But speed without accuracy is useless; in my wild haste, I misjudge the distance between myself and one of the wooden fences, and I end up clipping the edge of that barricade at the exact moment an arrow catches me in the throat.
My sprint turns into a crooked stumble, then a hard crash that has me skidding several feet through the dark sand. More arrows follow me down, pelting my body and the ground all around me until Gareth finally holds up his hand and makes them stop.
My hand shakes as I press it to my neck. My eyes water. It feels like my throat is caving in—like I can’t possibly take another breath—but I can’t stop the sob of frustration that rips out of me, nor the sharp, excruciating inhale that follows. The pain is so intense I end up curled into a ball against the coarse sand.
And for the first time since I stepped foot in this palace, I truly want toquit.
I want to curl up tighter and tighter until I disappear, until I’m nothing but another bloodstain left behind by the Mouren crown.
Through the ringing in my ears, I hear Blight's distressed growling. It soon turns into a roar, and even though some quiet part of me knows it isn’t out of aggression, that it’s actually a cry of concern, and forme,at that…it doesn’t matter.
It still triggers the familiar, nightmarish memories.
I’m still back there for a moment, doubled over on the ground of my burning city, screaming as my life is ripped apart and burned to ashes.
Get up, I tell myself.Get up, get up, get up.
Gareth comes closer. I see his shadow overtaking me,though it takes my dazed mind a moment to realize who he is, to bring me back to the present.
I don’t know why I stand up to face him again.
Maybe it’s just what I do, at this point. I’ve been knocked down so many times, kicked and beaten within an inch of my life so often that it feels almost routine. And there have been so many times when I probably should have just stayed down, should have saved myself the pain that comes with trying and failing over and over and over again. The pain, and the humiliation of knowing I’m not good enough to fix things, to rise above my circumstances, and that I’ll never,everbe good enough.
Gods, it would be easier to just stay down.
Instead, I rise on shaking legs, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and I whisper, “Again.”
Gareth hesitates, eyeing my bruised throat, my bloodied mouth.
“Again,” I snarl.
He nods me toward the starting point.
I don’t remember much of my fourth attempt.
I only know it ends with pain, with me dragging myself back to the beginning yet again, and then a cruel realization:I'm probably going to die here.
Not from the trial itself, or the arrows—these things won't kill me, not with the healers waiting in the wings, as per the king’s command. But I'll die slowly, over the coming days, when Briar is executed because I failed. When Gareth reports to the king that I'm useless after all. When no supplies, no hope, no relief ever makes it back to the Burn, and I don’t either, and so Marta and all that remains of the life I once fought and scraped to save will finally collapse.
And everything I've endured over this past week will amount to nothing.
Nothing.
You are nothing without the dragon.
It’s not true. Without her, I’m still a survivor. That isn’tnothing. I won’t let him dismiss it so readily. And yet…
Andyet.
I didn’t come here to merely survive.
I wipe more blood from my chin. A minute passes. Maybe more. My vision is hazy. My eyes water, but I don’t shut them, instead forcing them in the direction of the dragon as I try to work soreness from my jaw, to mouth the words I can’t bring myself to say out loud.
Help me.
And then, because I don’t know what else to do except keep fighting, I stand and make my way back to the starting line.
Without a word, I break into a run.
