Page 132 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

It claws at the hair whipping my cheeks, lashing my arms with raindrops that feel as sharp as daggers. Cold doesn’t just sink into my bones—it’s already burrowed deep in the marrow, jolting my heart with the same shock as falling into icy water.

Both hands fly for my eyes—for the mask there, shifted so I can’t see a thing. I rip it off, gasping on the cold, predawn air, tingling with the taste of sea mist and lightning.

Old Ones, where am—

I make the mistake of looking over the stone ledge to my right.

Gray storm clouds churn above me, twisting and writhing in the angry skies. Hard stone digs into my knees and hands as I struggle up to all fours, and I’m soaked through with rain before the scream rips up from my throat.

Below me isnothing.

The lip of a turret ledge opens to the fathoms of nothing but mist-strewn air and a sweeping crowd below, hordes of them looking up this way from where they’re spread out in the wide expanse of the castle grounds. Horrifying understanding slams into me.

The High Queen could’ve killed me, easily.

But this court is cracking. Eavan’s execution on the Black Quay made sure of that. And now the High Queen wants the spectacle of my death in the finale of the Test of Strength. The distraction of giving the nobles something to cheer over, something to unite them.

Someone for them to hate more than her.

She’s giving themme.

The ragged rush of my heartbeat thrashes against my ribs, and the whole word narrows.

I’ve never been afraid of heights. Then again, I’ve never been anywhere this high.

Nothing in Quayside is higher than two stories, but this… I must be at the top of one of the castle’s highest turrets. Six, seven stories? A narrow ledge of rain-drenched stone is all that separates me from falling. One roll to my right while unconscious and I would’ve tumbled over already. My stomach lurches as I find the strength to stand, pressing my back against the cold stone of the turret wall, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t see anything beyond the gut-wrenching plummet waiting for me if my feet so much as slip.

Fuck.

This is bad. Really, really,reallybad.

Sour bile coats my tongue. I press my back into the stone so hard I feel the rough edges of it dig into each vertebrae.

Think.

My teeth clack, and I turn my face up to the churning skies.

My hands sting, but the worst of it is a dull throb from the antidote I swallowed down in my room. Thank the Old Ones I didn’t try to tough it out.

I force out a breath through shaking teeth.

I need to be as hard and unfeeling as steel now.

What was it the High Queen said, just before the Test of Wisdom began? I draw in one shuddering breath after another, nails digging into the stone so hard they crack.The Assay is our chance to cleave the weak links from the chain. It is our forge.

And I refuse to shatter.

Crawling, I inch across the stone, fighting the rising panic, and—shit.

A buffet of wind slams into me, and my scream disappears into the punishing storm.

If I stay here, I’m going to die. This storm will rip me off the ledge and smash my body into the earth. I have to push past the terror.

There must be a way down. My hands find the iron pane of a latch on a window set into the stone of the turret, but of course it’s sealed shut. Locked from the inside, and the glass is as thick as my hand. I ram on it, but it won’t break.

A clawed fist of fear wraps around my throat and squeezes.

Fuck, it has to be a hundred feet down to the ground. More, probably. There’s nothing to break my fall. Nothing to hold on to on the long, long way down.