I find Aelia amongst the crowd, both of us moving to meet each other. She offers me a small smile, then squeezes my hand in encouragement.
“It’ll be alright,” she whispers as we all move like cattle down the hallway. Lady Bethany is somewhere at the front, while guards herd us from the back.
“I’m scared, Aelia,” I murmur, searching the other women’s faces. It’s a relief to me when I find eyes just as wide as mine.
“Me too,” Aelia responds, hand tight on mine. “But don’t you worry. We’ll be alright. Let’s stick together if we can.”
I nod. Aelia clenches her hand around mine again as the crowd bottlenecking the castle doors threatens to separate us. Aelia tugs me, and I follow her, apologizing under my breath to the women who I bump into.
As we spill out of the castle into the fresh air, the sun is warm on my cheeks. We pass the gardens. I longingly skim over them, wishing the trial was something that required plants instead of armor.
The rest of the walk is quiet but for the sound of our boots hitting the cobblestones as we make our way out and around the castle grounds. The guards spread out, framing us on all sides. Eventually, we cross a bridge over the lake surrounding the castle and over to the lands sloping up to the Serahaven mountains. The closer we draw to the cliffs, waterfalls tumbling down the rocky edges, the colder it gets. When I tip my head back to look up at the tips of the mountains, they’re dusted in snow.
We all stop.
Devin stands front and center of our group, facing us. His golden armor is nearly blinding in the sunlight. He motions behind him to where a set of stairs sink down into the earth. In the distance are more stairs, heading up to a top platform.
“Ladies, this is your first trial. Be quick. Swift. And we will see who makes it to the other side. The first one to finish shall have tonight’s feast with Cyrus and be immune to eliminations until the next trial. Once you hear the bell, you may begin.” Devin then offers a stoic nod, and walks with Lady Bethany toward the distant platform.
The women around me exchange nervous glances, though a few have determined smiles. Half of us have dined with Cyrus. The other half have not.
Thirty women. One hand.
A bell rings, and we all race down the steps. I’m in the middle of the group, getting shoved around as everyone dashes down. The stairs dip into a long stone tunnel, though the ceiling is open to the sky.
Before us are stone pillars varying in size. Some as short as my knees, with others double my height. They’re sprinkled throughout the expanse between us and larger, square platforms wait beyond.
I look to Aelia, who drops my hand. “Perhaps we must jump from column to column?”
She nods. “What I was thinking, too.”
One woman elbows her way to the front, and as she takes a few strides into the tunnel, arrows explode from the side walls, grazing right in front of her.
Most of us scream. Others drop. The stairs we’re standing on begin sinking into the floor.
We’re trapped. Nowhere to go, but forward.
The woman at the front hardly seems phased, as she jumps left and right, avoiding the arrows threatening to impale her. A group of women rush forward, ducking, spinning, and hiding behind the stone columns as a relentless shower of arrows rips through the air.
Two women swipe fallen spears and use them to swat incoming ones.
Oh, I am not cut out for this. Not at all. I’m not fast, nor strong. I tend to gardens. Sing myself to sleep. Revel in silences. What previous skills am I not remembering that could possibly qualify me to compete like this?
Aelia grabs my elbow and drags me a few inches into the arena as the walls where the stairs were behind us turn into a wall of metal-tipped spikes pushing in slowly toward us.
“We have to get to the other side!” she screams over the chaos.
When I look to see how far off the set of square platforms is, the distance doubles. Then triples.
One woman spins to her left, narrowly avoiding an arrow—but puttingherself right into the path of another. It rips right into her skull, the impact slamming her into the ground.
A gasp leaves my lips. All I can see is her on the ground, arrow protruding from her head. The only movement is the slow creep of blood seeping out from her skull.
Dead.
“Lyra!” Marcella smacks my cheek hard enough that heat explodes across my skin. “You stay here, you die. Move!” she roars, pointing ahead.
We are the last in the group to run. Some of the women still attempt to jump from pillar to pillar, only to drop when they realize they aren’t high enough to avoid the arrows.
