Page 7 of The Heart Trials

accommodations in the Citadel,

and a place at Court.

I blink once, twice. But the words don’t change.

“What’s it say?” Serafina says, bringing herself up onto her elbows on the bed that we share. Her eyes are cloudy and her chest glows with a faint light I only just noticed.

I rush over to her. “What did Miss Omon give you?”

“Something to help me sleep, she said.”

The hair on my skin bristles. So we are out of medicine. The Heartfiller sedative is too strong for her little body. I feel her temperature again. Her skin burns hotter through my gloves.

“The pamphlet.” She tries to sit up taller, but collapses woozily. “What does it say about the tournament? I heard if you win, your heart glows forever and you can kiss without pain.”

I blink at her. “Who—”

“And Billy who lives in Brine End says your whole district gets extra bread for a year if you win.”

“That’s—”

“And you never age again after you win. Makoa in Netters Hollow told me that. She said that your heart keeps you full on true love forever.” She coughs, convulsing with each one.

The Tournament of Hearts is a chance for lowborn to earn Skyborn citizenship by proving they can handle true love. They must pass a series of trials and find their truest-love match among the contestants. Many enter, but only a select number are chosen. That’s all anyone knows.

Skyborn are allowed to watch the trials, and we might get updates in the districts through the daily pamphlets, but no one will really know anything until people start coming home, whispering about what it was like. The last time the tournament was held, I was eight. Miss Omon’s helper back then entered. She lost pretty early into the competition, and people say that when she returned home she was a shell of who she’d been. She never returned to the orphanage. Eventually she overdosed by using a dozen Heartfillers at once.

Serafina stares at me, blinking with a spark of something unfair in her eyes. Hope.

“Fina, that’s ridiculous,” I say. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”

“Does it say it in the pamphlet? That means it’s true.”

I crumple up the pamphlet and drop it in the wastebasket. “None of that is true. It can’t be. It’s…It doesn’t matter.”

“Why doesn’t it matter? Bread for a year.”

I stuff my hands in my pockets, fingers curling the edge of the smuggling request. I sit on the bed beside her, careful not to touch her more than I need to. When she coughs again, she curls over the edge of the mattress, retching phlegm. A weight heavier than a Heartfiller feels like it’s wedged itself into my chest. She’s getting worse.

I have to try to get this money, and I have to do it now. I’ll need to be smart in case this smuggling request is a trap. But I have to try.

“Axira?” Serafina blinks slowly. Too slowly. “Why doesn’t bread for a year matter?”

“Because—” If this works, she will dance on the deck of a ship in the sun. “It’s probably Skyborn bread. Yuck! Everyone knows our Miss Briss makes the best bread in Ethyria.”

She grins, a real curl of the lips, drawing creases around her eyes, and it rattles my pulse. I stand abruptly and cross the room to wet a towel before laying it across her forehead. “Calm down, and”—I fluff her pillow, helping her lie down—“get some more sleep.”

I can’t put this off. Requests are filled within a day or they’re assumed to be denied. But the minute I grab my clothes from the line outside, I spot a vase my mother made me from clay. She molded it carefully, starting over several times, for weeks, to get it just right. Then she painted it with rippling blue strokes that remind me of the ocean. Swim with the current or drown, she’d said when she gave it to me. I can guess how she’d feel about my secret profession if she were alive.

But treading water forever is no better than drowning.

I have to risk it, one more time. For Serafina, Miss Omon, Nichol, and the others.

I hook the thin silver chain on either side of my mouth. Today will be different. Today I make my own fate. With a few gold coins stuffed into each of my shoes, the usual thin blade in my bun, and a backup one in my boot, I sling the rest of my savings across me.

When I turn to head to the door, a small hand grabs my boot.

“Wait, where”—Fina tries to clear her raspy throat—“are you going so early?”