Sember steps towards me. ‘If you die, the Straits will boil over with vengeful sirens. And the Rexilium brothers will find another, someone else who can do what you can. And they may not be as good-hearted as you. They maywanta war.’
I shiver, seeing the truth in her gaze, what she fights for, what her alliance really means. Sember Lockswift is not just Prince Heath’s keeper. Whatever she is to Skylan, though, she’s playing a dangerous game.
‘Soturi!’ a voice cries, and I look round to find Fey running for us. Soturi collapses to his knees as she throws her arms round him, panic plain in her face. ‘Hold on, just hold on.’
‘It was a wither beast,’ I say in anguish. ‘He defended me. He fought it off.’
She takes a shuddering breath and cups his cheek. ‘Of course he did. He’s the best of us.’
There’s a deep rumble and the sound of that great door to the tunnel opening. We all look across to find a way out of the arena. The Trial is over.
‘Time for us to get out of here,’ Heath says. ‘Best you get moving too. But do you need a hand with him? Sember’s very good in a crisis.’
‘And apparently you’re about as useful as pudding.’ She snorts, worry furrowing her brow, despite her quip, as she looks at Soturi. ‘Fey, can you carry him?’
‘She can if Mira and I brace him on the other side,’ Kell says, waving them off. ‘You two go. We have a deal, don’t we? You need to claim your victory. Thank you for helping us.’
‘Our pleasure,’ Sember says. Then she and Heath step through the doorway into the tunnel, and out of the arena, to defend their position as winners of the Trial.
I look out over the crowd, suddenly aware once more of their presence above us. There’s no hiding the fact that we’ve worked together now. An entire audience has witnessed us – from three different territories –working together. As I scan the faces, the noise of them all bleeding into one, endless din, that’s when I see her.
Agnes.
Flaming red hair, mouth a full O as she screams for me. I jolt as though shot, nearly dropping Soturi. My breath comes too fast as I watch her, then I’m calling her name, tears fogging my eyes. She’s alive. We lock eyes and she grins, tears filling her eyes as she reaches her arms towards me. Then I see who is beside her. Nero. His lips curl in a taunting smile, eyes filled with cold, as two guards brace their hands on Agnes’s shoulders. And I have never hated someone so much in my life. Nero’s gloating smile falters as I glare up at him, a frown deepening a furrow in his forehead. Then the guards pull Agnes away, and she’s gone.
Fey, Kell and I drag Soturi the final few feet out of the labyrinth in the arena. He collapses as soon as we get into the tunnel. The roar of the spectators falls away as the doorway closes in our wake and I only notice it from its marked absence. The guards flood the space, taking over and hauling Soturi to the witches waiting to heal him. Kell and I are left to walk behind, and all I can see is Agnes. Her anguish. Her spirit, still fierce as fire. And then I picture Nero, the curl of his lip. And wrath consumes me.
Later that night, when my rage has turned to acid, I curl into a ball on my bed. The cry of a drake echoes across Highborn, over and over. Soturi is dead. As hisdrake mourns, the city falls into an unnatural hush and all I can hear is the drake crying for his rider. A silent tear tracks down my cheek, then another. So much unnecessary death. And all a show of the rulers’ power, a battle played out in an arena before a crowd. I wonder if the merchants have agreed to use their route. If they are impressed. Somehow, I doubt it. Kell and I ranked second before last – the Leicenan contenders were both cornered by a wither beast and chose to forfeit and ask for help, bowing out of the Trials. And, somehow, Sapira from Stanvard came first, beating Sember and Heath to the tunnel.
I was so close to death. Again. I can still hear the wither beast’s roar, smell its steaming flesh, feel the terrified thump of my heart. For the first time, I truly believe I will not make it out of these Trials alive. But, if it comes to it, if I am alone in the next Trial … I bunch my hands into fists and cry in earnest. Then I am unlikely to make it.
For the first time, I contemplate the very real possibility that I may never free Agnes. That I won’t see Rosevear again. That I will die with Eli trapped in another world, and I may never see those I love again in this life. My spirit breaks for the first time, and in the darkest part of the night I feel the walls caving in. I am truly, utterly alone.
after outwitting the hunters andtheir grindlewolves, Brielle leads her coven to a safehouse in a village near the Leicenan border. They hide until the following day, waiting for the cover of darkness to continue onwards, ditching the coach and securing a smaller, sleeker carriage as they reach a town just over the border. Three days and nights of relentless travel is enough to bind Inesh and Dreska into constant companions and fast friends. But for Brielle every mile is torture. Her friends, captured, taken and the possibility of those hunters finding them again at the very forefront of her mind. She taps her fingers restlessly against her leg, watching out of the carriage window as the blur of Leicenan vineyards race past outside. She should have been there, should have protected them, not left so swiftly, believing everything would be fine on the isles in her absence. She should have factored in the ruling council’s relentless drive for power and the strong possibility of retaliation.
‘Driver!’ She raps sharply on the roof of the carriage, not for the first time. ‘Faster, get us there faster!’
No ship will sail to the Fortunate Isles from the northern port town of Normé, despite flashing her purse, full of coin. So she books a passage for the three of them aboard a ship to Port Trenn and stands on deck the entire trip as Nova stays by her side, watching the sea consume the land.
There is nothing you can do.
‘The first Trial, no, the firsttwoTrials, will be over and done with,’ she says. ‘I should have been there. I could have got Mira out, Kell too.’ She doesn’t mention the unthinkable: what if they’re already dead? What if, even now, the ruling council is surrounding the islands with their ships …
Hunter, focus on the next move. Caden will know more when we arrive. There is no use fretting. Think like the hunter you are. Think like the Tresillian witch you have been forged into.
‘Ever the pragmatist.’
As are you usually, Brielle. This crisis is the first true test of your character. Do not fall short.
Brielle stifles an indignant snort, annoyed that Nova is right. At Coven Septern, she was never tested in this way, not since she went rogue and stalked her mother’s killers. But, since Lowri’s defection, and then her own, and now this … thiscrisis, as Nova calls it, she is indeed being tested. Her only hope is that Eli and Lowri have returned from Eli’s father’s world betweenCaden sending the message, and now. But, somehow, she doesn’t think so. She cannot feel the presence of her sister in this world. There is still a silence, a space unfilled, which troubles her more each day. The lack of stability, of grounding, leaves her shaken, wobbling to find her equilibrium. The world is changing, but she must stay steadfast. If not for herself, then for her young charges. For Lowri and for her friends.
‘We were gone too long. Foolish of me.Foolish.’ She swears, gripping the railing, and steadies her breath. ‘What has it been? Two weeks now? Longer?’
Nova says nothing, merely swishing her tail.
The moment she sets foot on Ennor, she knows things are very, very wrong. And when Caden greets her, gaunt and tall, her brother cannot meet her gaze. Not fully.
‘Tell me,’ she says, gripping his shoulder.
