Chapter forty - nine - Let the trials commence

There's a herd of trainees by the time I arrive through the cave passageways of the arena. A few are fastening weapons behind them, to their sheaths and across their chest. I didn't have enough time to grab anything. The Venators had arrived within hours since Lorcan left and simply tossed me the trainee attire.

Inhaling the stale and damp air, I jerk my arms away from the Venators and glare at them as they walk off.

Freya squeezes past two trainees, and a quiver of arrows hangs across her back as wide eyes take me in. She wraps an arm around my neck, pulling me in as she breaths out my name in such worry that it drills deep into my chest. "Thank Solaris, you're okay," she says and steps back to look at my face. Lines cinch at her forehead. "I didn't know what to do once I'd heard where they took you, my father made sure no one could go down, and then the trials were pushed for today—"

I shake my head to cut her off and clutch her hand. "My brothers? Are they..." It's too hard even to say it.

"They're safe," she replies, understanding what I meant, what I needed to hear. "I did what you asked me to."

I nod, releasing a short breath when she scrunches her eyes in mild amusement. "Idris, however—was furious."

I imagined so. Even the thought causes my lips to twitch. "I knew he would be, and I'm surprised he hasn't tried anything." The last thing I expect is Idris to be calm.

"He wanted to until I managed to calm him down," Freya says thoughtfully, her gaze lingering at a spot over my shoulder.

My eyes narrow, looking at her and more surprised than anything that Idris managed to listen to someone that wasn't his cranky self.

"Oh!" She snaps out of it, clicking her fingers as she reaches for something in her quiver. "Um—" In both her hands, she holds the blade Idris gifted me with and extends it toward me. "I kept this safe for you."

I take a deep breath, forgetting the sting prickling the back of my eyes, and carefully grab it from her. Before anything else, I lock my arms around her and whisper my gratification as I blink a few times, letting the thought of my brothers flutter away like flocks of birds.

When I let go, she opens her mouth, looking like she has something else to mention, but Rydan appears from behind Freya's shoulder and grins out a "You're still alive!"

I fix him a look far from impressed as Freya turns to him and smacks the side of his upper arm. "Rydan!"

"What?" He frowns, looking from Freya over to me. "I was worried."

A sardonic breath escapes me before I roll my eyes and stand on my toes to hug him as well.

"It's beginning to get rather odd that you keep embracing me, Ambrose," he says, and I shake my head in mirth over his ability to annoy me into smiling.

"How do you know I'm not—"

"Miss Ambrose..."

My shoulders tense at Lorcan's voice coming from my right side, and hesitantly I pull back from Rydan. I don't look and I don't turn to face him, even when something so traitorous as my heart wants to.

He awkwardly clears his throat when I don't respond. "I hope you are all ready for the trials."

This time I can't help snapping my head toward him. My gaze cuts through each exterior of his as I clench my fist around my blade. "It's not like I have a choice."

His eyes flood mine with remorse as tightness engulfs my chest—a mixture of anger and remembrance of the times we'd spent together swirl within it. He noticed me as no one else had before, and now how I wish he hadn't.

"I am ready, Lorcy," Rydan announces, and one can guess he is trying to help. "Far more ready than the rest of these trainees."

Lorcan's gaze pulls away from mine unwillingly as he looks at Rydan with a raised brow. "I'd believe that if you hadn't fooled around during training."

Rydan runs a hand over his chin, and the side of his lip creases into a flashy smile. "So, what I am hearing is that you were always watching me?"

Lorcan doesn't say anything. Hee stares at Rydan with a stone face before shaking his head and strolling off to speak to other trainees. My eyes linger on the back of his armor, and something unsettling flutters deep in my gut. Dread almost.

"Are you sure he betrayed her because—"

"Rydan?" Freya hisses. "Not helping!"

Rydan and Freya begin quarreling in harsh whispers like siblings as I rest the palm of my hand just above my stomach. I drag my gaze away from Lorcan to the side of me and find Link looking down at something in his hand. The furrow in his brows and avoidance of everyone around him drive me to walk over there despite Freya calling after me.

"What have you got there?" I ask.

Link lifts his eyes at me and sees that I'm looking at his hand. He opens his palm and a grey talisman—like a stone carved with a star in the center rests in it.

I instantly recognize it, and an airy smile emits from my lips.

"Illias gave it to me on the night of the ball," he murmurs, staring at it. "He said it's his talisman, that it's meant to promise—"

"That you'll both see each other again."

Link glances up at me again, dark caves or not, his eyes still glimmer like sapphires at my response. I remember the meaning because our mother gave it to Illias before her death, and she'd told him to give it to the person whom one day he will grow to love.

Not even Kye ever got it.

Thank Solaris for that.

"You'll see him again, Link," I assure him as I nod at the talisman. "We both will." That much I trust. "No trial can stop that."

Though his smile is weak, shy, and hesitant, I know it is what he wanted to hear.

Murmurs then come from the front, cracking among the walls, and dozens start shuffling towards the gates.

Terror tightens on Link's face as he whips his head at me. Freya and Rydan then make their way toward us, and I try so hard to keep the calamity of the trials starting at bay.

I look over my shoulder as if running might still be an option, but I lock eyes straight away with a Venator's glare and huff.

The iron gates crank and judder, causing Freya to flinch as the light seeps through the cave. I close my eyes, and a flash of my younger self appears.

It's of my father getting ready to set course to the city—golden hair feathering his shoulder as I stand by the door.

"Father?" I murmur as he wraps a shawl around his tunic. "One day I'd like to be a Venator... just like you."

He chuckles but it's sad, it's hollow, it's not my father's usual guffaw. "You wouldn't want to be one, Nara."

I frown, and he sighs, lowering himself on one knee. His thumb rubs my cheek. "Chase your own adventure, don't follow someone else's."

Freya's voice drags me back into the present, and I open my eyes to see her concerned ones waiting for me to walk with her into the arena. I do, though numb and lost and look around, feeling infinitely small compared to when I'd be up with the crowd, watching fights ensue.

I squint as the ravenous sun burns into the middle of the pit. Wooden defense walls taller than a human coat the arena like a maze, making it hard to see where to go.

The flock of people cheers above us, but I drown it out as I raise my head enough to see the queen seated atop her throne with the General on her side and the rulers of other lands.

Bitterness dances in Sarilyn's eyes as she scans the trainees, then sorrow and darkness once they find mine.

Confidence flares inside me as I straighten, defying everything she hopes I'd be right now. A phoenix warrior clad in red and gold armor is the only one to notice the queen's tense shift and follows her gaze to where I am.

The phoenix narrows her eyes at me. Hira, the woman whom Lorcan had introduced me at Noctura ball. I analyze her from afar, but there's no maliciousness behind her stare. Instead, it's that same curiosity she'd shown back then.

"Nara," Freya whispers by my side as we all stop, and the crowd grows silent. "About the plans we'd made, I may—"

The second my stare breaks from Sarilyn, she addresses us all, cutting Freya's words off in the process. "Months of training to prove you are fit to become a Venator has now come to this—" She rises from her throne, lifting her chin with authority and smiles. "—The trials." Whistling and claps resound the arena, but Sarilyn's words have never sounded fouler than before. "They will take place over three days. You will be tested on your agility, how you work as a team... courage." She cuts a gaze in my direction, and her smile strains before clearing her throat. "Today is the test of survival."

My eyes shift to Freya as she releases a nervous breath, and Link blanches, almost dropping his sword.

The uncertainty of what can happen burrows into my bones, and I gaze back at the queen as she waves a hand and says, "Let's see how far you are all willing to go. So good luck... and let the first trial begin."

Chanting starts up from the stands intensifying each second as rocks skitter and reverberates beneath my boots. I look at Rydan on the other side of me just as someone blows a horn and horrid shrills, ones I should recognize like the back of my hand by now rise from the other side of the arena.

*Rumens.*