Nothing worked. My feet and hand went numb, pain radiating up my legs as the vine cut deeper, threatening to pull me down and bury me beneath the surface.
Another one appeared at my left side, snaking its way toward my stomach. Right before it reached me, a cloud of darkness enveloped my waist, so thick the vine couldn’t penetrate its walls.
“What the—” I whipped my head around.
Behind me stood Lark, swathed in angry shadows. My dagger was in her hand as she bent forward and hacked viciously at the vine grasping my right wrist.
“Lark! What are youdoinghere?”
“Saving your life.” The vine released me and I yanked my arm back, flinching at the red marks sunken into my skin.
Rubbing the last remnants of my blood between my fingers, I opened my mouth to cast a fire spell on the vines, then remembered how powerful my opening charm had been. An image of my legs being burnt to a crisp flashed through my mind.
“Grab a torch,” I said to Lark instead. “Set them on fire.”
She did as I suggested, and soon the vines shrank from my legs and into the ground, bits of it tattered and charred. I scrambled backward and rested my head against the wall, closing my eyes to catch my breath.
“Are you alright?” Lark asked.
I opened my eyes and glared at her. “What doyouthink? What’s going on, Lark? Why did the trial start early?”
She slumped against the opposite wall as her shadows receded,then tossed my dagger across the floor at my feet. “I don’t know. The emperor…he took all of us by surprise. The trial wasn’t supposed to start for two more days. I had no idea he was planning this, nor how he did it without my knowledge.” She paused, and I took a moment to study her.
Her long, black hair had been pulled into braids and bundled at the top of her head during the ball, but several sections were now dislodged and wild, framing her ashen features. She looked truly frightened—an emotion I hadn’t seen on the head architect, who was always so poised and put together. Rips covered her beautiful black gown, her mask already foregone and the heels of her shoes broken off. In one hand she held the antlers from her mask, the sharp end coated in blood.
My eyes widened. “Do I want to know?”
She glanced down at the antlers. “It’s not human, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“I ran into a wild animal. The emperor wanted us to include some…obstacles for the challengers.” She winced at the glower I gave her. “I’m sorry, Rose, but saying no to Emperor Gayl is a death wish. You must realize that.”
I averted her gaze. “How did you even end up here?”
“I don’t know.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “This wasn’t the plan. But that doesn’t matter right now. We need to get out.”
She helped me to my feet and I collected my dagger, letting her guide me as we ventured further down the tunnel. “Where is ‘here,’ exactly?” I asked, grabbing another torch from the wall.
“In the underground tunnels of an uninhabited island a little ways off the coast of Mysthelm. I’m not even sure they know of its existence, honestly. Emperor Gayl has had us working over the past few years to turn it into the landscape for this final trial.”
An uninhabited island. I wondered how many more areas of the world were out there that we weren’t aware of. “So what, we’re supposed to figure out how to get out ofthe tunnels?”
She gave me a look. “You’re supposed to figure out how to get off theisland.”
“Great. And how do we do that, exactly?”
She opened her mouth to reply when a pale hand shot out from behind her, covering her mouth and hauling her backward. I whirled and caught a glimpse of long, blonde hair before shadows surrounded me.
“Lark!” I yelped, trying to step through the darkness. Shadows lashed at my skin in response.
“This wasn’t how I wanted it to go, Rose,” a familiar voice said. A figure parted the shadows, and I found myself face to face with Alaric Rinehart.
“Oh, we arenotdoing this again,” I muttered and, without thinking, tossed my torch in his face. Using his momentary distraction to my advantage, I sliced the still-stinging cut on my thumb back open and said, “Praetum firma.”
A solid, shimmering shield shot from my hands, the force of it sending Alaric sailing through the air. His body slammed into the tunnel wall and his shadows instantly dissipated. He fell to the floor in a heap, blood glistening on the wall where he’d hit.
A sinking weight crashed to my feet. Had Ikilledhim?
