1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6…
I keep up the pace, refusing to let this nightmare and those monsters win.
They want a show? I’ll give them a fucking show!
When I survive and I blow the lid off this operation, I’ll make them all pay.
I reach the top after twenty steps. The cold wind eases into a gentle spring breeze as I take my place on the podium. I turn to look down at the crowd. Their faces blur as exhaustion threatens to take me. My body feels dead. My stiff muscles scream for me to rest as an empty stillness replaces my adrenaline.
My gaze locks onto a pair of familiar glowing red eyes, and finally the world around me stops spinning. Knox’s expression is unreadable, but the bond igniting between us tells me everything I need to know. A pleasant tingling moves from my fingertips and up to my palms. I stare at my bloodied hands and watch as the splinters wiggle out from the wounds and turn to ash. As the cuts slowly knit back together, the fresh blood recedes back into each scratch.
Did he do this?
I find Knox again, a silent question threatening to leave my lips. He nods only once. The action so imperceptible that anyone else would’ve missed it.
Even though I’m just at the beginning of this nightmare, Knox’s pride hums through the bond. The bond likes that and urges me to please him further. Despite my better judgment, I like it, too.
Examining the next part of the training, I find six rings of fire standing between me and the end. I crane my neck to see past the flames. I think this might be the last part.
Six hoops isn’t so hard, right?
A powerful energy courses through me, my muscles stronger and my limbs leaner.
Is this a part of the bond or a new kind of magic that Knox possesses?
Whatever it is, I’m not about to question it. I need to trust it.
I position myself at the edge of the podium, coiling my body like a well-oiled spring. I don’t think about it. I just leap. My body twirls effortlessly through the air, and the heat from the fire barely registers as I land with practiced perfection on the next podium. The crowdoohsandahhs, only spurring my desire to complete the remaining hoops.
But as I lift my head, a glint of silver catches my eye from below. My fear reignites with a new velocity. Just when I thought the nightmare couldn’t get any worse, the enchanted circus decides to increase the danger tenfold. A thick mass of steel thorns blanket the bottom of the arena. Branches twist and turn upward towards me. The sharp, thorny thicket shines under the spotlights in the tent.
How the hell did I miss that when I came in? Or did it just appear?
The knotted branches gleam as they keep growing.
How are they alive?
A huge branch winds itself with a serpentine motion around the podium I’d jumped from. The sound of the glimmering metal grinding against the dry wood forces me to cover my ears. I need to run. But I can’t look away. Exhaustion begins to creep back into my bones, the cold icy chill of the wind swirling around me.
The metallic grinding noise pauses only for a second before the branch begins to squeeze the enormous podium. An echoing creak, a sharp snap, and then chaos erupts as the wood implodes from the force of the branch.
Shit! Run! Now!
I ignore the protests of my tight muscles and leap once more through the second ring of fire.
This time, I don’t land as gracefully. My wrists shudder from the impact of catching myself on the wooden podium.
At least I’m not on fire.
Thwack!
The second podium shatters.
It’s coming for me. I have to go.
I leap again and again through the rings. Each one feels smaller than the last, but I’m too busy escaping the metal branches that want to tear me apart to stop to consider the reality.
That is, until I get to the sixth and final ring. Tiny.
