6. Chapter 6

6

T he risks of tampering with The Striving barely registered against Rebecca’s resolve. This was her only chance. She couldn’t turn back now.

There was no other way.

She swirled the flask a few times and studied it. If she’d done this correctly, the reaction should settle down soon, if not back into the potion’s regular blue glow then close enough for it to pass inspection.

It had to look like every other potion delivered to a potential initiate of The Striving. No one could know she’d tampered with it. Certainly not that she’d concocted something specific and tailored to Rowan Blackmoon.

That would only raise more questions. Specifically why, if they were complete strangers, Rebecca would want to force the failure of this new elf at Shade’s door.

They weren’t strangers, but that was one of the truths she needed to keep locked up and hidden as long as she possibly could.

With a final swirl of the flask, Rebecca watched the last bit of mercurial silver light flash within the blue-glowing potion before the last trace of her added magic faded.

At the same moment, an ominous, crackling burst like someone had just set off fireworks filled the training gym. The iron brazier in the central circle and the sconces mounted on the walls all burst to life with blazing green flame.

Green light flashed across the gym, flooding every corner and shadow while sending new ones dancing across the wooden floor.

Rebecca barely had time to react before a voice echoed around her.

“What are you doing?”

She whipped her head up and spun around in her crouch, eyes wide, both the flask and her secret vial in her hands, reminding her just how suspicious she looked right now.

Finding Bor standing there just inside the gym’s double doors, his dark eyes narrowed as he studied her, was a small relief.

Then the flames settled, their foreboding green replaced by the deep, familiar orange glow of natural fire flickering cheerily away at the semi-darkness.

At least it wasn’t Maxwell.

“Just…inspecting the materials,” she told him. “I wanna make sure this is done right.

The old giveldi snickered as he leaned sideways against the doorway. “Do you have any idea just how many of these I’ve personally overseen? I can promise you the materials are immaculate.”

“I’m sure they are.” She returned the flask to its place within the circle, covertly slipping her personal vial—now empty—back into her jacket pocket. “It’s nothing against you, Bor. This is me doing my due diligence and everything.”

“As is the Roth Da’al’s.” He pushed himself away from the doorframe, then made his way across the room in that slow, shuffling gait of his.

As he walked, Shade’s resident cook—and magical master of ceremonies, apparently—scanned their surroundings, taking in every detail of the space he had prepared. The room that looked like an entirely different place with all the decor, the added wards and casting circles, the various initiation spells readied and waiting for to be used once The Striving began.

Bor finally stopped a few yards from the central circle and raised an eyebrow—scarred so badly, most of its hair refused to grow back. “Just as it’s also the Roth Da’al’s right to alter any aspect of the four stages for a particular challenger, should she or he deem it necessary.”

Rebecca finished straightening from her crouch and froze.

Shit. Had he just called her out on what she was doing here? How much had he seen?

She pretended to inspect the materials at her feet again, trying to sound casual when she asked, “Why would it be necessary?”

“Who knows? Your reasons would be your own. I’m just saying. If that were the case, sneaking around in here half an hour before The Striving would be entirely un necessary. Just one of the perks your current position offers.”

She let out a wry chuckle, still very much aware of how slowly Bor moved in his old age and how far away he’d been when entering the gym. Maybe he’d seen her meddling with the flask, maybe not. But did it really matter?

Rebecca was Shade’s commander. Like the old man had just reminded her, she had the right to do almost whatever she wanted. Especially when it came to ceremonial rites and rituals like The Striving.

It was within her power to change or modify any part of this, however she saw fit. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was she didn’t want to risk sowing any more avoidable suspicion. She had a feeling she’d already overstepped that personal boundary with Maxwell, and she didn’t want to give anyone else reason to question where she came from or what her true intentions might have been.

The shifter’s doubts were more than enough.

She’d tried to be careful tonight, but she presumed an old-worlder like Bor could already see through her bullshit anyway, even if he didn’t have all the details.

When she looked down at the flask again, the liquid inside had returned to its normal glowing blue. No trace of silver or darker threads of interference from any other magic. No trace of anyone having tampered with it.

No one would ever know she’d just added a little something extra.

Besides, who would think to test the potion that had worked countless times to differentiate between those who were worthy of Shade and its mission and those who weren’t?

“Thanks for the reminder,” she told Bor as his shuffling footsteps grew closer. “Everything looks good here.”

“Of course it does,” he said with a gruff snort. “I’m the one who did it.”

Rebecca turned around to find Shade’s resident cook had almost reached her. “How many of these have you overseen?”

He shook his head. “Too many to count.”

“And how many initiates fail?”

The flicker of a wry smile that usually exposed Bor’s gruff humor disappeared.

Only then did Rebecca realize she hadn’t yet seen him look this serious since she’d joined the organization.

“More than I care to admit,” he replied, his voice now a low solemn grumble. “The Striving weeds out those who just don’t have what it takes to become a part of something like this. What Shade has become. At this point, I find myself genuinely rooting for every single initiate who walks through these doors.”

“But if they fail, it’s not a big deal.” Rebecca couldn’t help but try to bring a little more levity into the conversation, which had turned so unexpectedly somber so quickly. “We thank them for their interest, turn them away, and they go on with their lives.”

Bor pursed his lips before looking up at her, his wrinkled old face contorted further by the enormous scar stretching across from one ear down over the opposite side of his jaw. “Sure. If they survive such a failure of The Striving’s rejection. Most don’t.”

Rebecca wanted to laugh, but a deeper, wiser part of her wouldn’t allow it.

No, that part of her lingered instead on the old giveldi’s words as her heart skipped and stuttered before it felt like it was giving out entirely.

Most failed initiates didn’t survive ?

She’d had no idea about that part. The Striving had been far too easy for her, and she’d assumed it was the same for everyone else. Basic, simple, no real recovery time needed afterward because it wasn’t necessary. No harm done.

But now, this old-worlder who’d been overseeing these ritual ceremonies for centuries, maybe even longer, had just implied the failures were mostly fatal.

With the worst possible timing.

Dammit, why hadn’t someone explained that very important fact to her before ?

Before she’d hatched a desperate, last-second scheme to force Rowan into unwillingly failing this magical challenge that apparently killed those who couldn’t successfully complete it?

Rebecca stared blankly across the gym as the implications hit her one right after the other and fully settled in.

“What’s wrong?” Bor asked, his disturbingly bushy eyebrow dancing up and down in rhythm with its scarred twin as he studied her sideways.

Rebecca tried to respond, found her voice sticking on the way up, then had to clear her throat and try again as she stepped away from the central casting circle. “Nothing.”

“You sure? Because you look like you just found out someone pissed in your Cheerios.”

No matter how badly she didn’t want to give herself away, Rebecca still failed to control herself. She shot one more anxious glance at the flask of glowing blue potion among all the other Striving reagents.

“I don’t even like Cheerios,” she muttered.

“Huh. Suit yourself.” With a gruff shrug, Bor turned to head for the far side of the gym and the raised dais erected there. Presumably, the chairs situated on it were reserved as the best seats in the house for watching the show tonight.

But Rebecca couldn’t quite look away from the flask, which she’d now just added to the quickly growing list of things to worry about.

She’d manipulated that flask to give Rowan more a kick than he expected. To drastically decrease his ability to successfully complete The Striving, all because she knew how to push his buttons just as intimately as he knew how to push hers.

Now, that small change came with so many more potential consequences than she’d foreseen.

Rebecca had rigged this entire ritual to ensure Rowan’s failure, but now Bor’s warning echoed in her mind, chilling her determination.

If he was right, she hadn’t just set Rowan up to fail….

She’d sentenced him to death.

She had to undo this. Fast.