I sigh in acceptance as I look at the cards spread over the ground. “You’ve won it again,” I say with no emotion. “But Darian, I need food and water. I can’t just keep hiding. If I don’t get something to drink at least, I’m going to be absolutely worthless in a fight. My mind is already foggy. If I have to go another twenty-four hours with nothing to eat or drink…”
He collects the cards, and everyone’s silent as they watch him. Somehow, in the past month, everyone’s accepted that Darian is our leader. Even with how silly he acts, no one truly questions his decisions. I don’t know if it’s because the rest of them are used to having someone decide for them or because they’ve all realized he’s the cleverest of us.
“We all need food and drink,” he says slowly. “But we’re risking a lot by leaving our little cave. Right now, judging by the screams,we’re probably the only group that hasn’t had any casualties. If we can make it to the end with a full team, we should have overwhelming numbers.”
“We lost Erik,” Rurik says, reminding everyone that his brother was ambushed in our rooms. “But the lass’s right. None of us are going to be worth the steel on our belts if we can’t find something to eat and drink.”
“How do you plan to cook anything we find to eat?” Jorren says, lifting his head up for the first time in hours. “We can’t make a fire. That’d draw every creature and enemy in the forest.”
Rurik grins. “Just so happens I’ve become a master chef at cooking without a fire.”
He looks from one person to the next, his smile returning with full strength for the first time in almost a day. “Darian, can you do a bit of scouting as a bird to find us some water? From there, we can try to find game tracks.”
Darian’s quiet for a few moments, and then says, “I can do that.” He glances at me and says, “Don’t leave the cave until I get back.”
I nod to him, and he crawls to the entrance, pushing back the branches enough that he can slip out into the never-ending darkness. I expect to hear the flutter of wings several moments later, but there’s nothing. Just more silence. Then I realize he must have transformed himself into an owl.
“I don’t like this,” Jorren says softly. “We’ll be taking a serious risk by leaving safety.”
“We have to,” Rurik says, defending both of us. “We can’t even consider fighting the others if we’re already weakened by hunger and thirst. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
Jorren shakes his head slowly, knowing his opinion is outnumbered, but surprisingly, it’s Elara who sides with him. “We want to be forgotten entirely. We did everything we could to make the rest of the teams think we wouldn’t survive a single attack. I’m not worried about fighting demons or veilrunners. We just need to be quiet, and we’ll be fine if it comes to a fight with any of the creatures that Nyxthos can throw at us. I don’t want the other teams to realize that we’re alive at all. Our entire plan has hinged on the idea that everyone will expect us to be dead when we try to take the tower.”
That’s when I understand the difference between Jorren and the rest of the group. He’s not a warrior. I still don’t truly understand his powers. He was the only one from the Kingdom of Carradan to attempt to become Nyxthos’s champion, the only one of Kaelith’s Lost Ones.
He refused to train with the rest of us. He carries a staff rather than a sword or an axe. He moves slowly with none of the confidence of someone who’s fought for eighty years.
The memory of Azric’s conversation with me after I fought Sidon comes to mind.You cannot be a soldier. You cannot be a highly efficient murder machine.Even more than Darian, Jorren is not a soldier.
“What do you think we should do then, Jorren? If Rurik’s being affected by hunger and thirst, then I’m sure you are too. How do we keep our strength up without putting ourselves at risk?”
He looks me squarely in the eyes, his deep blue gaze piercing into me. Once again, I feel myself drawn to him in a strange way, in an almost magical way. “Once Darian’s back, someone sets up a distraction while the rest of the group finds food and drink.”
Elara frowns at Jorren as his words seem to contradict her own. “That will reveal that we’re still alive, though.”
He shakes his head. “Not really. Well, not if our distraction is done correctly.” He takes a deep breath and sighs, looking pointedly at me. “You, me, and Darian will go to the tower. Rurik needs to cook whatever they find. Elara’s too loud, and everything about this trial has her without her mount. Isola…” He glances at the woman who’s sided with him nearly every time. Her eyebrows are arched in surprise that he didn’t want her at his side.
“Isola won’t be able to help with what I need. And she’ll be more help to the rest of you if you run into another team.”
He glances at the rest of us as he thinks through the rest of his plan. “Darian will scout for us. Fiona… Well, I would prefer theVeris-touchedhuman at my side, and she has a bow just in case.”
“What will you do?” I ask.
He smiles. “I will be the distraction.”
Chapter 40
The Empire of Carradan, ruled by Kaelith, the God of Lost Things, was a land of mist and forgotten places long before he awoke. It’s not surprising that he chose this place to make his home. His Godforged have been infused with powers that very few have lived to tell of. All we know for sure is that they involve madness.
~Cedric Penrose, A Treatise on the Gods and Their Powers
Fiona
I follow Jorren as silently as I can. My eyes constantly prowl the surrounding forest under the full moon that hasn’t changed in fifty hours. Darian is flitting from tree to tree, his owl eyes watching the world around us for dangers, both Godforged and Nyxthos’s creatures.
The rest of the group is hunting for food and water, and while my body still feels wrung out from lack of nutrition and drink, thedanger we’re in has me on high alert. My bow is in my hand, a steel arrow already nocked.
I don’t know if I could hit something right now. Every step is hard to take. Every movement seems exhausting.
