If there was one thing about me that Artemis needed to learn, it was that I was stubborn and I didn’t give up on anything. I would die before I walked away from this course without ringing that bell.
* * *
Everything hurt.Maddy and Nora had fallen asleep on a bench next to Brayden hours ago, and Artemis and I were running the course with headlamps on and barn lights aimed at us. It was around four a.m. and we’d both chugged three coffees. My heart felt like it was at a rave.
I was bleeding from a gash on my chin, my hair was a muddy windswept hot mess, and I was pretty sure I’d broken my pinky toe.
Not to mention I had yet to ring the bell.
“You’re not really trying,” Artemis whined from his place beside the course.
“How dare you!” I growled. “Of course I am.”
He gave me a placating look. “Look at you and then look at me.” He gestured to his clean robe and smoothed-down hair. “You’re not fighting back.”
“Well, I don’t want to hurt you.”
He actually laughed, which only made me angrier. “Averly, I could collapse the ground at your feet right now and bury you alive twenty feet under. Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”
My feet twitched at the mention of collapsing the ground. Maybe he was right. I’d been so focused on shielding him or outrunning him, I hadn’t really thought to fight back. After all, he was old, and he was my dad, but he was also a badass Elder Fae.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “But if you get hurt, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He nodded his head. “No hard feelings.”
I grabbed the first rung, building up my shield, but then also pulled on my shockwave power. When I’d finished the monkey bars and was approaching the first hay bale stack, Artemis appeared to my left like a ninja. With a battle cry, I threw a shockwave right at his chest, but it hit a tunnel of wind he’d called up at the last second and dissipated.
Okay.
Climbing over the hay bale, and the next and then the next, I got to the bridge and saw movement at my right. Using my sunlight magic, I shot a six-inch-wide beam at his face, which he swallowed up with darkness.
With a growl of anger I ran across the bridge, ducking to avoid the potato sack, and a sharp snap hit my back.
Spinning, I faced him.
Screw this.I sidestepped the course and decided to just face him head-on. He wanted a fight, he was going to get one. I threw my hand out and a beam of sunlight shot from my palm, but I didn’t let up. Raising my other hand, I shot again, left, right, left, right. I rained down a barrage of laser lights right at him and he created little balls of darkness to disarm them all.
“Try wind!” he commanded.
We’d only tried wind an hour ago, but I was so tired and so pissed I just wanted this to be over. Inhaling, I felt the rush of air go into me and then blew out, throwing my power forward.
A sonic boom shook the earth as a shockwave mixed with wind power flew from my hands and knocked right into his chest.
Artemis staggered backward into the dirt and I yelped.
“Artemis!” Rushing forward, I knelt on the ground at his side. He looked up at me with a grin.
“That’s it! Then pin me down with wind and use sun to cut off my head!” he exclaimed.
“What!?” I admonished.
“Well, not me, obviously. Lora, or any of the Fae Lords. Well done.”
I helped him up, relieved he wasn’t too hurt. “I thought you broke a hip.”
He glared at me. “I’m notthatold. Or at least my body isn’t.”
Hmm. That was debatable.
