Trial of Thorns (Wicked Fae Book 1)

by Stacey Trombley

  Just do as you’re told. Simple.

  “Come, champions!” the pixie calls. “Approach the orb.”

  We walk forward slowly. Already, my heart pounds.

  As I approach, the three forms slip into focus, their faces clear as day.

  In the center is my brother, Reahgan. Tears sting my eyes. I’d nearly forgotten what he looked like. Next to him is her. His murderer. And on his other side is me. A younger me.

  I swallow.

  “What do you see?” I ask Brielle without looking away, my voice shakier than I’d like.

  She doesn’t respond. I look down at her expression. There are tears on her cheeks, but her expression is one of pure unadulterated rage. I suspect she’s seeing the exact same thing as I am.

  “It’s a clue,” I tell her “What we’re seeing now is a hint of what we’ll face when we go in.”

  She presses her lips into a thin line. “Why didn’t we kill her in the first challenge?” she spits, not taking her eyes off of the orb. “We should have just shoved a blade through her heart and been done with it.”

  I take in a long breath. “We still have time. We just have to make it through this, and we’ll get the chance.”

  Caelynn

  I shiver as I peer into the orb. There are three forms inside. Two are obvious—Rev and his brother. The third is a moving dark monster, shifting like smoke. A hand reaches out from the shifting form, reaching towards Rev’s throat.

  I tear my eyes from the image. Already, my heart races, my palms sweat, and my stomach twists in panic. Facing Rev and Reahgan is one thing—that beast is another.

  For the first time, I doubt my ability to do this.

  It’s not real, I tell myself.

  Not real. Not real. Not real. Not real.

  Rev’s eyes meet mine from the front of the crowd of champions, hate swirling in his gaze. I swallow down my panic and steel myself with my own shadows. I meet his gaze, steady, unmoved.

  Pain ricochets from his face, and I wish I wasn’t such a good actress. What would it achieve, though? If he knew how I really felt? If he knew how much I hated myself? How much I wish I could undo what I’ve done?

  Instead, I live with it and I let it become me.

  That’s what this is testing right? That monster I faced—it took my soul. I took its essence, and used it to survive.

  I’ve lived with this every day of my life. I’ve never cast it off or pretended to forget it. Never let praises from my own people skew my perception of it.

  I know my own darkness and I wear it like a shield.

  I’ll do the same today and I’ll make it out on the other side. My panic still swirls inside of me like a storm but my determination is stronger. I grasp it tightly.

  The beast will be gleeful at what he’s turned me into. He’ll laugh that I ever thought I’d beaten him.

  His power to crush my life and my very soul was proven to be beyond reproach. I may have physically escaped, but at the end of the day, he won.

  WE GO IN REVERSE ORDER, the weakest courts first, then the ruling courts in their typical order.

  This means Tyadin is first. I’ll go second.

  I barely watch as he steps into the misty orb, magic rippling like water where he entered and then settling back into its smooth translucent gray.

  Now, all we can see is Tyadin’s silhouette. First, he stands there, his shoulders back, his head high. But then he stumbles back, pressing against the orb’s glistening barrier. His chest heaves dramatically.

  I can’t tell what his challenge is, but suddenly he’s holding a sword. He grips it tightly in both hands, his muscles tense. He reels it back, ready to slash through some unseen enemy. But then his muscles freeze in place and he remains like that for a full minute. My heart pounds and it’s not even my challenge.

  Finally, his hands loosen their grip and the sword clangs to the ground, and he drops to his knees. The crowd oohs and ahhs, unsure. Is he failing? Or is his task inaction?

  He holds his hands over his ears and screams in agony.

  My teeth chatter as I watch.

  He stays like that, screaming until his voice is hoarse, hands over his ears.

  Then he stands, his shoulders slumped—defeated. Another moment, he walks to the other edge of the orb, which parts for him.

  The crowd is silent for a long moment, then they erupt in a massive roar.

  Tyadin is the first to pass the second challenge.

  He doesn’t seem pleased with his success or the attention as he stumbles to the champions’ benches, his hands shaking. Tears stream down his cheeks.

  “Next, Caelynn of the Shadow Court.”

  Nausea sweeps through me as I step forward on shaky feet. I take in three deep breaths and stop before the orb to steel myself. There are some kinds of darkness that terrify even me, but I must embrace even the deepest. So, I allow it to sweep over everything, and my shaking calms.

  The black liquid shifts to allow me in, and I enter the orb of terrors.

  Caelynn

  For a long moment, I am surrounded by only darkness.

  Hello, old friend, I think to myself and chuckle under my breath.

  “Hello,” a whisper responds, and my knees nearly buckle as the panic shoots through me. I swallow, eyes remaining closed.

  “Look at you, my little pet. You’ve become just what I’d hoped,” the echoing voice of my nightmares rings through the sphere.

  Night Bringer.

  “Are you ready to face your task?” he asks.

  I take in a shaky breath and finally find enough bravery to open my eyes. “Haven’t I already started?”

  “Oh no.” The monstrous voice tsks. “You’ve not yet begun.”

  I swallow, watching the shadows shift. Red eyes glow deep within.

  Not real. Not real.

  He’s not really here. He couldn’t be. Wouldn’t be.

  The ancient voice chuckles. “You aren’t happy to see me after all these years?”

  “What is my task?” I bark with a shaky voice.

  “So eager,” he chides.

  The inky blackness swirls around me and I stand still, growing dizzy. “Oh, I remember a time, so many years ago, when you came to me for a task. Do you remember, Caelynn?”

  He laughs, the sound reverberating to my right. “Of course you do. Well, isn’t it ironic,” he continues his voice curling around me then settling to my left, “that you’d simply need to achieve the same goal a second time.”

  I wince, scrunching my face up as a chill moves its way up my body, as if an invisible finger runs up my back. I resist the urge to beg for it to stop.

  I learned, many years ago begging doesn’t help. It just makes you look weak.

  “Tell me,” I announce with a stronger voice than I thought possible.

  “Well, you’ve certainly grown more of a backbone.”

  “My TASK,” I scream, ready to explode.

  “Your task, my dear old friend, is to kill him.” Reveln’s face appears before me, boyish and innocent.

  I shiver.

  “No. Not him,” the voice instructs. “There will be time for that yet to come.”

  I turn my attention to the form at the far left of the orb. “Him,” the smoke tickles as it whispers in my ear. And my attention focuses on Reahgan.

  His silver eyes are as harsh as I remember, his face full of arrogance and hatred. I remember the feeling of his light holding me down so that I couldn’t move.

  I shake my head. No, that isn’t the memory I’m here to face. All I need to know is that Reahgan, the future king of all the fae—is evil. No one else saw it but me.

  Kill Reahgan, again. That’s my task.

  A dagger appears in my hand, a familiar weight, magic rippling through my body as I grip it. This is the act that forever changed my life.

  Movement to my right catches my attention. The young Reveln approaches me, his face crumpled in despair. My mouth falls open as I peer into his silver e
yes—so different from his brother’s harsh ones. So different from the Reveln I know now.

  He was young and unscarred.

  I am the one who scarred him.

  I am the one who shifted his life irrevocably and made him live with this pain and anger until it warped him into the person he is now. I often see his brother in his eyes and that, of all the things that hurt, is what kills me the most.

  Young Rev, only a year older than me at the time, drops to his knees and begs me not to kill his brother. “Please, Cae.” I shiver at the sound of my name on his lips. “Please don’t hurt my brother. Please don’t do this to me!”

  I step forward, tears already streaking down my face. “I have to.”

  “Please don’t do this to me!” he screams. “Don’t you know what we could be?”

  The blade loosens in my grip, and I nearly drop it. “Yes,” I whisper. Emotion dragging my walls down. I would give anything—anything.

  I shake my head from the haze. No, there is no going back. This is who I am now.

  “Yes,” I whisper to the sweet Rev, tears covering his soft eyes. I touch his face gently. “I know what I gave up. But that was lost so long ago.”

  I shove the blade through Reahgan’s heart.

  Rev

  Brielle grips my forearm tightly as we watch my brother’s murderer repeat the crime right in front of us. We can’t see his face or his body, but we know he’s there—in her mind.

  The whole crowd gasps as she shoves a dagger through an invisible victim.

  We all know what she just did.

  My vision goes black for those moments afterwards. Then she passes through the orb untouched and silence settles in the stands around us.

  This is their reminder. This is the evil fae who murdered their future king.

  After the dwarf’s challenge, there was stunned silence and then an eruption of cheers. After hers? Stunned silence, followed by an eruption of boos and jeers.

  Fruits and cups and even a weapon or two fly into the arena, aimed at the most hated fae in our world.

  Her face is calm, still, as she passes through the arena to sit beside the dwarf. More items fly at them both, a few getting close to hitting their target. A stone wall raises from the ground, protecting their backs. I sneer but can’t blame the dwarf for not wanting their hatred for her to hurt him. Especially knowing that he’d rejected her alliance.

  “Brielle of the Flicker Court!”

  Brielle tenses next to me, as if it were possible to be tenser. I worry she’ll crack her own nails, gripping her sword handle so hard.

  I grab her upper arm and pull her to face me. She gasps, her eyes huge. “Listen to me,” I say sternly. “They’re going to make you face it. You’re—" I pause, my voice suddenly lost in my panic. “They’re going to make you watch him die,” I whisper, my voice breaking, even though it’s barely there to begin with.

  She winces, a tear already forming in the corner of her eye.

  “I need you to remember something: nothing you do will change it. Nothing will bring him back. The only thing we can do is complete the task so we have the chance to avenge him. Complete the task because that’s the only way to get to her.” I openly point to the murderer. She doesn’t notice or care. Her eyes are cast to the dirt between her feet like she’s just bored and waiting for the chance to leave. The crowd murmurs, and a few jeers in response to my pointing.

  Brielle looks me in the eye, only slightly less terrified.

  “We’re going to kill her,” I tell her definitively. “But I need your help to do it. I need you beside me in the next challenge.”

  I take in a long breath, and then she nods and stomps toward the orb.

  Caelynn

  “You see now why I can’t be your ally?” Tyadin says as Brielle enters the orb of terrors.

  I nod. “I already knew. I get it.”

  He purses his lips.

  “I wouldn’t align with me either,” I admit.

  He narrows his eyes at me but then turns his attention to the orb. We watch Brielle stand still as stone inside.

  “Is she facing the same thing as you?” he asks.

  “Probably,” I whisper.

  “It took you a long time, even before the dagger came,” he says, a question implied.

  “I had to face the monster first. That might have been the harder task.” Killing Reahgan, in some ways, felt good. I hated seeing Rev’s love for his brother and how I’d destroyed him. But killing his brother after what he’d done to me had always felt good. Sometimes, that’s what makes me hate myself the most.

  I enjoyed killing him.

  “Monster?” Tyadin asks.

  I don’t respond. That is my secret to know. I realize now that my task had two parts. The voice took on the sound of the one from my nightmares, but it wasn’t really him. No, if it had been him, he wouldn’t have let me go so easily.

  He is real and alive. And waiting for another chance to destroy lives. He is my real nightmare.

  Brielle is shaking and crying. “I’m going to kill her,” she says clear as day. “We’re going to kill her for you,” she tells the vision, visible to only her. She falls to the ground, her feet folding beneath her. She rocks back and forth, sobbing. “We’ll kill her. We’ll kill her. I swear it.”

  I swallow. How many others can hear what she’s saying?

  She continues chanting between sobs, but then it suddenly stops. She looks up at some invisible vision and gasps. “No,” she says. “No!”

  She’s standing in an instant, a dagger in her hand—a dagger identical to mine. The one I used to kill Reahgan a decade ago.

  She stomps forward but then stops, her muscles freezing, her face crumpling. “HOW DARE YOU!” she screams at no one. She drops the dagger to the ground and moments later she marches from the orb with a look that could kill.

  This time there is no pause. The cheers erupt immediately for Brielle.

  Rev

  The whole time Brielle is in the orb, I pace, my hand over my gaping mouth. I curse under my breath at her every mumble. I don’t care who hears our plans to kill the murderer. Most of the fae in our world would consider us heroes for such an act. But I’m terrified Brielle will lose. I’m afraid her resolve will flip like a switch and she’ll attack.

  She stands, like something suddenly changed, and I hold my breath as she screams and almost charges.

  When she finally exits the orb, I let out a relieved breath. She doesn’t so much as glance in my direction. She stops to catch her breath before taking her place next to the murderer, but she does so looking down at her feet, her face blank and fallen.

  I don’t watch the next several fae. Instead, I sit and focus on myself. I calm my heart, and I prepare to face my brother’s death.

  The male immediately after Brielle fails—Caspian of the Glistening Court. He charges some unknown foe and is tossed from the orb like trash from a bin. I am tempted to celebrate his loss—it weakens my strongest opponent considerably, but I refrain because I need to focus. I haven’t won this one yet.

  Drake passes and exits the orb with a stupid ass smile on his face. Kari passes. Then, it’s Rook’s turn. I hadn’t thought to give him a pep talk—convinced he’d make it through just fine. I let out a relieved breath as he exits the orb on his own.

  “Reveln of the Luminescent Court!” the Pix announces, and I stand, my heart in my throat.

  I enter the orb and the cheers disappear. I am surrounded by silent darkness.

  A form appears in front of me, and my heart pounds. Her face is out of focus but also clear. I squint trying to figure it out. Who is she?

  She has beautiful dark eyes with flickers of golden light cascading from them—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen eyes that bright. Her hair in on the lighter side, but the color is hard to tell with the shadows of the orb cascading over her. She smiles and something about the way she looks at me causes my stomach to flutter.

  I’m supposed to feel something
about this strange girl. Have I ever met her? I don’t know. My mind feels hazy. There is message here the orb wants me to know, and yet it’s veiling it at the same time.

  “Hello, Rev,” the girl whispers, her voice light and sweet. I take a step toward her, drawn to her like a magnet.

  “Who are you?” I ask, so confused. What is my task?

  “She’s just in the way.” I jump at the sudden voice echoing around me. “Dispose of her, little brother.” His tone is dismissive. Not an order.

  “Reahgan?” I ask.

  My brother’s voice chuckles around me, filling the orb with strange joy and power that scares me.

  “Why?” I ask. I know I have to obey but the task is unclear. Dispose of her. Am I meant to kill her? Some innocent strange girl? I’m confused...

  “She’s no one and she’s in the way. She’s dispensable.” I shiver as the darkness in my brother’s voice. The... wickedness.

  Another form appears behind the beautiful girl. My brother approaches from behind her, a cruel smile on his face. He grips her hair and whips her head backwards. She yelps in pain, her eyes twisting in fear as my brother throws her to ground.

  I freeze. What is this? My brother didn’t... he wasn’t....

  “Don’t stop it,” a new voice commands me. And I watch helplessly as a bright light shines from my brother’s palm, paralyzing the beautiful girl.

  I cover my hand with my mouth, appalled. Shaking.

  No. My brother didn’t do this. He didn’t.

  I blink as a dagger protrudes through his back. My brother stumbles and turns toward me, the dagger sticking right through his chest. Through his heart.

  His dim eyes meet mine. “Avenge me,” he whispers.

  My body is on fire. Rage and fear and panic fill me. What the...

  The girl stands, and her face changes. At first, tears glisten over her cheeks, pain and fear in her eyes, but her eyes grow dimmer, darker. Her face stripped of all emotion. Her features turn sharp, her eyes sallow. She’s still beautiful, but now... I choke on a sob.