Ten minutes for twenty obstacles? Giant’s teeth, the general hadn’t been kidding when he’d said they only wanted the best.
I watched the rest of the candidates finish the course in relative silence, studying how they approached each obstacle and making notes on which techniques seemed to work the best. As the last candidate finished, my group approached the course, with Dune in the lead. I grinned as I noticed the ink spatters on his left hand and cheek—he’d obviously tried to write as fast as possible to finish the test within the allotted hour, and judging by his grumpy expression, it hadn’t been a breeze for him.
The sergeant running the obstacle course sent the other group away, then lined us up and explained the rules for the course. Ten-minute time limit, no magic allowed, and each individual obstacle had to be completed before you moved onto the next one.
“Miss Greenwood, since you got here before everyone else, you can have the privilege of going first.”
Oh.I swallowed hard, glancing at the rest of my group. Even though I’d just had the chance to watch the last group and study them, I wasn’t a fan of being the first in our group to go. But just beyond them, past Dune’s smirking face, I spied Mavlyn standing on the sidelines, waving. The sight of her there bolstered my confidence, and I lifted my chin and turned to the sergeant. It didn’t matter what the others thought. My best friend was here to cheer me on, and I was going to make her proud.
“Yes sir.” I stepped out of the line and faced the sergeant. “Ready when you are.”
The sergeant retreated to the center of the track, then blew on a silver whistle. I sprang into action, climbing up the ladder rope, dropping to the other side, and heading straight for the ford. Tiny stumps, maybe five inches in diameter each, jutted out of the shallow water, but I jumped from one to the other with ease, then slid right into a crawl beneath the net of trip wires awaiting me next.
Three obstacles down, seventeen to go.
I felt the eyes of the other candidates on me as I raced up a steep incline, then dropped straight down into the waiting pit below. The pit was circular, its walls smooth and made of stone—the only way up was a series of holes carved into the opposite side, meant to be scaled with a set of wooden stakes. I snatched the stakes from the ground and plunged them into the highest set of holes I could reach, then hastily pulled myself up. My arms ached a little from the effort, but my years of archery had strengthened my upper body, so I made it to the top with ease.
Next were the first set of balance beams. Each one was progressively higher off the ground than the last, but unlike the fae who’d failed this challenge earlier, I didn’t bother using my arms—which were tired from the pit anyway—to pull myself up. Instead, I took a running leap toward the first one and launched myself in the air, timing it perfectly so that I landed directly in the center of the first one. Not wanting to lose any momentum, I leaped to the second one, then the third, then from there straight onto the waiting monkey bars. The metal bars were almost too smooth for my sweaty hands, and I nearly slipped and fell, but by some stroke of luck I managed to hold fast.
Dragon’s breath,I swore as my body began to tremble. Anxiety rushed into my limbs, shortening my breath. The ground was a long way down from here—if I fell, I would have to run all the way back to the balance beams to make it up, which would cost me precious time.
“Come on, Adara!” Mavlyn shrieked from the sidelines. “You can do this!”
My best friend’s encouraging words snuffed out the anxiety, giving me space to suck in a deep breath and push on. Swinging my body forward, I caught the next set of bars and made quick work of them, then leaped onto the waiting rope at the end and shimmied to the bottom.
A series of trip wires awaited next, which I crossed with ease thanks to Mavlyn’s constant assaults on my ankles with her vines. Following that was a set of vertical bars I had to scale, then a trio of balance beams I had to go over, then under. Another pit after that, this one filled with sand, but with corners that allowed me to shimmy up and out.
Twelve down, I told myself as I crawled out of the pit. Eight to go.
The remaining obstacles were easy enough—a series of tunnels and beams to crawl through and jump over, more ladders and pits, and two more walls to scale.
“Seven minutes and thirteen seconds!” the sergeant called as I completed the last obstacle—a rock wall that I had to climb without the assistance of a rope or safety net. He gave me a very impressed once over as I walked off the track and headed toward him for his assessment. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lesser fae complete this course that quickly.”
I shrugged, a little uncomfortable with the praise. “My magic is weak, so I’ve had to overcompensate in other ways,” I joked. In truth, I’d always been faster and stronger than the other fae my age, even from when I was a small child. I’d always figured that was the trade-off for being magically incompetent.
The sergeant snorted, then marked something on his clipboard before waving me off. Instead of standing next to the other candidates, I crossed the field and joined Mavlyn, who was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement.
“That was amazing, Adara!” she squealed, throwing her arms around me. The grass beneath my feet hummed in tune with her emotions, and I couldn’t hold back a grin even as she squeezed the breath out of me. “You should have seen the look on Dune’s face as he watched you clear the course. He looks like he swallowed your mother’s most bitter healing draught.”
I laughed. “It’s about time Dune got a taste of his own medicine,” I said, turning to glance at him across the field. True to Mavlyn’s description, he was sour-faced and sullen—an expression I’d never seen on him before. I was used to seeing the swaggering, confident Dune, the one who taunted and teased and didn’t care what anyone else thought of him. To see him so obviously bothered by my success sent a heady rush through me, bolstering my confidence even further.
“I honestly don’t know what I was worried about,” I said, shaking my head. “You did such a good job preparing me for this. I owe you one.”
“I don’t know why you were worried either,” Mavlyn teased. “You’re strong and fast and crazy talented, and you’ve been training for this for ages. As long as you trounce Dune like the sorry sack of dragon dung he is, I’ll consider your debt paid. I don’t even care if you decide to leave me for the military as long as you accomplish that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Only you would take this as an opportunity to guilt trip me,” I said.
Mavlyn grinned and jabbed her elbow into my side. “Hey, what are friends for?”
I stayed with Mavlyn as the rest of our group finished the course. Half of them failed and were sent off the field, but Dune passed with flying colors. He made it through each of the obstacles on the first try, but he failed to beat my time by thirty seconds, so I could hardly be annoyed about that.
“He’s a worthy adversary, much as I hate to admit it,” Mavlyn said as he walked off the track. “You’re going to have to give it your all if you want to beat him across the boards.”
“That was always the plan.”
I moved onto the next tryout—archery—feeling much more confident. Dune and I tied for performance with that one, but I outdid him in the horsemanship obstacle course, and also in melee combat. With each tryout that we completed, he grew more and more visibly frustrated, and by the time we got to the single combat arena, he was practically fuming.
As the sergeant explained the rules of the challenge, my scalp began to prickle with awareness, as though someone was watching me. Instinctively, I scanned the crowd on the sidelines, and I nearly jumped out of my skin to find General Slaugh staring at me intently. His emerald green eye narrowed as he studied me, and a chill raced across my skin. My instincts warned me that drawing this fae’s attention to me wasnota good thing, though I couldn’t fathom why. After all, I’d excelled at every tryout so far, so it wasn’t as if General Slaugh could possibly disapprove of me. If my plan was to join the military and ascend its ranks, wouldn’t catching the general’s attention be a good thing?
