Nox went silent again, deep in thought. “How did you get out of the dream?” I whispered.
“Did you receive a clue for the second trial after finding your artifact in the first?” When I nodded, he continued. “That’s how I got out. When we left the house and they forced me into a prisoner’s carriage, something felt…off. There had been small moments that seemed strange throughout it, but this tugged at my mind. A strong gust of wind blew through the central sector, but it wasn’t normal wind. It blewupward. Coming from the ground. My clue was ‘wait for the wind.’” He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “A bit blunt, if you ask me. I realized then it was the second trial. They locked me behind bars, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed.”
I didn’t know what to say. Question after question ran through my mind, more and more reasons to hate Gayl and this Decemvirate cropping up with every passing second, but I was frozen. What does someone say to those who saw what we saw? Who were forced to make decisions that would impact us for life, whether or not they were real? The way Nox spoke of theseexperimentsas if he’d lived them made my skin crawl. This trial seemedto have pulled on our deepest fears and traumas, forcing us to face them head-on.
I had no words to offer. Instead, I leaned over and rested my hand on top of his clenched knuckles. “Some trial,” I said.
“Some trial,” he echoed sadly. We sat there for a minute, letting his story settle around us. He didn’t pressure me to speak, but I found I wanted to share my tale with him, anyway. He was one of only a few who could possibly understand.
“My dream started similarly,” I began. I told him of the Mysthelm soldiers, the infirmary and dead patients, the men I’d killed, and how my family had been taken. I relived the destruction of the central sector and my attempts to get people to safety, of the plan to obliterate the shelter and the choice I had to make. Shame once again swept in that I’d chosen to save my cousin over an entire building of people, whereas Nox had willingly sacrificed himself for the sake of dozens. But his eyes never once judged, never questioned.
I recounted how I followed Beau and his captors to the river and was caught, and how my clue from the first trial was also what helped me come to the conclusion that it was all fake, right as I was stabbed through the heart.
“Stabbed? Well, now, that was a bit dramatic,” Nox said.
I tried to smile, but it fell flat. “What are we supposed to do now?” I finally asked. “The idea of facing everyone and having this trial paraded around as a success story, then competing in athirdin just a few weeks…” I shook my head. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Are you kidding me?” He stood. “Don’t let them make you believe you’re not strong enough for this. You’re a viper, darling.Theyare the ones who should fearyou.”
I scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say, the fearsome Shifter from Drakorum.”
“Andyou,” he said, offering me a hand, “Are the fearsome Alchemist from Feywood. Don’t doubt yourself. Do you know why I called you a viper that firstday?”
I shook my head, taking his hand and meeting his glittering eyes.
“Because I’ve seen what you’re capable of when provoked. Youstrike.”
Noxand I talked for another half hour before Horace banged on my door, telling me Lark requested my presenceimmediately. I supposed I’d put off meeting with her long enough.
“There you are!” she exclaimed when I arrived at her office, throwing her hands into the air. Shadows instantly billowed from them, sealing any space beneath the door so we could speak freely. “Do you know how foolish it was of you to go running off like that?”
“Don’t start,” I snapped, plopping myself in the chair across from her desk. “Let’s get this over with.”
Lark looked taken aback by my tone and shared a look with Horace. Leo had confirmed she and the other architects had no control over what occurred in the second trial and that the idea had been Gayl’s to begin with, so I wasn’t truly upset withher. But my distress from the last twenty-four hours was morphing into anger—an emotion I was comfortable with. One I knew how to wield.
She crossed to stand behind her desk, and when she met my eyes, the pity I found only increased my agitation. Did she have access to what I’d seen in the dreamscape? To what choices I’d made, what I’d had to endure?
Suddenly, it was difficult to meet her gaze.
“Please state your full name,” she said, sitting and pulling out a pencil.
“Rose Angelica Wolff.”
“What province do you reside in?”
“Feywood.”
“And where are you currently?”
“In Veridia City.” She looked up and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “go on.” I sighed and crossed my arms. “In the emperor’s palace, being asked annoying questions in his head architect’s office.”
Lark scratched at her brow with the end of her pencil. “Rose, I know you’ve been through an ordeal, but?—”
“Been through an ordeal?” I snorted. “You make it sound like my carriage lost a wheel or my cat got sick. What you did to us wastraumatizing, Lark. I can’t believe you can sit there and act like you didn’t force us to live through our worst nightmares, all for the sake of appeasing the mighty Emperor Gayl. I thought we were on the same side.”
Alright, maybe I was alittleupset with her.
For a moment, her face crumpled. Horace grunted behind us. “Hey now, don’t take it out on her. She was doing her?—”
