My head throbbed with a fiery vengeance that three glasses of water could not slake.
A soft knocking issued from the door. I groaned, partial memories of the previous day slamming into me with alarming ferocity. I was alone in my room. The last thing I remembered was Kilian tucking me in and a hazy conversation before sleep caught me. I wasn’t ready to face him just yet. I wanted to curl up into the fetal position and be left alone forever.
The door cracked open an inch, before I could tell whoever it was to go the fuck away, and Lana stuck her head inside the gap.
“Oh, thank the gods, it’s you,” I said, peeking over the covers at her. “Come inside and lock the door behind you.” I wanted no more uninvited guests.
Lana hurried inside and flopped onto my bed. She gave me a sharp look.
“What?”
“Don’twhatme. You’re my closest friend in here. You’ve been judging me for weeks for wanting to sleep with Septimus, but here you are, clearly shacking up with Kilian. And don’t even try to deny it. I saw how the two of you were looking at each other yesterday. Look, I can’t blame you. He’s so hot he makes lava seem cold, but you have got some serious explaining to do.”
“I’m not shacking up with anyone,” I grumbled. Although, I had to admit she had a point. I had no right ever judging her for having feelings for an elven. The medal for biggest hypocrite and shittiest friend went straight to me.
“Except for Ayden? Moric’s instructor? What is going on with you?”
I sighed. If there was ever a time to come clean to Lana, this was it. So, despite the pounding in my head, I told her everything. From the second unofficial challenge when I had confronted Kilian in his bedroom, to our late-night conversation in the mess hall after the first Trial, my training session with Septimus yesterday, when he had revealed the true motive behind the Trials, and Elena.
When I was done, Lana released a breath. “I don’t know what to think about all of this. Firstly, the Trials. Septimus hadn’t mentioned anything to me.” She shook her head in disbelief. “On the one hand I can understand wanting to break their curse, but the cost of thirteen mortal lives every decade doesn’t justify that. Secondly, this thing with Kilian needs to be addressed. You can’t keep running around kissing random elven just because you’re hurt that he had feelings for this Elena girl decades ago.”
I clicked my tongue. “You make it sound like I’m an insecure teenager. I don’t care if he had feelings for her.” Although, irrationally, it did bother me. “I just want to know if he plays this same game with his candidates each time. I don’t want to be another mortal added to his list of conquests.”
“I can’t answer that. You’re going to have to ask Kilian.”
“I can’t do that,” I muttered. “It’ll sound like I care.”
“But youdocare.”
“Yes. But he doesn’t know that I care.”
Lana raised her brows. “Lirah, you removed your protection charm the second Calendula told you it belonged to his ex-lover. Then you proceeded to drink almost the entire day away and make out with a random elven. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but he knows you care.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said in a small voice. “It doesn’t change anything. I’m still a pawn in this game, my life reduced to nothing but the hope of some obscure ability to break a curse. He doesn’t care for me beyond that.”
“I don’t know what he feels,” Lana said. “But I do know that he left Greyhaven the second he found out we were missing. I know he was waiting for you at the archway after the first Trial. I know that he nearly killed Ayden for kissingyou. And, if none of that matters to you, I also see the way he looks at you. Maybe you’re right, and it’s all a ploy for the sake of breaking his curse, but then again, he’d have to be one hell of an actor for that. You told me he said you might like him if the situation were different, right? If he didn’t care beyond the Trials, why would it bother him whether you liked him or not?”
I stared at her, processing her words.
Lana patted my knee. “But anyway, moping around isn’t going to get us anywhere. We have two days before the second Trial. I say we gather Moric and head toward Pyxis, because I managed to seduce Septimus into giving me a clue about it. One word: ghouls.”
“I didn’t even know ghouls existed,” Moric said, thumbing through a large tome. He sat in a wingback chair on the fifth level of Pyxis, still looking as tired as he had the other day at lunch.
We had passed Rayna’s group on the way up. Seeing them brought me a wave of nausea – they were the only squad still wholly intact. They hadn’t lost anyone to the Trials yet.
I turned back to the book on my lap, trying not to think about how different things had been the last time we had all come together for research.
“There’s surprisingly little knowledge on them.” Lana chucked the book she had been reading onto the pile we had declared useless and pulled another one onto her lap.
Septimus had told me the second Trial would be ‘one of wit and quick thinking’. Were we supposed to outwit our way from being ghoul fodder? And if so,how?
“They’re mentioned briefly in this one.” I gestured to my current read. “The first record of one popped up in the fourteenth century, from a man named Vlad Kobinsky who found one in his attic.”
“I saw that as well,” Lana said. “They’ve got a really spotty record throughout history, showing up in the strangest locations. Look at this one, found in a barn. Abarn, of all places.”
“What do they even eat?” Moric asked.
“Human flesh,” Lana responded, without looking up. “Seems about on par for the second challenge, doesn’t it?”
