Page 111 of The Heart Trials

“It feels like an assault.”

“It shouldn’t.”

His jaw shifts. “Well, when I was little, everyone loved seeing my mother and me out and about. She was very loved. She spent all her free time in the medic facilities helping out. I remember once she spent several nights away from the palace when I was small, to be with a Skyborn girl who was having a serious injury tended to. The healing process was brutal, with fits of fever, fighting off infection, things like that. My mother didn’t leave her side.” He exhales slowly, not quite meeting my eyes. “But if you’re asking why they love me…I guess it started the day I helped the Skyborn girl near the Matched Quarter. She’d fallen when a merchant cart rushed through the streets too fast. Her leg was twisted so badly. No one would touch her, and the medics…they were waiting for clearance.”

“What did you do?” I ask.

“I carried her. Just lifted her off the street and brought her to triage myself. I was fifteen. I didn’t think much of it. It was protocol, really—an injured citizen impedes district function. Stabilizing her restored order.”

“But that’s not why they loved you,” I say.

“No.” He pauses a beat. “When I set her down, she kept holding on to me. She was shaking. Back then, I’d never felt that kind of desperation in someone’s grip. I didn’t know what to do with it. So I let her hold on for a moment. A long moment. Until she was calm. I returned her to her family myself days later. I still visit them sometimes.” His tone is measured. “And when the Skyborn who’d accidentally injured her was scheduled to be publicly punished for hurting a fellow highborn, I asked for mercy. Mercy on my father’s behalf, of course.”

They love him because he has the heart his father pretends to. His mother’s heart.

“The day the girl returned home,” he continues, “there were flowers outside the palace gates, people were singing my mother’s name and ‘long live the prince.’ My mother had been dead for several years by then. So I don’t know. I remind them of her, perhaps. The Citadel was right in the people’s hands when she was alive, touchable. She was part of them. Now she’s dead.”

The transport stops again, but no one moves. Mae’s glassy eyes are fixed on Caelus like she’s seeing someone entirely new. Dorian studies him with a guarded expression—part suspicion, part something else. I can’t look away. Before any of us can speak, the door opens and we’re pulled out, one by one.

It’s barely light outside.

The world tilts. Jagged peaks cut into the sky on every side, sheer drops yawning just behind the narrow ledge we’ve stopped on. The ground feels like it could slide out from beneath me at any second. My gut lurches. It’s all cliffs and shadows and wind that howls like it wants to take me with it.

We are lined up as couples. Dreth stands with his arms crossed like a slab of stone—his cold, gray stare sweeps the line of us without a flicker of emotion, as if he’s measuring which of us will die first.

“Survival packs,” he says. Bags are tossed at our feet, hitting the ground with a heavy thud, the metal inside clanking together. The bags are thick, weatherproofed, and scuffed from use. A rope coils out from the unzipped side of ours like a snake. Other hooks, tools, and a few sharp blades spill in a jumble of steel. “Rations are on the inside pocket. Use them wisely. Flint for fire, emergency flare, a pot.”

No one moves, hanging on his every word.

“And for the wildlife out there.” A Mercyenforcer with an arm full of steel tosses a heavy-handed weapon before each pair. Dorian and Mae have a long blade with a dark hilt, Talia and Jace get a pair of hand axes, and I catch Talia eyeing Ivy coldly. Kade and Callie have some kind of curved swords that gleam like they’ve never seen rust. Rhythe takes a brutal spiked thing that looks like something pulled from a bad dream for him and Ivy. We’re handed a broad dagger curved slightly at the end. He makes a second pass to give each of us a few smaller throwing blades. I stick one in my boot, the other against my ribs.

“Listen up. The rules!” Dreth shouts.

Silence tightens over us like a noose.

Then Talia yelps as a Mercyenforcer grabs her arms from behind and another shoves a dark blue crystal into her chest. They move down the line.

“You’re each being given a slow-release sedative Heartfiller,” Dreth goes on. “Our most potent variety. By sunrise three days from now, it will induce a deep, long sleep, leaving your physical faculties completely useless.” He lets the silence balloon until it feels like it might burst. When the Mercyenforcer steps to me, he skips over me.

I blink.

Then I look at Caelus.

He shakes his head subtly, turning his attention back to the instructions. Did he trick them to get me skipped over? I watch him with narrowed eyes, waiting for someone to catch it. But no one does; they’re all watching Dreth.

“To pass the trial,” he continues, “you and your truest-love match must make it to the base of this mountain together at the same time…before you fall asleep.”

The thought curls cold and sharp inside me. Caelus and I share a glance. I can forage fine, feed myself out here. And I know my way around these mountains a bit, from my courier routes. But I don’t know the first thing about climbing. I search his storm-ravished gaze for some assurance. What I find is a flicker of defiance.

Voices murmur in panic.

Dreth raises his. “There are antidotes to the Heartfiller you’ve just been given at the summit above us.”

“How many?” Kade shouts.

“Not enough for everyone. The Trial of Strength tests all the ways love requires you to be strong. Physically for the climbing and hikes, mentally to resist the hazy mind as the Heartfiller wears you down, and emotionally strong enough so that if your match dies, you are able to explore connection with a remaining contestant if you still want to try to win.”

A cold silence blankets the group.