Page 31
Our walk through the doors is for purely dramatic effect. We’re all striding as if we’re confident that we’ll be victorious, and it’s making sure the asses on those stolen chairs clench while they wait.
After all, why should people who are lying, manipulative thieves get a moment of respite when the injured parties are put on public trial?
As the doors to the trial close behind us, I see a corridor of obsidian inlaid with pearls so polished you could do surgery on the reflection. The light here is off. It’s not cold, not warm… just absolute, filling every shadow with a kind of hungry anticipation. The corridor opens into a circular chamber big enough to swallow the ballroom twice over.
That’s where the real trip begins, because the room doesn’t end.
Where there should be walls or columns or something, there’s simply more space—a void blacker than anything I’ve ever seen, broken only by the bridges. Silver walkways spiral out from a single platform in the center, criss-crossing and looping in ways that make my brain itch. Some go straight, others curve, some double back on themselves, or rise and fall into nothingness. It’s like someone tried to build a city out of spider silk and forgot about gravity.
Fucking Fae, I swear to all the mother goddesses and their ancestors.
Surprisingly, Morana waits for us on the center dais.
Behind her, a stone table flecked with opal glints like a beacon. She looks us over, and I see her lips curve behind the mask. “The Midnight Court is ancient, and its traditions, such as this, are older than anyone in that room remembers. They do not realize I can be here as a spirit guide in the beginning because they never completed them to take their places as rulers. This room was built for the trials—tests to prove that a soul is worthy of its fate. The walkways test the mind, the heart, and the will. Succeed, and you claim your place. Fail...”
She leaves it hanging, but Khol picks it up with a grimace. “We get shanked by the next monster that wants a royal for breakfast?”
Morana nods at him. “Each path represents an aspect of power in the Midnight Court: Illusion, Endurance, Insight, and Blood.” She points to the nearest walkways, each lit with a faint pulse like moonlight refracted through a drop of water. “To reach the center is to prove yourself, but to turn back is death. Choose wisely.”
Bullshit Indiana Jones-esque crap. There is likely no actual answer that will lead to anything but battle and blood.
She steps off the dais, and the bridge behind her dissolves as if it had never existed. The doors we entered through slam shut, the sound rolling through the void like a bomb. We’re not getting out of here until we complete the damn journey now.
I don’t realize I’m shivering with rage until Revelin’s hand tightens around mine. “Are you okay?” he whispers.
“Ask me again when we’re not about to die in a nightmare obstacle course,” I say, and force a smile that almost hurts. I’m so angry and worried and full of emotion and burgeoning power that it feels like it might shoot out of me at any moment.
The four paths are labeled in an ancient script that I don’t know if any of us can read. Dezi steps closer to me, scanning them before he turns to me. His lips twitch as he says, “This is a classic test to see how we will handle being split up; they want to see who cracks first. It doesn’t matter if we can read what they say; it’s all about what we do when we take them.”
I blink. “Hell, no. We’re not splitting up in this fucking place.”
Khol snorts, nodding his agreement. “That never works in the movies, Sassy. Good thing none of us is a virgin, or they’d be the first to die.”
“Fuck that,” I hiss. “We don’t split up anymore, remember?”
Tiernan’s studying the first path. Obviously, he can’t read the words either, but like Dezi, he’s considering what it might offer. The void below the suspended path is so dark it eats the light, which makes him grunt in irritation. “We’ll be stronger together. If it gets bad, we’ll fight through. Like we always do.”
Dezi shrugs. “Your call, witchling.”
Morana clears her throat, gesturing at each path as she says, “Illusion, Endurance, Insight, and Blood. Now you may make your decision with the same amount of information that the elders would have possessed.”
Nice of her to realize we’re being sent in blind, because no one speaks their ancient Fae dialect.
I pick a path at random—I don’t trust that they’re even labeled accurately because that’s how the Fae work. The silver beneath our feet brightens with a pulse of moonlight that sinks straight into my bones. We move in single file because the path is just barely wide enough for two people if you squeeze. The air here is so thin it hurts to breathe. I look back, and the dais is already a pinprick behind us.
We’re on our own now, and that’s both comforting and terrifying simultaneously.
It’s time for me to prove who I am and what I’m capable of.
* Family
Sixteen
TIERNAN
Most Fae architecture is meant to unsettle, but Midnight’s test feels personal—like the room is already rooting for us to fuck it up.
The bridge is silver, but not the fairy-tale kind. It’s more like a razor’s edge stretched across oblivion, narrower than a sidewalk, and weirdly cold. There’s no rail, no posts, just the air itself turning viscous the farther we go. Below, the void doesn’t so much as stare back as it gnashes its teeth, hungry for the next body to fall.
