds. “Why are you doing this, Beast?”
A small but visible wind tunnel separates from the wailing wind spinning around the Vault. It’s a mini tornado and it shoots right at me, screaming sound as it moves.
Your husband will kill you.
I duck. The tornado speeds past my ears and does a U-turn right back at me.
“No, he won’t! I won’t have a husband. I’m fighting for myself.”
The tornado strikes at me like a snake. I throw my hands up to ward off the blow, expecting the pain of the lashing wind.
Everything stops.
He won’t be himself.
The whisper comes from right in front of me. I release my crossed arms and open my eyes to find the mouth of the wind tunnel paused in front of me.
It repeats: He won’t be himself.
I shudder so hard my arms shake. Of course, a curse takes over and the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.
The mouth of the wind tunnel widens, opening and rising above me. It crashes down on me, sucking me upward at the same time. I don’t have time to defend myself as it pulls me across the Vault, slamming me against the wall.
The air leaves my lungs. Pain courses through every bone in my body. Now I’m caught in the larger hurricane beating around the room. The centrifugal force pins me against the walls. I could bear it if the walls were smooth, but they were originally made of rock and stone and the surface grates against me, shredding my storm suit in patches. My skin will be next.
I push against the force as hard as I can, pulling my knees under me, scraping them at the same time, ready to spring out of the wind. It takes every muscle in my legs, but I fling myself backward and toward the calm center.
I’m free for two seconds before the smaller wind tunnel picks me up again. It throws me upward, hurling me into the air. High up, there’s calm. For a moment, I can see everything beneath me: the wind whooshing around the walls, the smaller tornado writhing like a serpent, the lightning trying to curl back around me.
It’s time to fight back.
I harness the lightning as the ground races toward me, drawing more and more of it toward me. Thunder suddenly rages above me. I draw the sound in and at the same time as I hold the lightning, I release the thunder beneath me.
It thuds between me and the ground, the force halting me several feet from where I was about to smash against the floor.
I lower myself to the ground, drawing more and more lightning to me with my arms and hands. The lightning in my hands changes color. It’s no longer the usual blue. Instead, it streaks dark red like streams of blood run inside it. The force grows in my hands, raging and pulsing. Tendrils reach beyond the sphere, trickling along my arms and across my chest. It burns like acid. If I don’t release it soon, it will consume me.
The wind tunnel looms over me again. With a scream, I release the burning mass into the wind tunnel and the raging storm above me.
The sphere explodes into the darkness, staining the air, and for a moment, a shape is revealed in the roiling darkness. The outline of a female’s figure burns in the sky above me before it fades.
I sink to my knees. The wind stops wailing. It must have started to rain at some point during the fight because water drips around me and from my hair. I’ve collapsed in a puddle of rainwater that’s quickly turning icy—a last reminder of the storm’s power.
I force myself to stand before my legs go numb. My storm suit is shredded in places and my knees are bleeding. I’m not sure how I’m going to regain my energy before the trial begins in another hour. I drag myself across the Vault. I don’t even have the energy to squeeze the water from my hair as I push through the first door.
I stop short inside the anteroom.
Baelen stands in the center of the room while Elise waits at the side. Bae’s head is down, his eyes closed, his feet planted, and his hands formed into fists at his side. There’s something about his posture that alarms me—something locked as if he’s fighting a battle inside his mind that I can’t see.
“Baelen?”
H
e raises his head, slowly opening his eyes and, for a second, his green eyes are flecked with red. It’s the same color as his family’s heartstone. Crimson light trickles across his irises, flowing across his cheeks and down his neck. The color fades as he refocuses on me.
He says, “The Storm’s growing stronger. You shouldn’t have to fight it alone.”
I’m cautious, not sure if what I saw in his face was a trick of the light—some sort of visual disturbance caused by my own actions with the lightning just now. “I wish I didn’t have to.”
He nods, accepting my response. The light is gone from his eyes and his expression is piercing, focused now. “The Elven Command won’t drop me anywhere near you for the first trial. They’ll place me on the other side of the mountain.”
I can’t stop the smile playing around my mouth. “I don’t need your protection, Baelen Rath.”
“No, but you need my knowledge. The Elven Command will keep us apart at all costs. This might be the last conversation we have.”
He’s right, but not only about that. This might be the last moment we ever share in private. I have no idea what the future trials will involve. Elise has stepped to the other side of the room. She won’t take her eyes off me, but it’s the most privacy she can give us.
“What do I need to know?”
“There are gargoyle nests on Scepter Peak.”
My eyes widen. “But… no… We have to warn the Elven Command.”
“They already know.”
My mouth drops open. “What? They know they’re about to drop the champions on a mountain with gargoyle nests?”
“To kill the gargoyles. There are enough champions to do it.”
“But the nests are where the gargoyles raise their babies. Killing them would be an act of war.”
He shakes his head. “The gargoyles shouldn’t be there. It’s our territory and the Elven Command can claim ignorance—they’ll say that the champions simply defended themselves. Male gargoyles protect their children with the savagery of a wild animal. It won’t take much to provoke one.”
Shock slams through me. “But the Command does know and that’s worse than war. That’s… murder. How many nests are there?”
I’m not sure why I care. The gargoyles have always been our enemy. They almost wiped us out. And yet… I’ve always held the elves to a higher standard—a better way of fighting with honor. We would never attack children. For the Elven Command to deliberately send warriors into a place knowing it could turn into slaughter is cruel and wrong.
“Only two. One on each side of the mountain.”
I catch up fast. “And there are two of us. You want me to make my path alongside one of the nests so none of the champions will come near it.”
He nods. “I know I’m asking a lot of you, but if you wait for the other champions to pass you by, they won’t discover the nest.”
“But that could mean losing.”
He smiles. “Will it? The other champions might underestimate you, but I don’t.”
“I guess it could work in my favor. Make them think I can’t handle the mountain.”
“When I know you can.”
I swallow. I grew up climbing the Rath peaks. The image of Baelen sitting at the edge of the cliff returns to me.
He continues. “I haven’t figured out why yet, but there are forces at work within the Elven Command that want to disrupt the peace between us and the gargoyles.”
I can’t help glancing back at the Storm Vault. It told me that my husband would kill me and release the storm. Now Baelen is saying that someone in the Elven Command is looking for war. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s all connected.
I frown, realizing something. “But when you showed me the gargoyle nests in the War Room, you didn’t point to Scepter Peak.”
Frustration enters his voice. “Because the Elven Command refuses to make it public knowledge. They forbid me to tell anyone.”
“Then how can you tell me now?”
“Because I bound myself to you. My oath to you comes before everything else. Even if you hadn’t chosen to be a champion, your life is in danger.”
So that’s why he bound himself to me. I try to focus on the problem, but my reaction is too strong. I can’t stop myself from saying, “You only bound yourself to me so you could tell me secrets.”
I’m shocked by how bitter that makes me feel. Disappointment rises like the storm inside me. My fingers tingle with remembered lightning and my chest suddenly aches as if icy rain has gathered inside it.
He draws near to me. His gaze burns me. “Telling you secrets is just a happy consequence. I bound myself to you for many reasons.”
I want a real answer, but I’m not sure how far to push him if he doesn’t want to tell me. “But, Bae… if you lose… you won’t have the chance to love another elf. There must be… someone… in your life now?”
He shakes his head. He pauses, glances at Elise, and I suspect he’s choosing his response carefully, the same way I always think before I speak.
He asks, “Do you really not see it?”
“See what?”
He turns his head. He points to the scar running the length of the side of his face. “This.”
“No. I don’t.” I scowl. “Are you telling me that not a single elven girl came near you because of that?”
He taps the scar with his finger. “I learned very quickly that this changes everything.”
“Why?”
My response makes him frown. He stares at me. “It really doesn’t make a difference to you?”
“I don’t see it and I don’t care about it.” I stop, because that sounded wrong. “Of course I care that you were hurt. I care that you almost died. I care…” My voice chokes, but I force myself to keep speaking. “I care that I was the one who did that to you.”
His eyebrows draw down, but it’s a thoughtful frown not an angry one. “You blame yourself for this.”
“Yes! Of course, I do! It was my fault. I never should have been on that cliff with you. But I wanted to see you before you left for military training. Then the storm came for me and I thought you died. I thought I lost you…”
I gasp. He’s taken two steps forward and suddenly we’re standing a mere inch apart. He’s so tall that I have to tilt my head back to see his face. His head slants down to mine but his hands stay at his sides.
He doesn’t close the gap between us.
He says, “I bound myself to you because I wanted to.”
My heart thumps inside my chest. A shock of lightning travels through my spine in both directions: up across my shoulders and down to my toes. It comes from deep inside me, triggered by his voice and the nearness of his body. I forget that I could hurt him—kill him. The lightning reaches out. It wants to connect. I lean forward, but what he says next makes me freeze.
“My father told me you had nightmares.”
I swallow, keeping my voice low. “Elise told me they thought you wouldn’t walk again.”
He says, “I almost didn’t. Then I thought of never standing beside you again.”
“But you disappeared, Baelen. You stayed away from me.”
“I had to. I had to… force myself to keep moving in the opposite direction to you because if I didn’t, I’d find myself here, tearing down these walls to get to you.”
The light reappears in his eyes. Nobody ever invoked the heartstone bond before so I don’t know anything about its effects, what it looks like, but the light in his eyes, the way he looks at me, draws me closer to him. Dangerously close.
I whisper, “I don’t get to choose who I love.”
“Is that why you nominated yourself? So you can control the outcome?”
“Yes.” It’s true, but I can’t tell him the real reason why. “But what if it only makes things worse?”
“Nothing could be worse than being this close to you and not being able to touch you.”
Heat builds between us. Physical, tangible heat. The ga
p between us is so narrow, so delicate that any movement might close it. The glow from the corner of my eye tells me that I’m not in control of the lightning right now. Light twists along my arms and legs, reaching through my dripping and ripped clothing, wisps of it reaching out toward him.
For the first time, I wonder why Elise hasn’t stepped in, raced forward, kept us apart, and that’s when I realize…
Nothing else is moving. She’s frozen beside the wall, one leg raised as if she was in the process of taking a step forward.
I’ve used the thunder. I’ve slowed time. I’m not sure when I did it, but relief floods me. I exhale and it’s like breaking chains. For the first time, I can speak freely.
“I can’t lose you again, Bae. I thought you died once and it killed me.”
“You won’t lose me.” The corner of his mouth turns up in that rare half-smile that makes my heart thud. “I made sure of that when I took the oath.”
“But when you bonded to me, you made yourself a target—”
His smile disappears. “I’m already a target. I’m the last Rath. I have a right to a seat on the Elven Command, but they won’t let me near it. They’ve kept me away by electing me as the Commander of the Elven Army instead. Just like they did with my father. I command the army, but they command me. They choose to keep me at arm’s length, away from the decision-making. And you…”
His gaze passes across my face like a caress. “You defied them today. You have no idea how afraid they are of you.”
My control on time is slipping. Elise’s foot begins to lower and I know she’ll separate us in a matter of seconds. I have so much to ask him like where he went all those years that he disappeared, and what is his plan for finding out what’s going on with the Elven Command. I want to tell him about the curse, but I can’t. And that’s my worst problem. Bae doesn’t know about it, but he knows I have the right to yield in battle. If, somehow, we make it to the final two, he trusts me to yield instead of killing him.
He trusts me.
He steps back: one step, then two, pulling away from me and part of me goes with him. The light in his eyes fades and the lightning playing across my body turns dull and sinks back into me, left lifeless by the distance between us. The separation stabs every nerve ending in my body like a thousand needles.
