7. Chapter 7

The guardsman who wore all black stood in the shadows in my room at the Crimson castle. I was lying on my bed as he looked around my room. His golden eyes paused when he spotted me on the bed watching him.

"Come out of the shadows and show me your face," I demanded braver than I felt because this was only a dream.

"No flirting this time, Little Viper?" he purred playfully. When I didn't answer he sighed. "No."

"I already know who you are."

His eyes held me in place as he thought about what his next move should be. With a defeated sigh, he stepped out of the shadows and lowered his hood. My suspicions were correct. It was the guardsman's handsome face staring back at me. Even though I had expected him, my chest squeezed at the sight of him. Disbelief mingled with fear within me as I struggled to find words amidst the chaos swirling inside my mind.

"Are you liking Crimson so far?"

"You're unpleasant in real life, you know." I sat up on the bed to watch him better. Choosing to ignore his question, I simply stared at him.

He didn't say anything either. His golden eyes pinned me like I was his prey and my body reacted to the look immediately.

"I told you before that I don't remember you when I wake up. It's like these dreams never happen. Why would you expect to be treated differently than any of the other contestants?" His tone wasn't rude but more curious than anything.

"Hmm." I glanced at him. "I don't know if I believe that you don't remember me."

"Then don't," he snapped back.

"Do you wish you remembered me outside of your dreams?"

He turned his back towards me as he gazed out my window. I watched him as he blatantly ignored my presence. When he turned towards me, sadness washed over his face and his shoulders sagged. His dark brows creased as he stared at me, probably thinking, as I was, how we could finally be meeting after having known each other for years. He had been in my dreams since I was exiled.

"Yes," he answered. "It feels like I've known you for so long."

"I feel like I've known you forever. Maybe that's why I was a little disappointed you didn't recognize me today, in real life." I whispered my vulnerable thoughts to him.

"Why did you join the trials?"

"I need the wish."

His golden eyes glanced over me before frowning at my comment. "Little Viper, what if you die in the trials?"

"Then I died for a good cause." I didn't miss a beat. "Why do you care? You wouldn't remember our shared dreams in real life. You wouldn't miss me."

"Don't downplay your importance. You matter to me, and I would feel your absence every time I closed my eyes and you weren't there calling for me to find you. I would know something was missing, that you were missing, even if it was only in my dream." He paced back and forth across my small room. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Over the years I wondered about this man and if there was a reason he was always lurking. At one point, I had convinced myself that he was not a real man. That he didn't exist anywhere but in my broken mind. He was someone my lonely, confused mind made up. It hadn't occurred to me that he was a real man or that I would ever meet him, but now that I had seen him, I couldn't process that he was real. I sat in the middle of my bed as he paced once again. He was stressed out, but I didn't understand why.

"I've seen you fight in your dreams. You'll do fine." He sounded like he was reassuring himself more than me.

"I'll be fine. Besides, if I die then you won't have to miss your big important meetings anymore," I joked, but he didn't laugh.

He swallowed hard as he stared at me.

"Don't joke about you dying," he whispered.

Before I could respond, a loud clanging bell woke me from my dream. My eyes darted to the door when a loud commotion rattled it. The bell continued to ring out, and I got dressed quickly, leaving everything I owned in the room except my daggers. I assumed that this was part of the tournament.

When I slipped out the door, the other competitors were shuffling from their sleeping quarters and into the hall where the guards stood. I joined them just as the guard in black walked down the hallway with the most terrifying expression haunting his handsome face.

He was pissed.

His black eyes didn't spare me a glance as he stormed into the men"s sleeping quarters. Peering around I looked for answers as to how this was part of the tournament. Some of the men didn't seem as confused. Some did. I couldn't think of any possible reason for him to be this irritated so early in the morning. The answer revealed itself a few moments later, thankfully.

Two guards emerged from the sleeping quarters carrying the body of a dead fae. Someone died. No, someone was killed. Blood stained the white linens he was wrapped in.

It was the first night, and someone had already broken the rules. The guard came out a moment later, and I took a step backward at the sight of him. His golden eyes were solid black, and tendrils of shadows moved from him. They curled close to him in a menacing angry cloud. He could control shadows.

"I will only ask once for the coward to step forward. Who killed Vatlin?" His voice was deeper and darker than I had ever heard before.

A soft murmur rippled through the crowd, but I couldn't pull my eyes from the guard, mesmerized by the way his shadows moved and tangled around his body.

Had I ever seen anything so terrifyingly beautiful? No.

His cold eyes turned to me with a sneer. I snapped my eyes away from him, wondering if he noticed how much I was staring at him. How much I was admiring the sheer power of him in that moment. There was a commotion somewhere in the crowd behind me before a man was shoved from the group. The fae was young with red hair and freckles, which probably made him look younger than he was.

"You?" the guard said skeptically.

The boy remained mute. No way he killed the fae who was twice his size without making noise.

"No, sir."

"Then why are you in front of me?" his voice bellowed. "I'm not playing this game. I will start killing you one by one if the true killer doesn't come out now."

A faint murmur spread through the crowd assessing the Captain of the king's guard's threat. Whispers about the guard spread like fire, saying he would kill us all in less than a second. Others talked about him being a ruthless killer. I glanced behind me to the crowd. Men avoided making eye contact with him like he would kill them with a look.

"It was Tagon!" someone yelled. A fight erupted immediately, shoving me into the black stone wall chin first.

Damn it.

Blood covered my hand as I tried to stop the bleeding, but my curiosity had me turning to watch how this played out. The crowd parted as the Guardsmen walked forward to the two fae fighting. One I assumed was Tagon and the other was whomever called him out. Tagon was smaller than the fae who blamed him for the murder, but he was holding his own in the fight that had erupted. They stopped immediately when shadows erupted around us.

The force of the shadows knocked me back into the wall. Pain radiated down my back, but I didn't dare move my eyes from the Guardsman with shadow magic.

"Tagon, I presume?" he spoke softly, which only magnified the power he had.

"He's lying," he snapped defensively. His brown hair glistened with sweat from the fight. "Kael wants me dead because I'm competition."

The guard turned towards the other man.

"How do you know it was him?"

The man stared back without an answer at first. He looked around at everyone watching him closely. His body was tight with tension and his eyes shifted around like he was trying to come up with a story.

"I saw him kill him."

The guardsman paced silently back and forth in front of the two men. His face did not shift from its cruel glare. He grabbed Tagon by the shirt and pulled him away from the man and towards where I stood. The guard leaned down and whispered something to Tagon, and he whispered a response back. The guard then walked back to Kael.

"How did he kill him?"

"With a knife," he answered quickly. "Sliced his throat."

Tagon stood close to me, watching the whole exchange. Whatever had been said between him and the guardsman caused him to look less tense.

Before anyone questioned the man, the guard pulled his sword out and beheaded the fae. Everyone scurried back away from the gruesome scene as blood stained the floor below his lifeless body.

"Does anyone else need clarification on the rules of this tournament?" he bellowed. His voice filled and ricocheted off every hollow space in the hallway. No one spoke a word or even dared to breathe at that moment.

Tagon froze when the guardsman turned around. His black eyes shifted to me, and he noticed the blood coming from my chin but looked back to Tagon. He took a few steps to reach us. Tagon stiffened when the guardsman stopped in front of him.

"If it was you that killed the first fae, then you better pray to the stars above I don't find out about it," the guard hissed.

"It wasn't me," Tagon assured him.

The guard had killed that man without knowing without a doubt if Tagon was the one lying. It was a power move. Even if the real killer was in our crowd, they were likely to not try that again. My eyes shifted behind Tagon as guards hauled the headless man up and his bloodied shoes hung from his lifeless feet. Everyone returned to the sleeping quarters in silence.

A warm hand on my face startled me when the Captain tilted my chin up so he could inspect my wounds. I had been so focused on the dead fae, I hadn't seen the guard approach me.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

"I fell when the fight broke out. I'm fine."

I turned to head back to my room but his shadows stopped me so he could get in front of me. His eyes were void of the blackness that consumed them only moments ago.

"Did I scare you?"

I shook my head. He was scary, but he didn't scare me. I was impressed more than anything.

"I've never seen shadow magic."

A cocky smile spread across his face. Smug prick.

"Impressive, isn't it?"

"Sure." I turned around trying to not get distracted by him. He was already taking up my time when I slept. I didn't need him lurking when I was awake.

"Today's the first trial," he spoke from beside me. "I"m looking forward to seeing what you can do, Thea."

My name rolled off his tongue like a wicked promise. I looked up at him and breathed heavily. His eyes examined my face as we walked back to my room. There was no reason he needed to follow me.

"What's your name?" I had been wondering about his name since the first night he was in my dream, but no name I had ever considered seemed to fit him.

"Not really any of your business."

He cocked his head to the side like he was studying me. Like he was expecting a reaction from me that I would refuse to give him. Normally I would let insecurity take over and shy away from his staring, but I needed to appear as confident as I could. His eyes glanced away, and he tilted his head like he heard someone behind us.

A guardsman in red suddenly appeared, startling me. How had he heard him coming? He muttered something and nodded curtly. He actually wasn't going to tell me his name? What an ass.

"Best of luck in the first trial, Thea. I hope you're here a bit longer." He gave me no smile or any emotion as he spoke. He simply said the words and walked away with the guard. I headed toward my room but stumbled when the ground shook violently as I reached for the handle of my door.

The walls of the castle began to crumble. The tapestries that adorned the walls fell with the rubble in piles of dust around me. Yelling from down the hall alerted me to the fact that this was real, and I wasn't simply imagining it.

Trying to steady myself on the door was useless as it faded away into nothingness as I fell onto the hard ground. Lights flashed so brightly that I couldn't see where I was at first. My legs shook violently as I stood, and I covered my eyes from the blinding lights. The men made sounds of discomfort somewhere close to me.

This had to be the first trial.

The flashing lights finally ceased, and revealed a vast meadow full of tall grass, large boulders, and some bushes. We waited in a wide circle on the outskirts of the meadow. None of us wanted to move from our spots because we were unsure of what to expect. Within a few moments, the forest around the meadow faded away to reveal a colosseum-like structure. The colosseum swept far and wide past us. It was filled with bystanders who were watching.

I stilled the moment I saw him. The Crimson King appeared on a small balcony in the middle of the stands, dressed in dark red robes with gold accessories hanging off him. His black crown had different colored jewels in it, the largest was a stone the color of blood. The king was tall with broad shoulders and dark hair.

To my shock, he looked less evil than I had pictured in my mind over the years.

The Captain stood at his side and even though I couldn't see his face completely because of being blinded I knew his eyes were on me. My eyes shifted to a stunning woman with red hair who sat on the king's other side, along with three or four younger royals behind them. She was also wearing red and gold, the Crimson Kingdom's colors.

"Good morning." His thick accent echoed through the colosseum with authority. "Welcome to the first trial. I'm assured Cassius explained the purpose of the trials to the participants." My eyes shifted to him. He gave me a smug smile that I ignored. Cassius fit him perfectly.

"I seek the best of the best. True fighters and warriors to retrieve something that has been taken from me, from us. Each trial will test your ability to think quickly, react swiftly, and fight for a spot in the King's special guard. A truly high honor."

The crowd cheered loudly at the declaration of honor. It was so piercingly loud I wanted to cover my ears, but fought the urge as it might show weakness. I couldn't make out any of those who watched us, but by the noise, it had to be hundreds. We were entertainment for them.

"We will keep track of ranking here." The king pointed across the arena where a giant leaderboard appeared high in the sky. It illuminated all fifty names of participants. My name was near the bottom in bold red letters. Underneath my name were two names written in white. The two men who died earlier today. Why was my name at the bottom, because I was a woman? My darkness swirled in my chest with irritation. Did they think I was the weakest here?

"At the end of each trial, the bottom 10 will be dismissed from the competition until we have a top ten who will go on to the final task. If it is completed, all who survive will be granted a wish."

"Too bad you'll be out after today, Little Dove."

I ignored the burly man next to me. Out of all the participants he was the one closest to me. Instead of giving him attention, I let my thoughts drift to Sybil and the twins. I needed to do this for them. For all of us locked away like criminals in Exile.

"Your first task is retrieving the object from the center of the ring and making it out of the arena." He said it as if it were simple, but there had to be more than that. The king's eyes locked on mine, and he gave me a friendly smile that widened when I glared at him. "Remember we'll be watching, so don"t use magic in this trial or you will be disqualified."

The ground started shaking as soon as the words left his mouth. Large mountains lifted out of the ground around us in place of the colosseum. The bright light that was blinding us was replaced with near complete darkness. A moonlight glow surrounded us even though the moon could not be seen. Trees larger than any I had ever seen surrounded us eliminating any chance of us escaping. It created a circular barrier letting us know where the task would take place.

A bright glowing red light drew our attention to the middle of the meadow. A small stand appeared with a tall glass vase on top of it, filled with glowing red stones, and I realized what we had to do. There must only be enough stones for forty of us to get. Anyone without a stone would be eliminated.

I glanced up at the leaderboard looming in the sky above us. I wanted to see my name move to the number one spot. My feet rooted to their spot. It was too easy of a task. There was obviously something the king was not telling us. No one else moved either. At some point, someone would have to go first and reveal the true task in front of us. I just needed to be patient.