‘Let me get this right.’ I steady my voice with a confidence I sure as hell don’t feel. ‘You can’t actually cause any injuries of your own, can you? You just work on the hope that other people have already done the job for you. Some predator you are,’ I sneer.
Her eyes flash. ‘I’m going to eat you alive, runt!’
‘Cannibalism, too?’ I sound amused, relaxed. I’m not quite sure how I’m pulling it off or why the fuck I’m goading her. If she has a dagger sheathed behind her, I’ll be in seriously dangerous territory.
There’s a growing crowd of people gathered behind her now – a captivated audience – so it’s now or never.
I don’t give myself any time to second-guess my decision. While holding Zara’s gaze so she can’t see what I’m about to do, I squeeze the bead to activate it.
‘You really think you know everything about me and my family?’ I say, allowing a smirk to rise on my lips. ‘You knownothingabout me. Nothing about life in the slums. Nothing about the powers I’ve learned living there.’
‘Powers in the slums?’ she scoffs. ‘Bullshit.’
‘Rose, what are you doing?’ Jonas mutters, still at my side.
‘Proving that I’m not a runt.’
Zara takes another step closer to me, and her goons move to follow. Can the flame bead take out that many people? I don’t know. I don’t have a clue what it’s capable of, but I know I need to make sure it strikes something that can catch light. Right now, Zara’s standing next to a stack of books. They’re leather-bound with gilded paper, and the top one has fallen open, meaning it’s the perfect kindling. The only problem is… they’re books. After years of missing my library and wishing I had enough money to be able to trade tonics for books instead of food, I hesitate to burn something so precious. But if she just steps a little further forward, she’ll be in line with a wicker basket filled with kindling to start the fires in the rooms. It doesn’t get better than that. I just need to provoke her into moving.
‘Three against one,’ I say, raising an eyebrow. ‘You too afraid to take me on your own?’
‘Says the woman with the seven-foot-tall bodyguard,’ she snorts.
I crinkle my nose as I cast a glance back at Jonas. ‘I’d guess about six-three. It’s okay,’ I taunt, ‘not everyone can count. So, come on, are you actually going to do anything?’ I mock. ‘Or was I right in the first place? You can’t actually do any damage yourself?’
‘I’ll show you just how much damage I can cause,’ she snarls and steps forward. Bingo.
I act immediately and throw the activated bead into the basket. The flames are instant and mammoth, the fire blue and with a heat so fierce that the flames don’t just catch, they consume.
‘Argh!’
Zara screams and the acrid smell of burning is thick in the air. It’s not just her tunic that has caught. It’s her skin and that perfect, long, auburn braid of hers.
‘Help! Water! Where the hell is water?’ one of her companions shouts. Whatever powers her goons have, they don’t seem to be able to help.
I doubt there are any water wielders here. That magic is as rare as they come. There certainly won’t be anyone able to douse it with ice. I don’t need to have seen the marks on the others’ faces to know that none of them will have that gift, not when control of that magic is bound so tightly to the Issen that Korvane’s ancestors executed anyone who dared to show an affinity with ice.
I don’t want to look at Zara, to see the pain I’m causing. Despite the fact that I had no alternative, I feel faintly sick.
‘Duck!’ a woman’s voice orders as the smell of charred hair fills my nostrils. An instant later, an icy gust of air blows through the hallway, so cold and harsh it extinguishes the flames completely.
The floorboards are scorched, the ceiling is black with smoke stains, and the heat has even stripped the paint from the walls. Yet despite all the destruction around me, it’s Zara that my gaze fixes on.
Blisters bulge from her skin all the way from the top of her crown to her waist. How the hell she’s still standing, I don’t know. Then again, I’m not sure how I’m still on my feet either. The realisation of what I’ve done weakens my knees. As if he knows, Jonas steps beside me and holds my elbow. I can’t show weakness. Not now. Or it’s all for naught. I lock my knees and stand a little straighter.
‘You should have let her burn,’ someone mutters.
I’m sure that’s what other people are thinking too, but looking at her in this state, I’m glad someone blew the flames out. If the trials involve killing, then I’ll do what I have to to survive, but I don’t want to take a life like this–trying to prove I’m tough enough.
‘We need to get you to the healers,’ one of Zara’s goons entreats as they try to take her arm, but she shrugs them away.
‘I can walk,’ she hisses, stifling a gasp as she shuffles forward.
Well, any hope I had of a collaborative tournament is well and truly dead. I don’t think Prince Kyor is going to be the only one gunning for me now.
Chapter 11
‘If any of you let her bunk with you, I will kill you too.’ They’re the last words I hear Zara speak as she limps away. The fact that she’s not passed out from the pain has to say something about her. And clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks that, because I’m met with the same response in every room I try: no. The first one says there’re no beds for me and practically pushes me out the door so I can’t see all the empty bunks I already clocked behind them – but the second tells it like it is.
