by Alex Lidell
Blood pounds in my head. “You want to lecture me on facing fears?” I advance on the male, my fingers curling into fists. “Let’s start with how you’ve barely touched me since—”
“Enough.” River steps between Coal and me, his heavy hand settling on my shoulder. “You are both right, and it doesn’t matter. Coal’s motivational strategy aside, the council wasn’t making a suggestion, Leralynn. When that gong rings, you will need to take the lead.”
“Fine.” I raise my chin, moving out of River’s reach as I swallow the bile creeping up my throat. “The council wants me to go after the flag, I’ll go after the flag. You lot can stay as far away from me as you wish. Better yet, as far away as possible.” I rub my face, the reality of it finally sinking in, replacing the fury—if not the fear. “The fewer of you I need to worry about maiming, the better.”
“We aren’t going to abandon you, cub,” Shade says, turning me to face him. With his long black hair tied back, the lantern light plays over the strong angle of his jaw and gives his yellow eyes a golden tinge. His thumb traces my cheekbone and brushes lightly over my lips. “We are your pack, and we’re trusting you to lead us in the trial. You are a warrior in your own right, now. You just need to see it to believe it.”
The warmth of Shade’s words spreads over me. Pack. Yes. We are a pack, and the strength of that knowledge slows my pounding heart. Before I can say as much, Shade grips my hips and lifts me into the air until my face is inches from his own.
“But you are going to be careful, cub,” he adds in a low voice, the command filled with enough power to send it pulsing down my spine. His nostrils flare delicately, taking in my scent, while his masculinity whirls around me, saturating my senses.
I start to nod my agreement, freezing when Shade’s eyes flash with a predator’s hunger. With a wolf-quick snap, his teeth catch my lower lip, the canines forceful enough to draw tiny beads of blood. When my mouth opens with a gasp, Shade seals his lips over mine. His tongue invades my mouth, claiming me with strokes that are nothing short of possession. None of the other males dare approach while Shade marks me thus. While I kiss him in return.
The wolf might keep his mating instinct well under control most of the time now, but the pack knows when to give him space. Just as they knew to give River and me our time last night. A warmth spreads through me, the connection of all five of us cocooning my soul.
“I love you,” I whisper when Shade returns me to the ground, my gaze sharing the words among them all. Even Coal. “I love you.”
Shade growls his agreement. Coal nods, his eyes blazing into mine. River lets a corner of his mouth rise with pleasure. When my attention turns to Tye, the redheaded male stretches lazily.
“Of course you do, Lilac Girl,” he drawls. “Who wouldn’t?”
Before I can respond, the arena gong echoes through the room. Shade shifts in a flash of light, making my breath catch in my throat. Then two hundred pounds of lethal wolf presses against my thigh, keeping me company to the slowly opening arena door.
Our final trial has begun.
6
Lera
Sand, great dunes of it, shimmer in the sun. The desert stretches around us on all sides, filling my vision. I know the vastness is an illusion of the arena’s wards—the same wards that keep the spectators above from entering the arena or hearing what’s said within—but the sensation of being in another place altogether is nonetheless disconcerting.
The arena’s magical sun bakes the earth, us, everything in sight. It’s hot—hotter than I’ve ever felt it before, though I might just be imagining it. The heat is an equalizer, making sure we’re all uncomfortable and all motivated to win and get out of here. Sweat springs from my temples within moments.
“Is that wee Viper’s quint over there?” Tye says, holding a hand over his eyes and jerking his chin toward the other side of the arena. He bends to secure our team’s wine-red flag to his belt. “They’re a decent lot of males. Nothing like Malikai’s.”
Without the fae’s preternatural senses, all I see is a group of five warriors in matching sky-blue tunics. The smallest of the five mirrors Tye in fastening the flag to his clothing. Smallest—even the tiniest of fae warriors outweighs me by half. I lick my dry mouth. “Does Viper turn into a Viper?”
“No,” Coal growls. “Pay attention, mortal. It’s your magic, not Viper’s, that we’re here to test.”
Putting a hand on my shoulder, River turns me away from Coal. “The objective is simple: Obtain possession of the other team’s flag and bring it back here.” Calm, easy words. “Where is the flag?”
“Viper has it.”
“Correct. So I want you to use your magic to isolate Viper from the others. We are going to add the cords of power one at a time. Go as slow as you need. Do you understand?”
No. My heart hammers, banging against my chest. “And once I isolate Viper?”
“Once you isolate Viper, the rest of us will hold back his quint mates while you take the flag.” The calm confidence in River’s voice is both supportive and terrifying.
“But—” I cut off at a flash of Coal’s eyes. Glancing back at Tye, I find our own flag on his belt, waving like a kill-me-now target. The burgundy cloth clashes with Tye’s mess of red hair. If all goes according to plan, the male will stay back and out of the way, protect the flag, and leave the fighting to us. To me.
Tye grins. “I cower helplessly behind your slender back, oh Great Protector.”
“You have teeth, claws, and several hundred pounds of deadly muscles the moment you want them, kitty cat.”
A shadow passes over Tye’s face, almost too fleeting to see. “Very true.” His quick smile and light voice churn my heart. “But it still sounded good.”
Before I can reply, River takes my hand, his magic immediately rousing an echo inside me. The force of his power is so strong that I stagger as my body wakens to it. The phantom limb of magic, utterly absent moments ago, now uncurls like a bear stomping along the ground. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba—
“Easy, Leralynn,” River murmurs, beckoning for the others to join us. The males connect to me slowly, feeding me their power as gently as they can manage. Nonetheless, when all four cords of magic light up inside me, the sudden tsunami of magical force takes my breath away. My heart pounds. My lungs stretch. The energy inside me roars an untamed fury strong enough to eclipse the sun.
Strong enough to rip me to shreds.
Across the arena, Viper’s quint is busy drawing something on the sand. The blue-clad warriors may be our assigned opponents, but I know that our true enemy is the one blazing inside my chest.
“Easy,” River repeats, his voice firm but soothingly low. “The power obeys you, not the other way around. You are a weaver. Feel each stream of magic.”
I draw a shaky breath and do as River says, focusing my awareness on one cord at a time. River’s earthy power is dark brown, heavy, strong, with all the delicacy of a grizzly bear. Tye’s feline fire is hot, orange impertinence. The silver of Shade’s healing power carries a wolf’s need for connection, for rounding and protecting a pack. I use it to wrap around the first two, combining the squirming brown and orange cords into a single broad rope. And then there is Coal.
The last male’s power is unlike the others. All those years as a Mors slave turned Coal’s magic inward, its purple cord splitting into hairs that work their way everywhere. Filling my muscles, waking my nerves, spiking my senses until each grain of sand seems its own stone. The thin purple strands spread through everything and hold on tight.
The thick weave of silver, brown, and orange cords whips violently in my hold, but Coal’s purple strands reinforce my body. Make me strong enough to withstand the pressure of the others.
This feels new. A slight improvement over any time I’ve wielded the magic before. I let cautious hope fill my lungs. Maybe Coal was right to agree with the council—maybe now, in the arena, will be the moment I take true control.
“I’m a
ll right,” I tell River, my voice shaking only slightly. “You can let go. I no longer need the direct contact to reflect your magic.”
Obediently, River pulls his hand out of mine and draws the dulled sword strapped to his waist. On my left, Coal does the same, pulling a sword off his back. They begin to pull away in either direction, forming into a short line across the sand. Shade’s wolf gives me a forlorn look then lopes to the other side of River.
A rush of panic makes my throat close as I realize I am on my own, no River to take control of the power if things go badly.
“You’ve not destroyed the arena or the sun quite yet,” Coal calls dryly, one blond eyebrow quirked, as if reading my thoughts. “A better start than I expected.”
I give him a vulgar gesture, though my heartbeat slows.
He tosses me his sword, drawing the spare blade he has sheathed down his spine for himself.
“Seriously?” I call, splitting my attention between the weapon suddenly in my hand and the coil of magic flailing in my preternatural weave. “I’m not sure I need another means of destruction just now, Coal.”
“No, but trying to kill someone can soothe the nerves.” He hefts his spare blade into a better grip. “Try it yourself against Viper.”
Looking across the sand, I see that Viper has conveniently separated from his quint, the other males fanning into a line behind him. Seeking me out, Viper sets a course in my direction. The blue flag waving from his belt is plainly bait, but I have my own game to play and this works well enough for my purposes. As he gets closer, our eyes meet across the sand and Viper smirks, though the crooked smile holds more mischief than malice. His quint mates move more slowly behind him, aiming for my males.
I glance compulsively back at Tye, who’s pulling at a thread on his uniform sleeve with a bored expression.
“Mortal,” Coal snaps, his patience with me plainly wavering. “River, Shade, and I will try and protect the wee red-haired princess while you go play with Viper. Get a move on.”
Fine.
Gripping my blade tighter, I walk toward Viper, who’s growing larger in the shimmering heat. His grin widens. Up close, his smaller stature gives way to a wall of lean, ropy muscle. He has sharp features, a constellation of freckles, pale red hair, and blue-green eyes. The sword in his hands might be dull, but the steel still gleams in the arena’s sunlight. Not alone, I tell myself, my mouth dry as Viper and I enter weapons range. Not alone. Not alone.
Viper’s blade swings for my head, the blow clean. Crisp. Skull-shatteringly strong.
I snap my sword to parry the blow, Coal’s power surging through my muscles. The blades meet with a deafening clash, the force of which rattles my bones.
Viper kicks me away, his boot sinking painfully into my belly.
I fall backwards, desperately gulping air. It’s all I can do to roll over my shoulder and scramble to my feet before Viper’s blade impales the sand where I lay a moment earlier.
The dry heat is sapping my energy faster than I’m used to in training.
Stars. Aiming the tip of my sword at Viper’s heart, I lower my level until my thighs roar, and lunge.
Viper sidesteps from my line of attack, his sword swinging in a powerful arc. The blade whistles through the air, the light reflecting off it making me squint. My heart stutters, my breath clogging in my lungs. I twist on instinct. Angle my blade down. Meet the blow with the center of my steel.
“Someone’s been training with Coal,” Viper says, a note of approval in his voice, like a spark of light in the darkness. A moment later, his voice drops, his accent—an echo of Tye’s, with its songlike syllables and strong, rolling r’s—hardening. “You’ll need more than that to get my tail, lass.”
Viper strikes again, moving as fast as his namesake, the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of his sword assaulting without a moment’s pause. I block each strike, my muscles screaming between the blows. Each collision forces me back, one step at a time.
Strike, block. Strike, block. The escalating attack drives me into a never-ending retreat. Sweat snakes down my face, stinging my eyes, while rising bits of sand coat my panting tongue. The sound of my own rasping breath is harsh against Viper’s soft grunts, the ringing of clashing steel.
Strike, block. Strike, block. No end. Never an end.
Distantly, I notice action at the edges of my vision. Bodies in combat as my quint fends off the other warriors, the clang of metal so steady that I know my males aren’t playing to win, but to buy me time.
And Viper isn’t playing to win either. He’s playing for a different reason. My eyes widen as I spin from another blow. “You . . . are . . . herding me.” My words come in gasps.
“Aye.” Viper grins.
“Where?”
“Och, to just about . . . here.” Before I can scream, the male snaps his fingers and a shield of shimmering, opaque silver encircles the two of us in a space twenty paces across and at least fifteen smooth, impenetrable feet high. A wall of magic cutting me off from my quint. The burnt sky overhead only intensifies the feeling of being caged.
“What the bloody hell is that?” With my sword between myself and Viper, I rush to the shimmering wall and find it solid as stone. “River!” I bellow with all the air left in my lungs.
River, River, River, the echo calls.
“They can’t hear us.” The self-satisfaction in Viper’s voice burns through me. “It’s a static shield. It exists on its own now, without us needing to hold it. Took all our magics and a great deal of study.”
I reach desperately for the connection to my males—and find silence. Even my sense of Coal is gone, cut off from me by that shield. There will be no additional magic to echo, but my existing weave of power, that thick braid of silver, brown, and orange cords, still whips about, purple wisps magnifying its force. A great weave of a quint’s full power, all within me, and no way to get to River for relief. No safety valve. No one to help rein in the feral monster that I’ve woven into existence.
Cut off. Alone. Isolated.
My vision darkens at the edges, wiping away my fatigue. My muscles tighten. My lungs expand, each fiber in my body trembling with energy even as the storm of panic bubbles in my veins. Out. I need out of here. Now.
I slam my fist into the shield, my knuckles screaming at the impact. Nothing. Again. Pain erupts in my bones, and I stare at the blood now leaking from my hand.
The braided magic inside me flails, slipping from my grip.
The earth underneath us gives an ominous shake. I scramble to re-grasp the magic, nausea from the effort rising in my stomach.
“Stop,” Viper shouts, the amusement gone from his voice. “I won’t touch you. The shield will—”
My ears start to ring, cutting off sound. The cords of magic slip further, even as I dig my nails into them. My sword thumps to the sand, my breath halting, all my concentration going toward holding on while the magic rears like a terrified stallion.
With the next jerk, the thick weave pulls free of my grasp and lashes like a whip against the shield.
Hits. Bounces. Ricochets into the ground.
The earth trembles, portions of the ground rising up and down like waves. Again. Again. Each shocking quake greater than the last. Up and up, before falling from beneath our feet.
“What are you doing?” Viper bellows. “Stop! For stars’ sake, stop.”
“I can’t!” I snatch desperately for the bolting beast, only to find it wilder still, vengeful for the earlier restraints that led it into this trap. Determined to shatter that opaque shield jailing us here.
The wounded earth quakes again, rising in a wave so massive that it launches me into the air.
Viper throws himself at me, twisting to take the brunt of the impact as we’re thrown against the shield. A trickle of blood snakes down his sweaty forehead when we land. I open my mouth to ask if he’s all right, to demand an explanation for his protecting me, but the words change before I can utter them. “Watch out, Viper!” I point a
t a crack starting at the circle’s edge and spreading along the ground through its center. Cleaving it in two.
Ignoring my last attempt to stop it, the dark brown cord of River’s earth magic pulls free of the now unraveling weave and descends upon the shifting earth. The ground cracks beneath the pressure, and what started as a small crack erupts into a five-pace-wide fissure that swallows Viper into its darkness.
7
Tye
The ground rumbled beneath Tye, the earthquake violent enough to knock him on his back. By the time he rolled to his feet, his mouth gritty with hot sand, the world had changed.
Where the sands of the arena had stretched across flat land, now a grand fissure cracked the field in two. The lips of the new canyon rose higher than Tye’s head, the lacerated earth showing its rocky entrails. And in the middle of it all, bisected by the new abyss, stood a shimmering wall that encircled his Lilac Girl and Viper.
“Leralynn,” Tye shouted, filling the arena with his bellow.
No answer. Not even a distant whimper.
Coal was already there, staring up at the wall, punching it hard enough to break bone. Tye sprinted toward him as fast as he could in the loose sand. When he arrived, Coal turned blazing blue eyes on him and shook his head. Impenetrable.
With a growl, Tye launched himself at the closest of Viper’s blue-clad quint mates, grasping the male’s tunic to lift him into the air. “What the hell is that?” Tye demanded, throwing the male into the silver wall so hard that he heard the sound of skull striking metal.
“Static shield,” the male answered quickly from the ground, holding up his palms. His eyes were wide, his face pale against his pitch-black hair, the smell of fear flowing from him in waves. “We used a ward to tie up all our magics into a shield. We just wanted to separate you. The earthquake isn’t our doing.”
