Page 99 of Prince of the Sun

She screams into his face.

“Ew!” She pushes him away. “Ew, ew, ew!”

Berendir collapses backward onto the grass, gasping.

Daerios’s face splits into a huge grin. “There she is.”

Cara sits up, pawing at her lips. “What were youdoing?”

“Oh, nothing,” Berendir says, chest heaving up and down. “Just saving your life.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks color as she looks down at her dripping clothes, at the red tentacle marks around her leg. “Oh. Right.”

Before things can get any more awkward, I tackle Cara, wrapping her in a big, wet hug. I’m so relieved to see her eyes open that I barely pause to register that it’s the first time I’ve ever hugged her. “You’re alive,” I say into her shoulder. “You’realive.”

She raises a limp hand and pats my back. “I’m alive.”

“I thought I lost you.”

“No,” she says, and I feel her smile against my hair. “No, you aren’t rid of me yet.”

We have very little time to recover. After the ruckus we just made, God only knows how many more creatures have been alerted to our presence. We pause only to catch our breath, then take off into the forest.

We’re all shivering. Our clothes cling to our skin, damp and freezing in the night air.

“You don’t happen to have any towel-growing trees on Elaërion, do you?” Cara asks, teeth chattering.

“Unfortunately not,” says Daerios. “And it’ll be nearly impossible to dry off without any sunlight. Walking fast is our best option.”

Cara grumbles something under her breath about Daerios being awfully chipper for someone who almost just died of poisoning. Still, she doesn’t speed up to walk beside Berendir, as she normally would.

Something has changed between them.

Daerios and I exchange subtle grins.

I’m still worried about him. While the river rescue seems to have revitalized him rather than draining him further, as I feared, I know he cannot be back to a hundred percent yet. I’ll have to keep a close eye on him.

After another mile, we spot something just a stone’s throw ahead. A shimmering blue light, as if a lantern burns between the trees. Only it’s far too big to be a lantern. It seems to stretch for miles, its glow seeping through every gap in the trunks and leaves.

“What is that?” Cara asks, squinting through the trees and into the clearing ahead.

“That,” Daerios says, “is the first Trial Gate.”

“Trial Gate?” Cara asks as we emerge into the clearing.

“Yes.” Daerios drops his pack and begins to pace along the wall of light, scanning the forest floor as if looking for a gap in the wall. “It’s an old elvish method of protection. Quite different from stone walls or spears and swords, but…” He smiles wryly over his shoulder. “You know how the elves value wisdom above all else.”

“I don’t understand.” I walk toward the Trial Gate. Its surface glows a bright bluish white. Up close, I can see that the wall is not actually one unbroken beam of light; it’s millions of little particles dancing side to side. “What does this wall have to do with wisdom?”

“You’re about to find out,” says Berendir.

My fingertips make contact with the wall. It feels surprisingly solid. “What do you—”

But my question is interrupted by a high, airy voice that floats out of the Trial Gate and breezes through the treetops.

“VEDUI-NA NIN PENNAS.”

I jump, stumbling backward several steps. Two large handsgrab my shoulders, steadying me.