Chapter 21

21

Friday was the day of the first Trial.

As the group of students from Elite were ushered into the woods surrounding the town, I stood close to Mike, watching excitement flash across other familiar faces. Coral, of course, spoke to anyone who would listen about her plan for the Trial and how she and her family fully expected her to come in first.

Except the staff didn’t want us working together. If we were together then we might be able to help each other with the magic, or share a life force to minimize the effects of the power necessary to work the spell. Whatever spell we chose to use.

I bit my nails down to below the quick and had an upset stomach to show for it.

In the mortal world, normal people looked forward to Fridays. They were the start of the weekend and a time to relax, knowing you’d have two days off to do whatever you wanted, without worrying about work, without thinking of dreaded Monday.

This Friday was worse than all past Mondays added together.

Headmaster Cyrus clapped for attention, his milky eyes sweeping over the crowd. He had little more to say today than he had three days past in terms of what to expect.

Arlyss’s eyes blazed. “This is going to be a piece of cake. Lane and I did our research. Do you actually think you can make it through, halfling?”

“Oh, are you talking to me? Sorry, I don’t speak idiot,” I replied.

“Hey!” Arlyss barked.

“What?” Mike and I said at the same time.

“She’s not saying anything worse than what you’ve said in the past,” Mike replied, looking over at me with a warm smile.

Arlyss turned on his heel and walked away toward Coral and Lane, his waiting and no doubt more appreciative audience.

All right. No skin off my nose.

“He thinks he’s going to finish first.” Mike moved toward me, light on his feet, until our gazes locked. “Let’s give him a run for his money and make him eat his words.”

“You really have that much confidence in the spell we found?”

Mike’s mask of haughty control cracked a little. But only I saw it. “I’m confident we did everything we could to prepare. I just wish we were doing it together.”

I reached out to take his hand, squeezing once. “We’re going to be fine. Trust me.”

Except I didn’t trust myself. Not when everything he said sounded tinny and my focus began to scatter in a thousand directions.

No! I refused to give in to the brain fog. Not today, not this time.

“Remember, kids,” Cyrus was saying with a wide smile. “Most of this Trial will be deeply personal and not visible to the judges. The goal today is to make it through faster than the rest of your competitors. It does not matter how.”

He put enough gravity into the “how” to sink the Titanic.

“Don’t be scared,” Mike whispered to me.

“I’m not.” I walked a few steps ahead of him to prove it. Good thing he couldn’t see how my stomach jumped and the rest of me shook. I locked my knees to keep myself upright.

He chuckled behind me. “Oh, I don’t know, I think I see a few nerves showing.”

“You’re one to talk. There might be a muskee lurking around the corner prepared to gobble you up.”

The joke did not faze him. “Whatever you say, Tavi.”

It didn’t take long for Cyrus to finish his speech. A shower of sparks accompanied his final statement. And then we were off. I knew that above us were orbs floating, relaying information about the contestants for the viewers watching at home. I’d thought the Summer Games were a big deal? They were nothing compared to the Elite Trials.

People were apparently eager to watch us die.

I crushed that thought and tried to throw it as far away as possible.

Beginning to feel the stress even more keenly, I broke into a run, knowing I didn’t have much time to find the right spot to grow the seed. Thinking back to my time with Juno—the time I could remember, at least—I realized we’d focused most of our efforts on air and fire. We should have been practicing earth magic. Juno reckoned that because I was already taking advanced classes on earth magic at Elite Academy, I should focus on other things.

Fat load of good it did me now.

The ghostly echoes of everything I’d tried to cram in my head followed me through the forest, a place I should have been entirely comfortable. I definitely shouldn’t feel like I was walking on eggshells.

The forest teemed with life around me and a soft breeze seemed to push me forward. There were deer, and foxes, and squirrels racing from one tree to another. They had no idea their world was about to be turned into a battleground for hundreds of elite Fae students. A battleground where the fastest student won.

I’d be lucky if I made it out of here having completed the test at all, much less in the fastest time.

I sank into the quiet until I found a good spot to stop. I looked up. The clearing stretched in either direction with a clear angle to the sun overhead. Yes, this was good.

I walked over the soft ground, newly thawed after the last few warm days, and eventually decided on a particular place to plant the seed of the tree I was to grow for the Trial. Then I began in earnest to gather all my inherent magic energy. Time to get this show on the road.

Drawing into myself was hard work. Calling my magic took more effort than it should have, and the moment I took hold of it, the moment I felt it growing, my concentration splintered. Repeatedly.

I growled, stomping my feet in an effort to ground myself. “This isn’t going to work if you can’t focus!” I yelled at myself, unable to resist slapping the side of my head as if that would help.

This was worse than when I’d had to break the Augundae Imperium out of the mortal world. Then, I’d only been forced to unravel a handful of wards the school had placed to protect the priceless artifact. Huh, surprising that the king hadn’t said a word to me about the fake Imperium I’d substituted, the fake that exploded the moment it crossed the portal from the mortal world to this one.

Boy, if he only knew…

Cognitive manipulation might be my innate power, but it didn’t work on me personally. Nothing helped with the mistakes I’d made. Nothing helped me be better when I kept hurting myself. There was nothing I could do to trick myself into lifting the brain fog. It wouldn’t help me get my memories or my lost time back again. Would it?

I dove into my magic to an impossible depth inside of me, clamping my hands over my ears as though that would help me focus. The pressure built until an unnatural breeze ripped the newly opened petals off wildflowers in the clearing. Until there were pieces of bark and twigs catapulting through the air and the world around me faded. And suddenly the world went quiet. It was a deafening quiet.

A flutter…and I caught sight of a pair of wings at my back. My transfiguration power was once again reflexively manifesting due to stress.

I scrambled to return to my normal form. Deep in the woods for the Trial, I wasn’t visible to the judges except via the all-seeing orbs. Glancing around for floating orbs, I saw none, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there just out of my sight. Terror gripped me with icy fingers. If anyone saw what I’d done—

No more mess-ups. I needed to get to work immediately. I knew I wasn’t going to win. But I wanted to finish at least. Working to center myself, I called the magic again, focusing it on a smaller and smaller point.

On the seed I drew from my pocket.

“Grow for me,” I whispered.

I sent the seed skyward, linking my magic with the life inside of it, with my life. Watched as gravity had it falling back to earth in the spot I’d picked out. Helped it dig deep into the soil of the forest and send out its roots.

I had the magic and I had the determination to get through this. Under my breath I repeated the spell Mike had found. The same kind of spell used to power the Augundae Totalis, the magical artifact designed to bolster and amplify the user’s magic. It was the artifact he’d used to get through the mortal school’s cullings.

He’d done what I couldn’t do, I thought. Mike had found the origin of the ancient artifact. Sneaky little devil.

I crouched down and dug my own fingers into the soil near the embedded seed, grounding myself and tapping into earth magic. The plan was to use the same spell to bolster our own spell but only until the tree took off. Then we’d detach and let the magic of the land boost the tree’s growth instead of our own life force.

It sounded simple. And maybe it was actually going to work because after a long moment of fierce concentration that had my limbs quivering with exertion I thought I could see a tiny shoot sprouting through the dirt—

Please don’t let me transform again.

That little distraction had me losing the connection to the magic and I worried that the spell had fizzled out before I could complete it.

A string of curses erupted from my mouth and I stomped my feet again in full toddler tantrum fashion. “Rein it in!” I admonished myself out loud. Like the sound of my voice would somehow help me get it together when nothing else had so far.

I fell to my knees and peered at the tiny green shoot that had stopped growing. My lack of concentration had broken the connection, but maybe I could repair the damage.

“Grow, damn it!”

Nothing.

Feeling weary to my bones, I collapsed onto my back and rolled into fetal position on my side. I wasn’t giving up. Not yet. But I needed to recharge my energy. Just a few moments of rest…

I noticed a berry bush on the edge of the clearing. It was too early for berries, so what was the flash of gold color I saw through the sparse branches?

My best innate magic was finding bodies, apparently. I was better than a cadaver dog. Tavi Alderidge, cadaver wolf.

I didn’t need to investigate to know the sudden ache in my gut was right. The odd premonition, the knowing that I was once again in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I approached anyway because I needed to see, to verify. My stomach began to cartwheel and a cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. The camera orbs would be overhead shortly, surely.

“Breathe, Tavi,” I told myself.

There beneath the berry bush was an arm. A leg. The dismembered torso of one of Mike’s shitty friends, torn apart.