25. Maddy

Chapter 25

Maddy

P lease don't pass out. Please don't pass out. Please don't pass out.

I repeat the prayer in my head all the way down to the start line. I grab a bow and a quiver of arrows out of one of the chests that's open on the side of the arena, and then I grab a sword from another. It's a clunky thing, but it's the best of the bunch in the practice box, and until I make my own sword, there's not a lot else I can do. My shield is shoved up my arm on its straps, and I arrange the quiver and the bow as best I can as I pick up the boulder. I feel like my hands are full, and my pulse is racing.

I've spent my entire life hidden away from public view, and now here I am, every eye in the arena trained on me. For a beat, I feel frozen. Paralyzed.

No one is supposed to see me. I don't exist. I'm a princess' handmaid.

The thoughts batter me, and my brain starts to spin .

They're not there. They're not there. Just pretend they're not there and get through this. Do what you can. Ignore what you can't.

My sister's mantra causes a lurch in my emotions, and my shoulders straighten. Whenever I've done the best in training, it has been through anger or shame.

Don't pretend they're not there. Use them. Show them who you are, what you can do. Show them that you're better than they all think you are.

I take a deep breath, draw my bow, and aim for the first sack.

I miss, and I hear a smattering of laughter. I feel my cheeks heat and grit my teeth.

Archery is something I'm good at.

Come on, Maddy, sort it the fuck out .

I draw again and hit the sack, but barely give myself time to celebrate. I draw again and again and again, making short work of all of the rest of the sacks as the platforms fall over the broken glass.

There's no cheer, but I don't care. I won't need the bow and arrow again, so I drop it. There's no point taking it with me; it's unwieldy and annoying.

I hurry across the bridge and raise my shield as I run the gauntlet. Just before I do, though, I make a stupid mistake. I look at who is behind the bow and arrow on the raised platform. Inga.

Of course it's fucking Inga.

With a deep breath, I sprint across the section she's covering. Everybody else has fired two arrows, three if they were quick enough. Somehow, Inga manages five, and I only manage to block four of them with my shield. The fifth slides past, the shield too heavy for me to lift high enough to block. It misses my leather wrap completely and glances across my shoulder. I feel the skin split and hot pain leap through my nerves, then realize I'm barreling toward the blades rook. It's the bulky earth-fae Staffan, whom I've sparred against in glima before. He's got a foot on me in height, and I know immediately what I have to do.

I don't slow down. I barely draw my sword in time to block his blow, and then I drop all my weight to the ground and just skid underneath him, swiping back at his legs as I go through in a halfhearted attempt to look like it's a fight. I'm past him, fast.

I drop the blade and the shield as I reach the glima opponent, now just gripping the boulder in my hands. It's a female ice-fae, Erika, whom I don't know well, but she looks serious as I face her. I relax my stance as Eldith taught me and let her throw the first punch. I catch her arm, drop, sweep my leg, and use her own momentum to roll her as hard as I can across the ground. It works almost too well. We both roll, and I have to struggle to hold on to the boulder. She grapples with me on the ground, but a well-aimed kick to the calf makes her yelp, and I leap to my feet.

I'm through. I'm through the gauntlet. I have no weapons and no shield, but I do still have the boulder.

It takes me a second to jump up the footstep to Fenrir's Leap, and I eye the logs warily. I've seen more people fail here so far than anywhere else, but the people I've seen do the best have gone fast. I take a deep breath, put my arms out to each side, and run. The second my foot makes contact with the log, it lurches and I've clearly miscalculated how I'm supposed to distribute my weight. Speed is on my side, though, because my other leg has carried me across the log just as I kick it out behind me.

Steam from the tar fills the air around me, and suddenly its heat is overwhelming.

Panic bursts up through me, and horrifyingly, I can feel my magic growing with it. This obstacle does not allow magic. If I get eliminated, I'll have to start again, or worse, not finish the course.

My panic lends speed to my feet, and I'm flying across the logs now, feeling them spin beneath me. The next thing I know I'm tumbling off the edge, landing hard on my shoulder as snow begins to flurry around my body. I keep rolling, trying to get myself as far away from Fenrir's Leap as I can so that nobody can accuse me of using magic near it.

Somehow, miraculously, I'm completely void of tar, but I'm sweating. I'm too hot, and the hotter I get, the more magic rises in me.

I stay on the ground and crawl toward the trench. The boulder's gripped tight in my hand, and as soon as I enter the murky green liquid, I discover what the others were talking about. It's like being bitten all over my exposed skin by tiny teeth. The only parts of me not being assaulted are my leather-covered torso and my feet inside Sarra's boots .

So many people have been in the tar and also through the trench that the green liquid is thick and difficult to move through, and my arms aren't as strong as the others'. I'm pulling myself forward in a crawl as fast as I can, but I'm painfully aware how slow it is. Snow flurries around me, adding more liquid and obscuring my vision. The sense of urgency and panic isn't relenting, even though I'm off the logs, and as I look up and see the sharp points of the net stretched taut only half a foot beyond, claustrophobia begins to press in.

I'm stuck here. Trapped.

I'm halfway, perhaps, so there's no benefit to going back. All I can do is go forward, but I can't do it quickly. There's no way out. I'm going to have to keep pushing my way through this thick, horrific, stinging, painful, hot—so fucking hot—ooze.

I have to get out of here.

Some part of me, a tiny part, is aware that this is a panic attack. But the rest of me, the dominant part, genuinely believes that if I don't get out of here right now, I'm going to burn up and die.

But there is no way out.

I can't breathe. It's too hot to breathe. It's too hot to?—

Ice bursts from my fingertips, my arms, my chest—firing from every single part of my body, slamming power through my terrified thoughts.

No, no no no no no!

Within seconds, I'm completely frozen into the ice, only my head and shoulders above it. I'm numb, and it's not from the cold—it's from the shock of what happened.

How is this possible? I was scared that I was trapped because I was overheating. Now? I'm frozen into a solid block of ice.

I'm sucking down air, trying to slow my thoughts, my panic, enough to calm down, to work how to get out of this shitshow I've created. There's a swooping in my stomach.

I just have time to curse every god who ever existed before I black out.