Without a word, I pulled the hairband out of my hair, letting it fall straight against my back again.
Stupid.
“Let’s go eat,” I muttered, as I dragged Ashley along with me.
The inn served us breakfast; bread, egg and pork. It smelled delicious. Nate and Mey soon joined us, both of them looking as if they had just woken up.
“You never came back from the bath?” Mey asked, confused, looking at Ashley.
“Ah, you had dozed off already.”
Lionel choked on the water as he drank it, and Ashley’s eyes dug into him like knives. Eve came last, looking brighter than ever, but still kept a firm distance from me and Mey.
“So, what do you think you’ll end up doing?” Lionel asked, sounding a bit distant.
“Oh, maybe a magical duel?” Ashley suggested. “But it wouldn’t be fair if you faced someone with water I guess.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t involve magic at all? Like being forced to climb and fetch a flag, but with a time limit?” Mey continued, before lowering her voice. “We did something similar in our trials at home.”
“Sounds too basic, though?” Nate said, sounding unimpressed by it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Eve cut through our noise. “What matters is, she’ll have to actually get through the trial for all of us to survive.”
“What?” Nate stopped eating.
“You seriously haven’t thought about it? What if she fails? You think they’ll just let us go and risk us pointing out their base to everyone else?”
The table fell silent.
“She won’t fail,” Malakai said firmly, not a hint of hesitation coloring his features.
Eve scoffed, crossing her arms, not buying his words at all. I guess she lost her respect for him once he decided to keep us alive.
“So… we’re supposed to stay here and wait?” Mey looked confused at each and every one of us. “Because the rest of us aren’t allowed to do the trial too, right?”
“That’s what he agreed on,” Lionel sighed, picking at his food.
Inrelle suddenly appeared next to our table. “Everything to your liking?”
“Gods, yes,” Nate hummed, satisfied. She smiled back at him, colored with relief. They seemed awfully focused on us being comfortable here… I wondered why.
“Ah, Nicron was here earlier, telling me to give you a message,” she continued, as her eyes landed on me. “You’re all to meet with Michlael at the gate you arrived through yesterday.”
All of us?
“Thanks,” I stuttered, as I pondered the meaning of it.
Quickly, we gobbled down the rest of the food, before making our way out. It felt odd, wandering around outside the inn by ourselves. People stared, children were curious as they began following us from a safe distance.
“This way,” Mey pointed, clearly remembering the path better than the rest of us.
A hand gripped around my wrist and I jolted, looking up at Lionel. “What?”
He let my wrist go, before he stepped in behind me, snagging up my hair in one of his hands and tying it up. My eyes darted to my wrist, he had taken the hairband from me.
“Stick to the plan, trust your gut,” he said, before patting my head. “We’ll be fine, okay?”
I was nowhere near okay. Who gave him permission to do that? Why was my heart betraying me again?
