I tried to divert my thoughts to greener pastures, but no welcome distraction came to mind. I had sealed the entire bedroom encounter with Kilian in a lock box and thrown away the key, refusing to allow myself the opportunity to think about just how close I had come to rising on my toes and kissing him. What was wrong with me? He was an asshole, he was elvenandhe was my instructor. And entirely too mysterious for my own good. Besides, there were virtually zero odds of me passing the Rite. I was mortal. There was no future here.
The only good thing to come from that encounter was that the link had been eerily quiet ever since. Anger no longer bubbled in my throat, threatening to spill out of my mouth into hateful words directed at everyone, and I no longer felt like my skin was on fire.
“Do you hear that?” Lana asked, sitting straighter.
Anama nodded. “Yes. It’s faint but it almost sounds like…”
I cocked my head to the right, where a soft melody seemed to waft beneath the door and through the cracks in the floorboards. “It sounds like music.”
“Cover your–” Anama began, but it was too late.
The music was enchanting. It filled my head, leaving room for nothing else. It felt like lush gardens and vinery, bare feet on dewy grass. Violin strings sang a melancholy tune of loss and heartbreak, the uplifting lilt at the end of each note a promise for a new beginning. It felt like magical places and forbidden spaces. A stolen kiss at the end of time, or an old god coming home. It was both haunting and exhilarating and I did notnotice when my eyes glazed over and the others became blurry shapes of color. I was so lost in the melody, I did not register leaving Lana’s bedroom, or trudging down the stairwell. And I definitely did not comprehend that despite all our research and preparation, we had failed to protect ourselves at the very start of the challenge.
I knew I had snapped out of the trance when I heard birds chirping overhead. I had been so ensorcelled by the elven tune that it had blocked out all other noise – even my own thoughts.
I came to, my eyes blinking the haze from my mind. The mental fog cleared to reveal densely packed trees surrounding me so completely that only patches of sky shone through the dark leaves. Anama and Moric stood to my left, Lana to my right. All of them looked as confused as I felt. Lana peered up at the trees while Anama scanned the ground.
“You were right, Lirah. We’re in the Forests of Dalhur,” Moric said.
“It looks like it’s nearly midday. We must have been walking forhours. Did I ever mention how much I hate these Trials?” Lana muttered, stretching her legs out.
“Where are our sprites?” Moric asked, searching his pockets. I checked my own cloak, but Calendula was nowhere to be found.
“Maybe they’re not allowed to help us during this challenge?” Lana suggested, studying the trees, probably for a flicker of gold.
Anama dropped to her knees, her fingers sifting at the soil a few feet ahead.
“What are you doing?” Moric asked, looking at Anama like she had finally lost it.
“This is freshly tilled soil.” She stared at the ground. “Something’s buried down here.”
“Maybe it should stay buried?” Moric suggested, uncomfortable at the prospect of potentially unearthing a rotting carcass.
“No.” I fell beside Anama, sinking my hands into the soil. There had to be a reason why we were brought here. “Something was put here for us to find.”
I clawed at the ground until my fingers hit cold metal. Anama found something at the same time. She pulled out a piece of parchment covered in sand. I dug the metal object out, pulling it by a long chain. It was a hexagonal shape and had a clasp where the item opened. The metal was burnished, and its intricate swirls and whorls were rubbed off in certain places.
I knew what it was as soon as I unlatched the clasp.
“A compass,” Moric breathed over my shoulder.
“And this is a map,” Anama announced. She pointed to a large redXmarked near the top left corner.
“Thank the gods. We have our challenge,” Lana said.
“Where are we?” I asked, squinting at the map.
“It doesn’t say.”
“I shouldn’t have expected anything less,” I grumbled, wondering whether it was Septimus or Kilian who set this challenge. Or perhaps it had been Echon, eager for us to wander lost and confused in the Forests of Dalhur, with evening swiftly approaching.
“Anyone any good at map reading?” Lana asked.
Moric shuffled. “I wouldn’t say I’mgoodat it, but I used to make them for my younger brother. Sometimes, when he missed our parents or had a bad day at school, I’d hide silly trinkets around the garden and make a map for him to decipher. Once, for his birthday, I made one that spanned our entire village.”
I bit back my comment that his brother was lucky to have him; it wasn’t a compassionate thing to say when Moric had been wrenched away from his home, not knowing whether he would ever see his sibling again. Instead, I said, “That’s more experience than I have.”
Anama and Lana nodded their agreement, Anama passing the map to Moric. “Walk us through it.”
