“Looks like those three are holding up traffic,” Hadrian commented, his easy smile still in place. Nothing seemed to faze that man—at least not his facade.
He’d just finished speaking when Lory noticed a tall, lanky form climbing at the top of the group making it down the wall. She’d barely recognized him as Brycon when he kicked his long leg at the ashling beneath him, sending off a chain reaction.
The woman under him—the one he’d hit in the face—dropped like a rock, tearing Jarek down with her as she disappeared behind the obstacle blocking Lory’s view of the ground. The students watching the spectacle collectively held their breath as another ashling lost his handhold, and another.
“Shit—” Lory didn’t make a conscious decision to run, her feet swallowing up the dusty ground as she squeezed through the spectators. She didn’t care what people would think, including the Triad, who were throning on the highest platform at the side of the yard, overseeing the trial. Like a desert lion hunting for prey, she flitted through gaps, not stopping for shouts of complaint, until she reached the edgeof the parcours, where three bodies lay sprawled, their limbs sticking out at unnatural angles.
All three of them didn’t move.
“Jarek!” She noted the male form of the body closest to her, and her chest constricted like a thousand ropes were being tied around it. “No?—”
“Up here, Lory!”
Lory’s heart stopped as she craned her neck to find a wide-eyed Jarek suspended between Thal and Tabi, both of them clutching one of his hands while holding on to the wall with the other.
He’s fine, Lory told herself.Breathe.
“I can’t hold you much longer,” Tabi shouted, and Jarek held so still, Lory would have believed he was unconscious had his eyes not been wildly searching the wall for a foothold. “You’ll need to grab the wall.”
“There’s nothing to grab.” Lory had never heard that level of panic in Jarek’s voice, not even when he’d almost plunged to his death during their first Veiled test.
Unless Khayrivven had shared his cat-foot trick with them, they were too high up to jump. They wouldn’t survive the fall.
Fuck.Use your magic,she thought at Jarek, but the rules of the trial were clear. No magic, unless the Triad explicitly allowed it.
Just as Jarek was lifting his leg to search the wall for a crevice with the toes of his boot, the Veiled Hand stepped to the edge of the obstacle, peering down at the scene. “Let go of him, or all three of you will fall,” he said with the icy voiceof the captain, and Lory’s heart froze at the verdict hidden in his words.
Sacrifice Jarek to save yourselves.
A glance at the ashlings holding on to the wall for dear life while they waited for the path to be cleared was enough for Lory to understand that none of them would care if Jarek died. Just another casualty, another ashling not strong enough to survive Ashthorn. One of the third who was bound to not make it.
Khayrivven couldn’t possibly mean it. But his words were final.
Lory covered her mouth to stifle a sob as Jarek looked up at where his large hand was slipping from Tabi’s smaller one.
“It’s all right. You can drop me. I won’t haunt you if I break my neck.”
Lory didn’t question why she could hear him, even when it wasn’t, by far, the shout from before.
Tabi merely shook her head. So did Thal. “No fucking chance,” he ground out, his voice breaking from the strain and his own fingers slipping around Jarek’s.
Think, Lory, think.There had to be something she could do. Something that would save her friend.
None of them had been allowed their weapons for this part of the trial, so they had no accessories to work with, but Lory did.
Both Thal and Tabi were determined to hold on as long as they could, ignoring Khayrivven’s order.
She had a heartbeat to make up her mind. If Tabi lost her grip on Jarek, he might find a handhold, but chances wereslim he’d be able to grab onto it before Thal would lose his grasp, too.
With a sigh of relief, she grabbed the dagger at her hip and drew it from its sheath. The metal sang as she ripped her arm back, then flipped the weapon in her hand, pinching it by the tip of the blade.
The dagger spun in the air as it rushed by the edge of the router obstacle and over the dead ashlings on the ground. Time stood still as the blade impaled the wall, quivering where it stuck in the rock right beside Jarek’s knee—and no one made a sound.
“What are you waiting for?” Tabi’s voice tore the silence, her grip slipping faster, as Jarek jerked into motion, pulling his leg up and placing his toes on the sharp edge of the blade. He’d barely placed his weight on the dagger while Lory prayed for the delicate blade to hold.
“You can let go.” Jarek nodded at Tabi, who slumped against the wall, her free hand finding a crevice to slide her fingers into.
Lory didn’t breathe the entire time as Jarek half-dangled, half stood there, his hand searching the wall until finally,finally,he found something to hold on to, and he nodded at Thal to let him go.
