He was reading them.
Studying them.
And maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to question the way things are. The way his ancestors designed this brutal, broken world. Maybe, after what Ajja told him, he wants to change it. Figure out a way to save the planetandits people.
“Just give me a moment to gather my thoughts.”
He nods, and I stare past him, at the wall behind him, needing the distance, needing to avoid the intensity of his golden eyes.
“None of us were told what to expect. Only that our strength and resilience would be tested.” My voice is flat, detached. The first trial is designed to weed out the weak, kill off the sick, but Jax knows that, so there’s no sense in repeating it. I continue staring at the wall instead of him. “I was always a bit smaller than the others. Weaker,” I say, and it’s the truth. My early entry into this world did me nofavors. “No one expected me to make it through. Hell, I didn’t even expect to make it through.”
My eyes flash to his, and his brow furrows slightly, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t push. He waits.
I take a shaky breath, suddenly feeling suffocated by his gaze, and my fingers grip the edge of the chair.
“I shouldn’t have made it. If it hadn’t been for Char, I wouldn’t be here.”
Char.
When was the last time I had thought of him? The man I owe so much to? The man I oweeverythingto? The man who’s back in Village 28waitingfor me?
Ryjax tilts his head slightly, but still he doesn’t interrupt.
I clear my throat. “There was this moment,” I say, my voice even quieter than before, the memory forcing images into my mind, images I’d rather never see again. “We were racing through the maze the trial coordinators had crafted, and there was this one part near the end where you had to climb. Climb and climb until your limbs ached, until every muscle burned with an intensity that made you nearly blind. And if you were to slip, lose your footing, and fall to the ground below? Well, there was already a pile of bodies there waiting, broken and lifeless, and those who survived the fall? They were dragged off by the Enforcers, anyway, marked for execution. And I…I slipped.”
He removes his hands from behind his head and props himself on his forearm so he’s facing me more straight on.
“I thought that was it. I was sure I was going to die. But Char, he insisted on making the climb behind me. I told him he was being crazy. That I would only slow him down. But he refused to listen. He refused to move until I did. So I went ahead of him. And I wasclose. So close to making it on my own. So close to proving I could do it, that I could survive this world, but then…”
My hands shake, the memory painful for so many reasons.
“It all happened so fast. I still can’t make sense of it. But I must have grabbed onto a loose rock, and I started to fall.”
I shiver, remembering the feeling of complete weightlessness, knowing what it meant.
“But then Char grabbed my hand and threw me over his shoulder like I was nothing. He kept going. He climbed for the both of us. I’ll never be able to repay him for that.”
To hell with the trials.
To hell with this world.
Because how was I allowed to make it through when so many didn’t?
Not only did you need tosurvivethe trial, but only a certain number of us were allowed to make it through. I remember watching the faces of others right after they sprinted across the finish line, a line my pathetic ass was literallycarriedacross. The smile that formed when they thought they’d made it, that they’d get to live for at least another three years, only to disappear when the Enforcers still came for them.
There were three hundred and sixty-two of us at the start of that trial…but by the end, there were only two hundred and fifty.
I never deserved to make it through that maze. Not really.
But I did.
So many were marked for death, but I wasn’t.
“Serafina,” Ryjax says, his tone far too soothing. “It doesn’t matter how you made it. It only matters that you did.”
“And what?” I snap, my voice sharper than I intended, but this is how it needs to be because he still doesn’t get it. He still doesn’t understand. “You think it got any easier after that? Got better? Thefirst trial was only the beginning.” I shake my head, frustration and bitterness lacing my words. “The trials aren’t even what hold the most danger.It’s the time between them.”
His brow furrows even more.
