‘If you want to use some of that magic of yours, now would be a great time,’ Benny suggests.
‘Right,’ I say, though I’m not exactly sure what I’m planning on doing. Make another ice blade? Stab it through her heart, the same way I did with Oke? I raise my hand, ready to use whatever it is the Gods have given me, only to be barrelled through from the side. Del. I was so focused on Zara that I didn’t even realise he was still in play. His strike knocks me off balance and sends me careening through the air. I land six feet from where I started, and I must have struck my head because my vision swims for a moment.
‘This is not how the trial is meant to work!’ My teeth grind together as I push myself up onto my feet. At this rate, we’re not even going to get intothe mountain, let alone up it. I now don’t care how much of my powers I have to expose to Zara. She’s not going to live to tell anyone.
Come on,I urge myself. This is when it’s kicked in before, when I’m in danger. So where the fuck is it? A new sense of panic surges through me, but with it comes something else: the buzz of magic fizzing in my palms. It’s here. It’s going to save me. I push myself up, ready to attack, just as a strangled scream tears through the quiet.
‘Fuck!’
My heart ricochets off my ribs at the sight of Benny on the ground, Zara’s sword sticking out of his thigh, and Jonas on his knees, doing everything he can to stop Del from serving him with a deathly blow. I don’t know which of them I’m meant to go to – which of them I can help, if either.
But as Zara withdraws her blade, ready to strike again, I already know the answer. I will not lose another friend. Not a single one. Not today. The word rips from my lungs as power surges through me.
‘No!’
My scream echoes off the mountainside as a wall of ice appears in the middle of the plateau, every molecule of water held within the air now frozen solid. I’vecreateda freaking ice wall that’s ten feet high and at least twice as long. A moment of disbelieving elation fills me before Benny’s moan reminds me of the situation.
Likely more the product of the Gods’ blessings than actual skill, the ice wall has separated us from our enemies. Zara and Del are on one side, and Benny, Jonas, and I are on the other. But the ice is thin. A couple of good strikes with a sword or Del’s shoulder and it’ll all come crashing down.
‘We need to go.’ Jonas scrambles to his feet. ‘Rose, we have to go now. Before she comes for us.’
‘I’m not leaving Benny.’
The sword struck his outer thigh, which is better than the inside, but the wound is still bleeding. Benny fumbles with his belt, trying to remove it to make a tourniquet, and I hurriedly help.
‘Rose, I’m not hanging around,’ Jonas snaps.
‘Then go!’ I yell back.
Hesitation flickers on his face before his features settle into hardness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. A moment later, he’s running into the cave.
‘You need to go too,’ Benny grunts as I manoeuvre his leg to get the belt around it. ‘You need to go now. I’m not going to die. I’ll bow out. Quit.’
I yank the tourniquet tight, wincing as he grits his teeth in pain. ‘Can you even do that?’ We have no idea what happened to the Rettlings who didn’t make it onto a boat. Or the ones in the second trial who didn’t get to their loved ones in time.
‘I don’t know,’ Benny replies truthfully. ‘But what I do know is that if Zara gets through that wall, the only reason she’ll let me live is if she doesn’t have time to waste on a fight. If you’re beating her, she’ll leave me. Please, if you want to save me, you need to do this. You need to go.’
My heart throbs at the thought of leaving him, but he’s right. I know he is. If Zara knows that Jonas and I are ahead of her, then catching up with us is going to be her only priority.
‘Go win this thing.’ He flashes a smile through the pain. ‘For Llin.’
‘For Llin,’ I repeat. ‘And for you.’
A moment later, I’m blinking back tears as I race into the cave, fighting the hollowness that tears me from the inside. For the first time since I arrived for the Retterheld all those months ago, I’m truly on my own. Benny, Llin, Kyor … there’s no one by my side.
Either I win this thing today or I die trying.
Chapter 70
Idon’t look behind me as I plunge into the mouth of the cave. My eyes sting, though whether it’s from the cold, the pain, the overuse of my magic, or leaving Benny, I can’t be sure. I just pray to the Gods he’s right and that he won’t die out here.
Not after getting this far.
A wind sweeps in from outside, bolstering me forward towards a lantern-lit open space. Steps. That’s what I’m expecting to see. Thousands and thousands of steps that we have to climb to get to the top of this and meet Etta. Maybe there’ll be ledges and precipices, a ridge to be manoeuvred, or a chasm to jump across. Anything to make the ascent as deadly as possible. As my feet draw to an abrupt stop and air wheezes through me, I know for certain that one part of my prediction was correct.
‘You have to be kidding.’
Three carved stone staircases lead up and away from the floor of the cavern, disappearing into the darkness above me. My first task, it seems, is to choose which one to take. Not only is it a climb, but by the looks of things, it’s also a freaking maze inside the mountain.
