In the distance, I could make out another wall of ice, but instead of a ladder, there was a rectangular opening carved into its base. That was the real Mercy Gate. Whether everything we’d done since climbing that ladder was a test as to whether we were allowed to pass through, or simply reaching it was the task… I’d find out when I got there.
But between me and that gate stretched a hundred yards of ice.
Ice fields that I should have run over without incident. Except that I could not use my active power without revealing myself.
It looked innocent enough, that expanse of white and blue. But I knew the same thing that everyone in Velora had learned since the curse settled the continent firmly in its grip. Ice was more dangerous than any flame.
I counted at least a half dozen crevices between me and the gate, but those were just the ones I could see. The deep, crystalline blue cracks could appear out of nowhere, hidden beneath a drift of innocuous-looking snow. One unfortunate step, and you’d fall down only to be impaled on spikes of icy death.
Ice crackled in my veins.
If I could stay far enough away from the other supplicants, perhaps I could use my power sparingly.
Nimra was already halfway across, but Nash lingered atop the wall. Was his plan to throw us off as we reached the top? But Nimra had gotten past, and he did not approach me, either. Though that could have been because of the deep crevice that cracked the ice between us. Though he’d been up there long enough to go around if he really wanted to target me.
What is he waiting for?
A few seconds later, I had my answer.
He reached down and hauled Rilk up over the ledge, and clarity shot through me. He’d tried and failed to align himself with Nimra. Rilk was his second choice. He had purposefully waited and pulled the other man up the last few feet. An act of mercy. A twisted one—but Seraxa would be the judge, not me.
But that mercy apparently ended right there. Nash left Rilk panting on the edge and started running. He’d had plenty of time to regain whatever breath he’d lost in the climb, and his approach to the ice field seemed to be to move fast enoughthat he was over any crevices before they opened up beneath him. Not a terrible strategy if one had the endurance to make it straight across the ice field, which I did not.
I couldn’t stay and think it over. Rilk had made it to his knees. Garrick must be close behind. Two slender, golden hands gripped the edge a few feet to my right. Alize. The urge to drag my dagger across her knuckles screamed through me. But I fought to control it the same way I did my power—with middling success.
My own sense of self-preservation got me moving. I’d never best Alize without using my active power. I kept the first crevice between me and Rilk and started at a jog that I hoped I’d be able to maintain.
Without the priestess to direct the supplicants, the sprint across the ice field was a free-for-all. Ahead of me, Nash stumbled but didn’t fall. Nimra reached the gate and disappeared through it. I kept Rilk in my periphery. We were both moving at the same labored, slow pace.
A blur of earth tones flashed by on my right. I blinked, sure the gate was playing some trick on my vision. It was not possible for a human to move that fast. But it was Garrick, not Alize, who surged past me first, closing so fast that Nash looked like he was hardly moving.
Garrick came from my right, Nash had started from my left, but their paths were converging, the pattern of crevices they dodged pushing them closer and closer together. Nature or a trick of Seraxa, it didn’t really matter. Their intersection was inevitable. Nash looked over his shoulder, and for the first time that self-satisfied, malicious grin was nowhere to be seen.
He’d heard about Garrick the Red, too. I hoped he was regretting cutting the rope ladder. I hoped Garrick would reach him and punish him.
Nash was in shape, but Garrick was a honed hunter, and the extra few inches of height gave him an even bigger advantage. No wonder he’d refused my spells and any type of obligation between us. He was so strong and so fast that he did not need them.
Nash was almost to the gate. He leaped the last few yards, hitting the ice with an impact that reverberated across the ice field. A sapphire blue crevice opened behind him, and even Garrick was not fast enough to avoid it. Nash careened through the gate, disappearing from view.
Garrick disappeared, too. Down into the crevice.
My stomach tried to drop directly out of my body. Garrick the Red. That quickly, he’d been claimed by the Mercy Gate. What chance did I have? Panic bubbled through me, fighting with my power, fighting to take control.
The number of crevices had doubled. Tripled. More opened with every footstep. I’d pulled ahead of Rilk, but just like Nash and Garrick, we would eventually collide. I forced myself forward, tracking the crevices as they yawned open one after another. My tired muscles moved me around and over, slower with every step, but still moving.
I maneuvered sideways as yet another new crevice opened, throwing all of my body weight to the side and hitting the ice with an ominous crack. A golden blur approached, moving in an unnaturally straight line.Alize.
I braced myself, power surging to my fingertips. I did not care what it would reveal to the other supplicants. If she tried to take me down, I would use every bit of power at my disposal to destroy her.
The fae had stolen everything from me. They would not get my life as well.
The ice beneath me shifted. I didn’t have time to get to my feet. I tucked my arms into my sides and rolled, praying to theDark God that I’d be able to stop myself before I reached the next crevice.
Alize darted past me, dodging the spreading crevice easily. Her feet hardly touched the ice—no, they did not touch the iceat all. They moved as if she was running, but made no contact with the ground, the air itself providing traction to her steps.
She was wind-gifted.
Even as my mind struggled to understand the implications of her magic, my instincts buried the thoughts. I could worry about that if I survived to the next gate. I shoved my hands underneath my shoulders and pushed up. My thighs roared at the demand to bunch and strain and take my weight.
