He turns to face me. I can’t read his expression. Is he angry? Scared? I can’t tell, and with Char, I canalwaystell.
“But…but I have nowhere to go. I…I won’t survive if I leave.”
Life is difficult enough inside our village perimeter, and beyond it is nothing. Just dry sand, dead trees, savage beasts, and cracks so deep they seem to bleed darkness—a permanent reminder of the earthquake that shook our entire village the night I was born.The one my mother blames for my abrupt entrance into the world.
I arrived nearly two months early, the stress of the tremors sending my mother into labor. I barely survived my first few weeks of life, my muscles so weak and my bones too frail. Almost twenty-one years later, and not much has changed.
How could I of all people live beyond the perimeter? I’ve ventured out there only a handful of times to find ingredients for my balms. But I’ve never once crossed the Great Chasm. I’ve never seen the world that exists beyond the fracture.
“You won’t survive if youstay,” he emphasizes. “And your element won’t keep you safe. You’ll never learn to control it with that fucking temper of yours.”
I want to argue with him. I want to tell him that I can learn how to harness the fireandkeep my temper in check. That I can master the element.
But I don’t.
Because deep down, I know he’s right.
“Besides, you probably killed that man back there. If Norin doesn’t come for you, the Enforcers surely will.”
A sickly feeling settles in my stomach, and I think I might throw up. My hands find the side of a building and I heave, desperately needing to breathe, to force this feeling away.
Thisguilt.
Thisagony.
Did I really kill him?He was still alive when we left him there, wasn’t he?
“But—” I clear my throat as I blink back my emerging tears. “Itwas self-defense. Surely that must count for something?” I glance at him over my shoulder.
“You really think that matters?” He shakes his head as if I couldn’t be more daft, more unaware, and delusional. “It doesn’t. Norin will twist the narrative. Who knows what he’ll tell them. The Enforcers will come for you, he’ll make sure of it, and when they do, they won’t care what you have to say.”
“But you’re the mayor’s son. You can tell them, tell them what happened! Tell them I had no other choice!”
“It won’t do any good. You need to leave,” he says again, and my palms start to sweat because where would I possibly go? “And I’m coming with you.”
“With me?” I ask, knowing I couldn’t have possibly heard him right.
“That’s what I said.” His jaw locks, and I can tell he’s serious.
“You can’t evade the trial, Char. You’ll be hunted. Not by Norin and his crew, but by the Enforcers. Evading the trials is treason.” Char knows that.
“Prince Ryjax never had to go through the trials. He was exempt. For every single one, he was exempt. It’s not bloody right.”
“He’s aroyal,” I say, not because I think that means he shouldn’t have to pass the trials, but because it’s a fact.
The royals and the Elites are always exempt.
Always.
“Well, I’m the mayor’s son.”
“It’s not the same, and you know it.” I take a step toward him. “Besides, you’re slated for the number one spot. You can’t throw that opportunity away. I won’t let you.”
“I’m not giving you a choice. You won’t last a week out there. Not without me.”
He’s right. Of course, he is. I just said the same thing myself. Butwhen he says it, it sounds so insulting, so condescending, and I have to bite my cheek to keep from telling him that.
“Go home. Pack a bag. Make sure it doesn’t weigh much, and meet me at the bridge,” he says, referencing our secret hideout. A spot we found when we were kids in one of the abandoned sections of the village. A spot that’s always felt safe because no one else knows about it.
