Page 83 of The Heart Trials

Outside, silence hangs in the air like a fog, heavy and dense. Orrick is awake, wrapped in a blanket, staring at nothing as he sits beside the mountain of singed logs in the firepit as if it’s a gravesite. The branches and leaves have been combed from his hair.

“Hey, are you alright?” I ask when Lira dents my periphery.

But she doesn’t hear me as she ambles toward Orrick. They sit closely, their limbs touching. He sags against her, sullen. Her heavy-lidded eyes suggest she didn’t get much sleep either. Maybe it’s genuine. Maybe.

My churning stomach lures me to the breakfast table—which is bare. It hasn’t been reset like the other days. It’s not filled with stale food from yesterday morning either. It’s been cleaned.

The doors to the arena open.

“Trial of Loyalty, report,” a Mercyenforcer yells.

Contestants emerge from their tents, still buzzing from their dates yesterday. Rhythe marches to the front, forming a line. Kade is not far behind him. Talia appears beside me. Under her breath, with a snarl that’s more threat than kindness, she says, “You’re out. Stay away.”

A warning. Rhythe’s new target might be me.

The journey to the Trial of Loyalty is like the first—blindfolded in the back of a transport with no windows, no light—and all I can think about is what Rhythe is probably plotting to do to me. I’ve made him an enemy just as Caelus warned me not to. But I wasn’t going to have Dorian’s innocent blood on my hands. Rhythe set him up, and me in the process. I want no part in that.

The chatter dies down once we’re in motion. We ride in silence a shorter distance than the first trial.

When we stop, the doors open to an expanse of green so smooth it looks like fine fabric. Rolling hills blanketed in crops stretch toward the horizon, where the first light of morning spills golden across the land. I’ve picked up food here to deliver on my courier routes, but I’ve never paid attention—never taken all of it in.

We pass a platform, stopping in the middle of corn crops. Dreth is waiting for us beside a burning pile of wood and several courier crates. Piles of harvested peppers in every color, berries, tomatoes, squash, leafy greens, beans, peaches, plums, potatoes, endless rows of sacks of grains, and that’s just what I can see. My stomach aches, not just from nerves, but from hunger too. It’s quickly gotten used to life in the Citadel.

I find Kade lingering near Lira and Orrick. Didn’t he get the message yesterday? She doesn’t want him. I do. I stand closer to him, letting our elbows touch. When he looks at me, I smile. But he glances away with indifference, as if the forced kiss we shared yesterday was a way to get through the elimination for him too.

“I hope you slept alright,” I say.

“Like a rock.” Kade pops his neck to either side.

“What do you know about this trial?”

He shrugs. “Not much.”

My knees are unsteady as I move closer to him, close enough to feel the heat from his body.

“I thought we could help each other today,” I say under my breath.

He folds his arms.

“Kade, come on.” I glance around. Then, I get closer and lower my voice. “The kiss may have been a lie. But you agreed we never got the chance to know each other better. Now’s our time.”

He points at the raging flames beside Dreth. “That’s an incinerator.”

“A what?”

“It’s where they put waste and trash. And all the bodies they don’t send to the sea.”

I go cold all over. “What’s it doing here?”

His eyes are suddenly steeled with fear. “I’m wondering the same thing.”

I look for Mae, searching for some assurance on her face, but she stares at the flames like she’s in practiced mourning. Dorian is with her, speechless. The other Grainfolk watch with hollow expressions, as if this incinerator is haunting them, and my pulse picks up.

“We’re packing rations today.” Dreth walks us through how to harvest some of the food that still needs to be pulled from the soil. He grabs a ration pouch and stuffs it with two squash, a fistful of grain, and a pear, tying it up tight. He tosses it into one of a dozen shelves in the back of a transport. A shelf that could hold hundreds of the little ration pouches.

“It’s so much food,” I say, under my breath. “That’ll take all day.”

Kade grimaces as if he’s realized something.