Current zapped through me, scorching my flesh and boiling my blood. From my splayed fingers, lightning erupted.
Blue streaks slammed around me, branching out in every direction and illuminating the room, charring the ground as each strike landed with vicious speed.
And between the veins of electricity, I could see that Lana was glowing, brilliant and golden. Her light formed a protective bubble over her and all the other candidates. It didn’t touch me, though. Bands of shadow lashed out, swirling in an amorphous cocoon and protecting me from the lightning showering the room.
The ghoul hissed, and through the shadows I watched it crumple in on itself. Its wispy body shifted, shrinking as the ghoul slammed against the wall, its claws raking out to shield its face, the pits of its eyes and mouth. It scurried up the wall, slinking back toward the grate, where it slid through the holes, nothing more than vapor and air.
I gasped as the magic flowing through me ceased abruptly, stumbling back a few steps from its sudden absence.
Orblights flooded the room, the shadows surrounding me vanished and Lana’s light winked out. She swayed and Rayna’s arms jutted out to catch her before she could fall.
I ran a hand across my forehead, wiping at the sweat the sizzling current had left behind, and blinked against the harsh white light as the door to the sparring room swung open and Septimus and Echon walked in. They surveyed the room, the charred ground, the mutilated remains of the woman whose name I did not even know.
“You’re free to go,” Septimus said. I did not miss how his eyes scanned Lana. “If you’re injured, the med hall is open. To all who remain, congratulations on passing the second Trial.”
But I didn’t feel triumphant as I walked toward the door. My brain felt like it was on autopilot, unable to process the events of the last hour. The skin on my fingertips were burned and tender, and my cheek throbbed from the slice through it, but I would not go to the med hall. Not tonight. I did not want these wounds to heal. I did not want to forget.
There would be no celebrations tonight.
CHAPTER 16
I arrived to breakfast the morning after the second Trial to find the seven other remaining candidates seated in one large group. With so few of us left, it didn’t make sense for us to stay separated. Not when the first squad had only one remaining survivor: a young woman, whose name I found out was Keila.
Rayna’s group was still the only team not to have lost a single member. The men in her squad comprised Caleb, the spectacled man from Koli who introduced himself as Mattieu, and a third man by the name of Nox.
Lana, Moric and I spent the rest of the day running laps and sparring.
At dinnertime, I saw that not much in the way of seating arrangements had changed. Moric sat beside Rayna, looking even worse than usual. Although the ghoul hadn’t attacked him yesterday, I could tell the entire ordeal had shaken him. After training all day, I felt weary, my brain like soggy parchment.
It also probably didn’t help that I hadn’t slept a wink last night after the challenge. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw the ghoul. I smelled its putrid breath. And I wondered why it had spared me.
I’d told Calendula what the ghoul had said to me, but she didn’t have much insight. “Perhaps it didn’t like the taste of your blood. Some ghouls prefer younger blood,” Calendula had said.
“I’m twenty-three. How much younger does it want?” I had replied. “Besides, it said my blood was ‘perfectly aged.’”
Calendula had shrugged dismissively. “What does it matter? You’re alive.”
But it did matter. Something felt off. And I couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Lirah,” Lana said, snapping me out of my reverie. “You should eat. Your food’s getting cold.”
I hadn’t been eating properly, not since Anama had died. Even that felt like eons ago, the older woman’s face a distant memory against the backdrop of last night’s fresh death.
I speared a piece of honeyed carrot on my fork and brought it to my lips.
“We should start preparing for the third Trial,” Lana murmured between bites of steak. “If last night taught me anything, it’s how woefully unprepared we are.”
“It just feels like no matter what we do, it’s never good enough. We get into the challenge and chaos reigns.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “The research helped. If Rayna’s lighter hadn’t run out of fluid, your initial plan would have worked. You figured out a key weakness of the ghoul. Don’t discredit that or yourself. Anyway, I suppose there’s not much we can do in preparation of the challenge until tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. When we would attend the author signing, hosted by Augustine Devior. Hopefully, he would have answers for us.
My stomach twisted nervously, but I ate the rest of my food and by the time the end of dinner bell chimed, my plate was empty. I felt restless. I didn’t want to go back to my room just to lie in bed and turn over the events of last night’s challenge, or consider how little we knew about the third one. I wanted a distraction. And I knew exactly where to find it.
I muttered a quick excuse to Lana before crossing the mess hall to where Septimus stood, speaking with Ayden. Ayden’s green eyes flickered to me, and I could have sworn fear crossed his perfect features. He said something to Septimus that caused the golden-eyed elven to glance over his shoulder, and then Ayden was hurrying out of the mess hall.
“What’s with him?” I asked.
