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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.
Chapter 8
Itried to focus on the illusion of the landscape we were in. It wasn’t real, but I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t seen it build itself around us. Whoever generated this magic had outdone themselves. My first thought was it was elite magic, but the Crimson King would never allow that, so it must be a spell or something, from a witch maybe?
I risked one small step into the taller grass to test what would happen. Perhaps it was quicksand or something similar. My foot was only met with hard unmoving ground.
The slight ruffle of movement from others getting restless echoed softly in the eerie silence. My instinct told me to wait, but my competitive nature wanted me to charge forward. I looked around at the others but could hardly see them in the faded moonlight.
I turned slowly to look behind me. The Crimson Kingdom was watching us even if they weren’t visible to me. The silence reminded me of Exile. There were no animal noises or water flowing here. I wondered if this was the same spell that cast the shadow boundary around us. The air was pleasantly cool and smelled like pine trees. I shifted my boots making my daggers stab my ankles. No one said we couldn’t have weapons and I had a feeling I would need them.
“Fuck this. I’m not scared!” a man close to me yelled. He had only made it one step before horrific screeching had me covering my ears. We could all hear thrashing coming from the trees behind us. Within seconds the man who yelled was plucked from the ground with ease. I couldn’t make out what took him, but we all saw it fly him into the darkness.
My eyes noticed the leaderboard shift and another name appeared below mine in white letters. It was nice to see my name move up on the board, although it was the cost of the man’s life. I uncovered my ears as the shrieking died down again. Sweat beaded on my face as adrenaline pumped through me. My heart raced at the sight of what just happened. Something had caught that monster's attention. Noise? Movement? I didn’t want to test my theory and be wrong. Maybe it was something else entirely. Damnit.
Nobody was moving or speaking out of fear. All my time in the forbidden woods told me to keep my eyes trained on the trees. I didn’t want to miss the monster again. Minutes ticked by without anyone moving and no creatures appearing.
Leaning down very slowly, I grabbed a rock. My breath caught in my throat as I surveyed the woods again. My movement didn’t seem to attract anything. I slowly tossed the rock into the middle of the arena, hoping it would attract whatever the creature was.
Nothing happened until the rock hit the glass vase. All the red stones tumbled to the ground as the sound of shattering glass ricocheted around us. The noise echoed past us into the forest and the shrieking of the creatures started again. We could hear them thrashing through the trees towards us. I laid on my stomach and watched as winged monsters flew from the trees and toward the center of the arena.
I held my breath as the creatures landed near the stones. A small gasp escaped me when one of the creatures turned towards me. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before, a batlike creature, light gray and translucent in the moonlight. Red and black spikes adorned the tops of its wings. Its face was void of anything, including eyes thankfully, except for a large split across its face where its mouth must be.
Although fae thought the forbidden woods held many monsters, I had never seen one of these in all my years of sneaking through the woods, but maybe I had just been lucky enough to never run into one.
