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“A queen must be wise of mind,” Norrie reads aloud. “Pick your personal best path to the top. The last to finish will be eliminated.”
Ten pounds of dread settles in my chest, and my breathing goes shallow. Eliminated? What does that mean?
Cutter races toward the first ledge, yelling over her shoulder, “Wait here while I show you what it’s like to be a winner. Immortality, here I come.” She heads for a ladder on her right, and shadows wrap her, hiding her from our view.
“Guess they don’t want us to follow each other,” Norrie says.
With a warrior’s cry, Mildrake’s candidate runs to the wall and muscles her way up on the left. She too disappears.
“See you at the top?” I ask Norrie.
“Sure.” She stares at the wall. “You go. I’m right behind you.”
Trusting her to find her own way, I reach for my bracelet to center me, only to remember it’s not there. I’ll have to go this one alone—completely alone. Jumping to the first ledge, I look for the next, but there’s nothing. Shadows surround me, and I can’t see up or down. Did I pick wrong from the start? A screen ripples to life in front of me with two choices—cups or swords. The images could’ve been lifted from Lala’s tarot cards, the drawings eerily similar to those in her deck.
Cups or swords? Feelings or thoughts? Easy. I’ll pick feelings every time. I slap the cups. Another ledge appears. Perfect. A magical obstacle course. Just what no one needs. Pick your personal best path. What if my personal best isn’t enough?
I shove aside the dark thought. Feelings, not thoughts. I picked feelings. Like loving my twins. Making Rona and Huey proud. Seeing Lala one more time. Up I go.
Each choice gets harder. The Tower or the Ten of Swords. The fiery tower with bodies falling and jagged lightning carving the sky looks just like Lala’s card. Let’s see. Sudden, dramatic change that’s usually bad or the godawful suck that’s thinking you stayed long past your welcome for whatever stabby party you’d chosen on your life path?
I punch a finger into The Tower card.
Up, up, up, I move without being able to see the top, but at least I can’t see the ground either. Finally, after dozens of demented pick your path choices from Lala’s deck, the shadows part to reveal the final ledge. Using the same strength I honed while training with Jace, I drag myself over the top of the course. Norrie waits there, sitting with her feet dangling over the side.
“Oh good,” she says on a sigh of relief. “I worried Cutter would be next. She might toss me off if she thinks it’d get her closer to winning.”
“She wouldn’t.” I don’t think. Or at least I hope not. Although Jace told me cheating isn’t forbidden in the trials, I desperately want to believe even Cutter wouldn’t be so depraved as to toss someone to an unknown fate. They could fall to their death. I glance at the swirling shadows that twist into shapes of grotesque faces, foreboding and chilling. Fear creeps along my spine, winding prickles between the runes, and I curl my legs up as far as I can on the narrow ledge.
“What do we do now?” Norrie asks. “There’s no door.”
“Wait?” I guess. Moments pass, and patience has never been my greatest strength. “Did you see tarot cards on your path?”
Norrie frowns. “I had riddles. Easy ones.” Her eyes go sad. “The same I tell my little sister.”
I move to hold her hand, to give her comfort, but she’s out of reach. “You’ll make it back to her.”
“You can’t know that.” Her voice sounds so small.
“True.” I remember the first choice I made on the wall. “But I feel it.”
Cutter’s voice interrupts. “Feel this, bitches. I’m coming for you.”
But Mildrake appears to her left, a few inches in the lead. I want to cheer for the woman. Her gaze fixes on a hold a few feet above her and just below the ledge where Norrie and I sit. She scrunches her face in concentration and her muscles bunch. She’s going to jump for the ledge.
I pin my lips shut, not wanting to distract her with my own fears because falling from this height? No, I can’t think of it.
She lets go with one hand, flexes her knees, and launches upward. A blur flashes from the corner of my eye, my stomach drops, and my mind races to process what I’m seeing. Cutter kicked Mildrake.
Not because the woman was on her path.
Simply to win.
Horror floods me, knocking the air from me as if I’d been the one kicked. For a split-second, Mildrake’s fingers brush the ledge and she grapples to hold on. Her wide eyes meet mine, terror filling them. And then, she falls—arms outstretched, legs flailing, a scream cut short as the shadows swallow her.
Nausea burns up my throat, and I wretch on nothing, dry heaving. The bile tastes sour on my tongue, and I have to concentrate on breathing through my nose to try and force away the sick.
Cutter struggles over the edge. “Made that easier.” She sounds as if she didn’t just doom a woman to whatever fate could’ve waited for all of us in those shadows.
