23. Chapter 23

The next morning, I woke up when Cassius jerked awake. He stared down at me and smiled before kissing me.

"As much as I'd love to worship you some more, the trial will be starting shortly. You should get dressed unless you want to do it naked." A playful gleam shined through his eyes.

"Maybe it will help me against the others like it does with you." I chuckled when his face lost its humor, remembering how important my performance would be today.

Reluctantly, I stood up and got dressed. I stared in the mirror watching Cassius dress in his black uniform. The tension radiated off of him and he didn't look at me. He hadn't said anything for a long moment, so I walked to stand in front of him. His eyes finally looked at me and I saw how dim in color they were.

"I'll be alright, Cassius."

"This is where you fell from the top ten last time."

"Was it something I did?"

"No." He frowned. "You were distracted by Cerithia men. You disappeared before I could say anything to you."

"But Cerithia can't compete?" I questioned.

"No, they can't but they are clever at sneaking into the trials. Which is what happens each year no matter how diligent we are in stopping them." He sighed.

"Well, I won't get distracted this time. Besides, I"ll expect you to ravish me as a prize for making the top ten, so that's a good motivator." I smiled up at him when his eyes flashed black momentarily. He leaned in and kissed me hard while holding me tightly to him. A knock on his door had us breaking apart so he could answer it. Two guardsmen in red uniforms stood at the door to tell Cassius it was time to go.

I waved at them when their eyes went wide as they spotted me in the room. They avoided my eyes like they would be crucified if caught looking at me. Cassius said something to them before they left, and he turned to me and held out his hand. Stepping forward, I slid my hand into his. I didn't look back in the room to admire it because I would be back shortly.

We walked hand in hand into the hallway where the dining hall was. The remaining contestants gazed over at us as we walked towards them. They must have been told to get ready for the final trial, too. Haden's eyebrows shot into his hairline when he saw us. The guardsmen stood waiting for Cassius to give orders. When Cassius stopped at his spot I kept walking, but he pulled me back and gave me a hard lingering kiss.

"Come back to me, my love," he whispered.

"I will." I turned to the gaping faces of contestants and guardsmen. Haden gave me a grin so big I could feel my cheeks blushing.

"This is the final trial. So, let"s get it over with." Cassius spoke while staring straight at me.

The ground rumbled around us, but no one yelled or screamed. We were expecting it this time. We all stood as tapestries and walls shredded into nothingness. The bright light of the colosseum blinded us as the crowd cheered at us. Twenty of us stood in a group waiting for the king to step forward onto his balcony. When he did, Cassius stood next to him with his golden eyes watching me. The crowd roared at the sight of the king before they quieted down. He was dressed in Crimson red from head to toe. His black crown sat upon his head of dark hair. How had I never realized how similar they looked?

"The final trial!" He boomed as the crowd tore into a new frenzy. My eyes never left Cassius as he watched me closely. He gave me a small smile as the noise died down.

"You have all been impressive to watch. This trial is the most difficult to get through and will likely take the lives of several of you." The king's eyes flicked to me momentarily before continuing. "The top ten will travel to Cerithia to return the witch"s bloodstone to our Kingdom. For six years we have tried and failed. No one has returned alive."

The tension from the crowd was palpable. Looking around I tried to make out the faces watching us but with the bright light shining from behind them, I couldn"t.

"The next trial will be a simulation of the fates of those who competed before you and died. When the bodies were returned to the Crimson Kingdom a seer performed a sacred ritual that revealed how each of them died. We have created a magical simulation that will test six deaths they faced to see who can come out of them alive."

We have to survive six death traps. Six. The number seemed like so much in this context. I understood the reason for the task, but what if we all died trying?

"Once you have escaped a simulation it will put you into the next until you have completed them. You will be rated mostly by who can actually get through the task. If more than ten emerge, the fastest ten will get the points. Once the simulation starts, we cannot stop it until it completes the entire series. Less than ten of you will likely be standing at the end of it."

No one cheered at the news.

My eyes glanced at Cassius's stoic face, and I knew we were both wondering if this could be the last time we saw each other. I would do this for him. For us. For Exile. I gave him a bright smile to show him I could do this, to assure him that he didn"t need to worry about me.

"You may be in the simulation at the same time as other contestants. You may choose to work together or not, and magic is to be used. Best of luck to each of you."

Haden sighed heavily next to me. My eyes remained locked on Cassius as his figure slowly faded away along with the colosseum.

We were all standing in a field. It was black as night, but we could make out the silhouette of trees around us. My eyes tried adjusting to the darkness. There was a small break in the forest where the light shined through it. We must be heading there. Pointing to the light, Haden looked and nodded, but none of us moved.

I wondered what was lurking around, waiting for us to move or make a noise. Those creatures from the first trial flooded my mind. Nothing seemed to be watching us or lurking in the field. As soon as I took a step forward a snapping noise broke through the ground and echoed around us. The land below us shook so violently that it split into two. Haden slipped, but I grabbed him quickly and hauled him back up. A shriek sounded from the crevasse that split the ground into two. Shit. Large, winged creatures flew from the ground and straight into the air. We all held our breath to see if they were noise sensitive like those other beasts. They started barreling towards us. They knew we were here.

"Run!" someone yelled and everyone scattered towards the light in the trees.

I shot my flames out in front of me, burning the creature before it grabbed me. They were fairly small but could kill us with their long sharp talons. I gawked at the small translucent-skinned beast on the ground. It had ears, eyes, and a mouth that held thousands of tiny razor-sharp teeth. Someone's scream cut short as the creature ripped into his chest. I stood horrified that his insides spilled out of him onto the ground.

Don't get distracted, I told myself.

I could incinerate all of them with my fire magic, but it would likely drain me for other tasks. Haden was struggling with a creature. His frost lurched into the night sky and froze the creature solid. The monster shattered into a million pieces when it hit the ground. We were running as fast as we could. Grabbing Haden's hand on the way by I yanked him along with me. He would survive this with me. Another shriek from the creatures put me on high alert.

They were headed straight for Haden and me. I pushed Haden as hard as I could to the left and he tumbled out of the claws of the creature. The claw scratched my shoulder, but I kept running. My ears rang as I heard another contestant's yell cut short. Focus. Focus. Focus. The light in the trees is getting closer and closer. We were almost there.

Haden was quick on my heels. When a creature swooped for me, I stumbled falling into the crevasse. I was freefalling into the black depth of the ground. My mind was blank on what I should be doing. All I could think was I failed Cassius and Exile…again. The free fall had my hair whipping around me. The wind whistled loudly in my ears. How long would I fall before the ground caught up to me? I closed my eyes tightly so I wouldn't see my end coming. A moment later I realized I was not falling; I wasn't moving at all.

When I opened my eyes, my fire mist was circling all around me in a cloud of fire, but it twisted with dark shadows. The darkness in my chest hummed with power as I lifted toward the darkened sky above me. My magic wouldn't let me die so easily. Thank the stars above because I had thought my end was here. Once I reached the top of the crevasse. I could see Haden looking over the edge as if he had been watching me fall to my death. My magic laid me gently on the ground so I was staring up at Haden. A creature swooped at him, but Haden had frozen it within a moment.

"Thank the fucking stars, Thea, I thought you were dead." Haden sighed heavily.

Taking a deep breath as I lay on the ground, I smiled when I saw a small animal crawling towards me. Kace. I stood up and scooped him up in his small animal frame. He wasn't as fast so I could help him, but he was likely undetectable being so small. Fire burst out in front of us as one last creature tried to stop us. It was dead before it hit the ground.

Haden, Kace, and I slipped into the light of the trees, and I felt dizzy as the light blinded me. I looked around not understanding where I was. All of a sudden, I was in a cage, chained and locked shut. Haden, Kace, and a few others were in similar ones. The room we were in was stark white. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were white with no other markings. More contestants kept appearing in the room, also locked up in separate cages. I counted them. Seventeen of us. Suddenly the room started filling with water. Fuck. Were we going to drown? Our hands were tied as the water filled the room quickly.

Haden was across the room from me. Kace was already shifting into a small animal creature. He slipped from the bars and was gone in the blink of an eye. My eyes shifted to the man next to me. He had been on my team during the maze. The man held no magic, and I could see panic in his eyes. He would not survive if I didn"t help. He tugged on his restraints, but they didn't budge.

My fire bloomed across my skin as the water rose. The chains melted from my hands, but before I let myself out. I held my hand toward the magicless fae next to me and melted the chains from his hands. He looked at me with awe as I melted the lock off the cage he was in. I couldn't let him die. He disappeared as he left the cage. Haden's cage was already empty. Holding my breath as the water rose above my head, I melted the cage open and left it.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my back. The hot sun beat down on me so fiercely that my clothes were nearly dry. I stood up but saw no one else with me. I glanced around and saw a group of six Guardsmen in front of me a short distance away. They all held weapons that pointed at me. Great. Slipping my dagger from my boot without them seeing, I stood.

The dagger left my hand so quickly that the fae it hit in between the eyes fell dead to the ground before the others had realized I had thrown anything. They launched arrows at me, but with a flick of my wrist, my fire burned them. One of the men charged me with his sword. Grabbing my other dagger, I moved towards him. I dodged the blade easily and dug my dagger in his back. Stealing his sword from his dead body I met the next man blow for blow. My blade pierced into his stomach, and he fell. Relief flooded me when I saw the bow he had. As I racked an arrow a throwing knife lodged into my thigh.

"Fuck!" I gritted out as the arrow flew from the string and it hit its intended target. The pain in my leg made it difficult to focus on anything. Pulling the next arrow back I shot the man in the shoulder. Shit. There weren't any more arrows. Throwing down the bow I ran towards them and met the wounded one with a dagger into the side of his neck. The last one was the largest of the guards. He towered over me, grabbed me by the throat, and slammed me so hard onto my back that the ground shook.

I tried to summon my fire magic, but I couldn't. My eyes closed tightly so my darkness could find something to help us. There was another magic lingering in the air. He was using magic to nullify mine. Interesting. I pulled on his magic and immediately felt it coursing through my veins. His eyebrows shot up as I took away his barrier. Instead of using magic, I grabbed the dagger in my thigh and ripped it from myself before slicing it through his throat.

The man fell next to me, dead. Sybil's healing magic mended my wounds as I progressed to the next simulation. My eyes were met with darkness again. I glanced around but couldn't see anything. Cautiously, I took a step and stopped when I felt my legs sinking into something. Mud? The more I struggled to free myself the more I sank into it. Great. How the fuck was I supposed to use my fire to help me? I summoned my fire mist and tossed it out hoping it would catch on something. When it caught around a boulder, I pulled myself slightly out of the mud.

The light where I was supposed to end up mocked me from a distance. I pulled harder as I tried to wrench myself free. My mind raced with ideas for how to save myself. Calming myself, I closed my eyes as I continued to sink and searched for magic to help me. Come on, Haden. Where are you? I felt the frost of his magic hanging in the air around me. There it was. But before I pulled it to me, my head submerged below the mud and the panic made me lose my grasp on his magic. My hand stayed above the surface as I struggled to breathe. I searched deep in my darkness for magic that could save me, but even my fire mist couldn't pull me out against the mud.

My chest felt like it was being squeezed so tightly that I could hardly hold my breath in. Panic was starting to settle in, but I had nothing to save myself with. The more I struggled, the farther I sank. I held still, my body trying to not use the last breath we had up. My lungs burned with the need to breathe in and on instinct my body tried, forcing mud into my mouth and nose. I tried coughing up the mud, but that only made me sink deeper. This was it. I would die in a fucking mud pit. My head pounded as I slowly suffocated in the mud.

Then I felt an icy coldness touch my hand above the mud before a large warm hand wrapped around mine. The force of them tugging on my hand hurt so badly, but I would take it over dying. Within a moment my head was above the surface again. I was spitting out a mouthful of mud as my body lay on a now-frozen mud pit. Rolling onto my back, I stared up at Haden and Zade, the magicless fae.

"Fucking hell, Thea… Are you determined to die today?" Haden spoke in puffy breaths. He and Zade both looked exhausted. His words lingered with me. I was not doing well in the trials. I was too distracted.

"I owe you both," I wheezed. My lungs still felt like I was going to suffocate. Haden and Zade helped me up and we walked across the frozen field of mud. When I felt Haden's magic lingering in the air, I pulled on it slightly and felt the rush of coldness fill my veins. Shit, this was uncomfortable. Was he this cold all the time? When we stepped through the light at the end of the field, we stepped into a room where Kace was waiting.

"Thank the Gods," he sighed.

"Have you seen anyone else?"

"No, but I just got here."

The room we were in was small with gray walls and a dark stone floor. There were no windows or any other distinguishable features. A couple of others that I recognized showed up. We didn't move for some time, and it was nice to catch our breaths.

Thirteen remained. That wasn't too bad considering we only had two death traps to finish. The door we had been walking through was sealed shut.

"Well, that can't be good," someone muttered.

Nothing happened at first. Suddenly a table full of different foods and water appeared. A break within the trials? Everyone let down their guard and walked toward the table. They began drinking the water and only a small drop had hit my tongue before I threw the cup away from me. The first contestant who downed a large glass of water fell over shaking and foaming at the mouth.

"Poison."

Shit.

"Who drank some?" I shouted, the panic getting the best of my composure. Everyone raised their hands. A small amount had gotten on my tongue and the bitterness was starting to burn. The contestant who fell to the floor was dead. Sybil's healing magic forced its way to where the poison touched me, healing me quickly. The other contestants were starting to breathe heavily and one of them hunched over holding their stomachs. I reached for Haden first and healed him, then Kace, then Zade.

"Give me that, bitch." Someone yanked the amulet from around my neck, and it fell to the floor. Sybil's amulet shattered on the ground below our feet. No. The pretty colors swirled into nothingness. The healing magic was already settled in my chest permanently, but without her amulet how would she get her magic back? A fight broke out. Haden and Kace had started punching the fae that grabbed me.

"You idiot!" I was so angry that fire burst over my skin. My eyes shifted to black as I turned my attention to the man who grabbed me.

Before I could kill him, he fell to the floor, dead. I glanced around and I had only healed the four of us. We needed ten. I closed my eyes as Sybil's magic surged forward.

"Holy fucking shit." Haden backed away from me when I opened my eyes.

I was glowing, but I wasn't on fire. A brightness filled the room as it flowed from me and into every fae still standing. Healing magic. All of the competitors were watching me, and I knew they would know my elite magic by the end of this. It doesn"t matter right now. The glow faded away, but my eyes were still dark. Eleven of us remained.

Before we had time to think we were all back in the colosseum. The bright lights blinded us momentarily. We all stood in a small group.

"We did it," Haden said as he breathed heavily.

"My Love." Cassius's voice had me turning towards him. The crowd wasn't loud, but we could hear them shifting around. I took a step towards Cassius then paused. How many scenarios had we done? The creatures, that was one. The water was two. The guardsman was three. The mud. Four. Poison was five.

This was a trap.

Looking around, I saw each one of the contestants talking to someone, but I couldn"t see anyone in front of them. When I turned to Cassius, he smiled at me.

"You did so good, Thea," he cooed, but his eyes weren't the right shade of gold. I gave him a once over as a feeling of uneasiness filled me.

I took a step backward and he clocked the movement. His jaw ticked in anger, but he faked a smile that Cassius didn't normally give me.

"Haden!" I called over my shoulder. "Who are you talking to?"

His eyes shifted to me quickly like I had broken a trance. His head shook slightly before looking in front of him again.

"Della," he said, a smile breaking across his face.

"Haden, we only did five tasks. This is a trick," I muttered.

"No, she's here." Haden took a step forward toward this invisible woman he was smiling at. Shit. What the fuck was going on? All of the contestants were walking towards the trap when I glanced over at them.

"Thea, baby, it's me," Cassius said again, but I still wasn't convinced by his smile.

My face scrunched at the nickname. It sounded so weird coming from him. It wasn't something he would say. My eyes drifted over him looking for anything else that wasn't right. I couldn't see but his eyes were slightly off.

"Take off your shirt," I demanded. Cassius stopped and smiled like a predator who was catching his prey. He ripped his shirt off and my eyes scanned over him. Something had to give away what was going on.

"You want to touch me?" He cocked his head to the side with a wicked gleam in his eyes. I looked over his tattoos and immediately noticed that the green T hidden amongst his black swirls was missing. This was not Cassius. Closing my eyes, I felt for his magic, but it wasn't close to me. It was high above me. I pulled on it and I could feel his shadows caress me gently. Cassius. I smiled when his shadows settled in my veins with my fire.

My eyes snapped open when I heard the scream of one of the men being ripped apart by whatever invisible thing was in front of him. My nose crinkled at the fake Cassius, and I realized what these creatures were. Sirens. Showing us our biggest desire. They couldn't hurt us unless we touched them first. Haden lifted his hand as if he was about to reach for someone.

"No!" The ground shook when I screamed. My hand shot out a swirl of fire and shadows cutting in front of the contestants like a giant wall, hopefully blocking them from their sirens. The man who had touched his siren was dead. All the contestants looked at me as they shook their heads in confusion.

"They're sirens," I yelled. "Do not touch them."

Haden observed the wall of black and red swirling in front of him. His hand reached out and touched it softly.

"How'd you do that?"

I ignored his question. We'd have time for that later. "Maybe if we"re all blocked from them, we can be done with the task." We waited for a few long minutes, but nothing happened. We weren't being pulled from the simulation. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to think of what we were supposed to do.

"Maybe we need to kill them?" Kace muttered. "It would make sense. We have to kill someone we want the most."

"Sirens can't attack unless you touch them, so kill them without touching them, and do not fall under their spell again." Haden sighed.

Tossing the magicless fae one of my daggers, he nodded for me to drop the wall.

"I'm dropping the wall," I called out. As soon as I did my siren, who still stared at me like Cassius would, stood close by smiling at me. His shirt was off, and my mind flashed to touching him, kissing him, holding him. My mind clouded with images of us touching each other and I took a step forward. I heard someone yell in the distance. No, I heard them scream before a horrible noise of flesh and bones being ripped apart. It was enough to jar me from whatever hold the siren had had on me.

Lifting my eyes away I formed a ball of fire within my hands. The siren didn't falter when he saw it. My eyes shifted to the color of fire as it overtook me. An overwhelming need to protect myself ran through my veins. The real Cassius's shadows wrapped around me as if to coax me and calm me. I focused on the siren in front of me and saw its fake smile falter when a dark glow started forming deep in its chest under the skin.

The image of Cassius flickered into something horrific. A green-skinned man now stood in front of me with beady black eyes and qualities that resembled more like a fish than a human on its face. The siren couldn't move as my fire burned him from the inside out. Just to make sure he was truly dead I pulled my hands out in front of me to expand the fire in his chest and watched him explode in front of me.

I turned to see who was still standing, but before I could I was pulled back to the colosseum. I was somewhat dizzy from using so much magic, but I wasn't nearly as weak as it had made me before. Maybe because I had been using my magic more and the tolerance was higher. An arm flung over my shoulder, and I smiled up to Haden. My eyes shifted to see who else was there. Kace. I smiled at him and the magicless fae but frowned when only three others stood.

My eyes shifted to the leaderboard, seeing only our seven names in red. The others had died. The sirens had still gotten them. My stomach sank, but I couldn't think about it. My name was second, behind Haden. I smiled as I gave Haden a hug.

"We fucking did it." Relief overtook me. For the first time, the roar of the crowd comforted me. The weight of the trials slipped off my shoulders because I had a real shot now at getting that wish. I would think about how difficult the final task would be after I celebrated how far I'd come. My mouth was dry from the poison and mud clung to every part of me, leaving proof of what I had done today.

I was ripped from Haden's hug and pulled against a hard body that smelled like forest and rain. Cassius. The fae watching us roared as he hugged me tightly. He pulled me back and I saw relief in his eyes. Pulling him down to meet my lips, the crowd roared louder.

"You did so fucking good, Little Viper," Cassius whispered as he pressed his forehead against mine.

"We have a top seven!" the king bellowed into the colosseum. The group exploded in excitement louder than they had ever been before. Cassius pulled back and held my hand firmly as the king smiled down at us and I smiled back. "For your bravery and hard work, we shall have a ball tonight in your honor."

The roaring of the crowd died out as the ground trembled below us and we all stood in the hallway of the Crimson Kingdom.

"There is food and refreshments in the dining hall. You will all have clothes sent to your room for the ball tonight," Cassius said to us. His hand still held mine tightly. When the other contestants wandered to the dining hall I turned to Cassius.

"I thought I was going to lose you when the siren showed me in front of you." Cassius frowned.

"His eyes were not the right shade of gold, and he didn't have the T tattoo. I knew it wasn't you almost immediately."

He hugged me tightly and held me for a long time.

"I have to work on some planning for your retrieval of the witch"s bloodstone, so I won't see you until the ball. Your dress will be sent to our room."

He leaned down and kissed me possessively. I hummed at the dominance in his kiss, and he smiled against my mouth.

"You used my magic during the trials," he whispered. Not a question, but a fact.

"Yes," I whispered.

"You took some of Haden's, too, when you froze the sinking mud."

I pulled back glancing over his face to see if he was disgusted that I could do such things. It was unnatural for even elite magic holders. Others should fear me for it. I could become any magic I wanted. Magic collected within my veins. It made me a monster.

"It's unnatural," I muttered, almost embarrassed. "There is something evil within me and it wants me to collect all the magic around me."

His fingers tilted my face to his, but I didn't see disgust.

"Do not be ashamed of your elite magic. I already knew you could take it. Nothing about your powers disgusts or scares me." He gave me a soft kiss. "Let me show you something quickly." Cassius dragged me down the hallway towards my old room. He shut the door before he tugged his shirt off.

"You are worried that we know you have elite magic. You tried to hide it from us because you were told we locked you all away."

My heart raced loudly in my chest. Yes, that is what all of us in Exile knew to be true. His golden eyes pinned me in place as his black shadows swirled around him and then disappeared. I was confused until he turned his head to the side. The left side of his neck held an elite magic mark. Confusion racked my mind. He had elite magic? His eyes studied me as I stood like a gaping fish out of water.

"You hid your mark?"

"I"ve had it hidden since the elite magic fae started disappearing. It's a habit to keep it hidden."

Stepping forward without thought, I ran a hand over it, and it glowed brightly at my touch. Cassius hummed like he couldn't help himself. I remember how it felt when he ran his finger over my mark, and it felt good. Warm. His mark was almost identical to mine, it was just missing one star by the crescent moon.

"Do others here know?" I asked.

"My family and you." Cassius trusted me enough to show me his secret. I leaned up and kissed the mark. He hauled me up and pushed me against the wall as his lips crushed mine. His tongue pushed its way against mine and I groaned when his length rubbed against me perfectly. A knock on the door had him growling frustrated.

"I have to go." He sighed before setting me down on the floor out of breath. I watched his shadows swirl around his neck and shield his elite magic mark. "Get some rest before the ball. I'll see you there."

He gave me one last kiss and smiled at me before leaving.