Page 150 of The Mortal Trials

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Run!” I shout, grabbing August’s hand. We race across the battlefield, sprinting through the dead and dying, and emerge onto a broad, wooden stage.

The crowd roared, waving their hands and singing along to August’s every word. He strummed the guitar, veins popping in his forearms, sweat plastering his dark shirt and hair to his skin.

The song ended and he took a drink of water from a glass someone offered. His mother was in the front row. That look entered his eye. The look that said he was about to do something and there was no turning back now.

“No, August!” his mother yelled, shaking her head and trying to shove past the people blocking her way to the nearest gate.

Past August swept his eyes over the crowd. “I want to play something I’ve been working on. I’ve wanted to share it for a while and, well, today feels right. It’s called ‘Unsung Hero’ and I hope you like it.”

When he crooned the fateful lyrics, the mortals listened. Some cried. Some pressed hands to their hearts. And when the last chord fell, someone in the middle of the crowd began to chant Hero.

He-ro.

He-ro.

Soon, the entire amphitheater screamed the word. And August’s mother cried from the front row.

Quetzals appear and flap toward the finish.

“Let’s go.” August grips my elbow and tugs me away from the scene.

We dart off the stage, through those waiting along the fence for a chance to see the singer up close or touch his hand, and into the arid night. We reenter the mirage of the desert where my heart feels most at home and follow the colorful birds that scream toward a glowing slab of gold in the distance.

We cut through brittlebush. Skirt prickly pear. Octillo. Ironwood. Mesquite. Palo verde. We trample and tear and push ourselves faster. Faster!

The quetzals fly ahead, rushing toward the light that just might save us. Coyotes call from an outcropping of nearby boulders. I have the briefest moment of fear that the birds aren’t my mother’s at all, but are yet another taunt, another piece of Ares’s game, but they are racing toward the finish line and we have to make it there even if they are his.

August roars as we reach the portal and rush through it, the bright birds circling before following us into the arena. They spill into the air and swirl out over the delighted audience.

But we’re not the first ones to arrive.

My heart drops into my stomach.

Every other mortal who entered this trial is waiting in the sand. We’re the last ones to arrive.

We finished last.

Even after Morrigan persuaded Ares to give us a chance to live, we got trapped in our pasts and forgot to run. This was a race, and winning depended on speed. The mirages were just distractions, another type of mud sucking us in and under, away from our goal.

The crowd is silent, as stricken and scared as August and I are.

The other mortals stare at us as we turn in a slow circle, trying to wrap our minds around our final moments.

No one from the other allied group is gloating. Not even Torsten is happy we’ll be eliminated.

I finally turn to face August, my chin quivering and tears spilling down my cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

He hugs me to his side. “So am I.”

“I forgot we were racing. I kept having to remind myself we were in a trial. If it weren’t for the birds, I wouldn’t have remembered at all. I would still be trapped in there. In the past. Like Mamá warned me about. She told me to look forward, but I only looked back.”

“So did I,” he admits. “So did I.”

Ulani and Vailea come to stand with us, then Koda and Niall. And Tae and Hazi, who are still panting and trying to catch their breaths. They haven’t been here long.

“Our trials weren’t like yours,” Ulani reveals. “They weren’t like that. They were true footraces. That – that was torture, Callalie. I wish we could do something, or that someone was brave enough to help.”