Noelle passed off the torch to him and it only met his hands for a second. Cullen relaxed his grip and the torch hovered in the air. His brow furrowed slightly with intense focus. Eira could feel the ebb and flow of his magic, the swell, the give…it caressed her mind. His power lived underneath her skin. She’d find it anywhere and know it from anyone.
The torch lifted up high above the obstacle. Cullen’s right hand was tense and claw-like with the exertion of using tiny currents to hold it in place at its base without snuffing the flame.He cemented his grip, turned to the obstacle, and barreled forward.
Water came pouring down from the troughs on the sides, dousing him. His tunic clung to every curve Eira knew so well. It was fortunate that she was allowed to be focused on him and what he was doing right now…because she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Cullen emerged on the other side almost at the same time as Kinnya. Ducot was right behind. Evanel had slipped a bit and Tentur’s bulk was doing him no favors.
As Cullen rounded the arena, Eira readied herself. Cullen was blisteringly fast, no doubt putting the wind under his heels. He quickly caught up to Kinnya and surpassed her. Eira turned to the obstacle that loomed over her, holding her hand behind her, ready. She didn’t need to see him when she could feel him.
The stubby bottom of the torch met her palm and she ran to the wall. At the same time, she put the base of the torch at her lower back. Ice wrapped around her abdomen, stretching halfway up the torch and affixing it to her back. This gave her free mobility in both her hands and feet to climb.
With a wave of her hand, she summoned the water from Cullen’s obstacle. She could use moisture in the air, but it wouldn’t be nearly as strong or fast as leveraging actual water. Ice hand- and footholds appeared one after the next as she scaled the wall. Eira tried to move slowly and methodically. But the excitement of the game was getting to her. In the corner of her eye, she could see Varren and Menna climbing as well.
Poor Menna had to run twice since Meru was still down a competitor.
Eira reached the top first. Cullen’s speed and her planning had given them a slight lead. One she was determined to further extend. This was the obstacle she’d been most worried about and Eira had told her friends, at all costs, she needed to get to thispoint first. She reached a hand down to the water, tangling her magic with it.
Fear grabbed her by the throat. She’d been right to worry.
The water wasn’t normal. Eira had spent years working with water—from when she first learned how to use her magic to when she used it in the clinic to make vessels for the dying. Her body knew water as well as it knew her own blood and something wasoffabout this.
Eira looked over to the other ponds. The crowd began to throw verbal jabs at her hesitation. She tried to drown them out, focusing.
The draconi’s water was fine…but everyone else’s had some kind of strange addition. Menna was almost at the top. She had to act quickly.
Scooping her hand through the air, Eira summoned a small bubble of water to her. Floating within the bubble were tiny pebbles. Barely visible from afar and half the size of the flash bead she’d found in the warehouse…but unmistakably the same. It had an identical, subtle magic to it that all other flash beads possessed.
Delicately, Eira lowered the water back as Menna had reached the top. She was about to jump.
“Don’t!” Eira shouted. Menna actually hesitated. “It’s a trap! It’ll explode!” Eira wasn’t entirely sure how flash beads worked—if an impact could set them exploding alone—but it wasn’t worth the risk.
Menna leapt anyway. Eira’s heart clenched. But with a murmur of Menna’s lips, a glyph appeared under her feet and she used each shining circle of light like a stepping stone to make her way down without touching the water.
There was murmuring in the stands.
Eira turned to Varren, next. “Don’t jump, it’s trapped.”
He fumbled with his bracelets frantically. She was shocked he believed her. But perhaps the fact that she was sacrificing any lead she had made her more credible.
She stared at his water. The rules clearly stated that she couldn’t try to extinguish other teams torches…but they said nothing about helping her competition. Eira dragged her hand through the air, summoning the untainted water she’d used from Cullen’s obstacle. A slide of ice formed from the top of Varren’s wall and over the water below.
More shouting now from the stands.
“What are you doing?” Varren called over them.
“Helping.” Eira met his eyes. “None of us are supposed to be enemies, remember?” Or had everyone forgotten that in the gradually intensifying games?
After another moment of hesitation, Varren slid down. Eira turned to the next person who reached the top, Luccarius. She did the same motion.
“You’re not safe jumping in that water!”
Luccarius looked between her and the slide. He had less hesitation than Varren did. After that, Eira brought the ice to her for a slide of her own.
Just as she was about to descend, Ponn shouted, “What about me?” By now he’d heard her warnings to the other competitors.
Eira lingered, assessing the draconi’s pool once more. “Your water is fine.”
“What?”
