Page 25 of The Heart Trials

Mine speeds up. “Is there some other way? I’m efficient. If you can tell me where it is, I bet you I can find it before the competition gets stiff.”

“There’s no other way. The people who win are desperate to experience love,” he says with such force, I flinch. “To be wrapped up in it, consumed by it. That’s what it takes.”

“I can pretend!”

“No, you can’t.”

I sit stunned by the weight of his words.

If it takes true love, proven true love, to win the competition, he’s right—I cannot win this. But I don’t want to win. Becoming a Skyborn, living in this place under the Benevolent’s watchful eye, doesn’t sound much better than being in the districts. Winning doesn’t get Serafina medicine, it doesn’t make sure Miss Omon, the others, are treated like humans. Winning fixes nothing.

Ethyria is a cage.

I’m breaking out of it.

I notice he is wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday. His eyes are red, his usually neat braid unkempt.

“You won’t make it to the end,” he says. “And I don’t mean that as an insult. Neither would I.”

He’s wrong. He doesn’t realize how badly I want this. How much Serafina is depending on me. “Try me.”

“I have one chance to get this right, or I have to wait another ten years.”

An idea strikes me that makes my gut swim. “I’ll pair up with someone and pretend to like them or love them or whatever. Is the item you want something small enough to fit in my pocket?”

“You should have taken the servitude sentence and done this the way I wanted.”

“Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one being expected to sign your entire life away. Caelus—” My breath hitches at hearing his name come out of my mouth. Like I know him. Like we know each other. “I’m in the tournament; it’s done. So you can try trusting me with this and help me succeed, or give up on your plans.”

I’ve put everything on the line. This is the only way I have a shot of getting off this island.

“I can do this,” I say. “I can fool them all, and I’ve never found a place I couldn’t slip my way out of.”

“Until coming here.”

I close the distance between us, trying to prove something to both of us. He’s so close I’ve stopped breathing. Heat rushes through me. “Lucent bet on me. I am your only chance.”

At the mention of his cousin, the mood in the room shifts, like a change in the wind. After a long silence, he crosses the space pensively. “You want a ship?”

“And gold. I’ll also need new identification for me and a few others.”

He considers me. “I’d need their names in advance.”

“I can do that.”

He is silent, and my heart tries to jump out of my chest.

“People die in this tournament, Axira.”

I go cold all over, blinking too quickly. “I won’t die,” I say. “I have too many reasons to live.”

He doesn’t speak for some time. Finally, when the air inside me feels like it might burst, he says, “Fine.”

I try to exhale but can’t.

“You cannot fail,” he continues. “The Ascension Ceremony is after the final trial, when they bring all the tournament survivors to the arena. You have to pick someone among the contestants to pretend to be a true-love match with. When I get you out, if I can get you out unseen, you’ll be a highly sought-after criminal. Your match will be punished severely. They will think he’s guilty too. He will probably be…”

Killed.