Page 19 of Demon Touched

The next week continues much the same. I rise and eat with Filippa while fielding stares and snickers as cadets and fledglings alike fixate on my lack of wings. I train, running drills in the morning and attending lessons with intimidating, golden-armored instructors in the early afternoon.

Aside from Captain Hasteed, most of the instructors are totally dismissive of me, acting as if having to make any adjustments to their lessons to accommodate me is an unbearable chore. Still, I listen and watch carefully and pick up what I can. When one instructor—a red-haired giant of a man called Baxir—insists on conducting the entirety of his lessons up in the air with the rest of the class, Filippa relays what I missed. And after lessons have finished for the day, she and Rowan and even Bianca spar with me and offer me advice.

Still, I’m afraid it won’t be enough. I go to bed every night praying for my wings to come, and every morning when I wake and find my shoulders as smooth as ever, I feel like crying. Four days in, I’m back to feeling like I did in my scavenger days—always on alert, watching my back, ready to snatch what I can from a world that doesn’t want to hand me anything willingly.

I didn’t realize quite how much of that tension disappeared during my time in Infernum, until I’m back in its chokehold.

But if I can just survive this and prove myself, I’ll get what I want, and my power will be the gift that puts me back in control of my life. I can already feel my magic growing—every day, it’s a little bit stronger, a little more sensitive to my will. It gives me permission to hope that I might be ready when the first trial comes.

Then one morning, I’m woken at dawn by the a horn blowing down the hallways of the nest. Doors slam, accompanied by the growing hubbub of hundreds of fledglings spilling out into the corridors. I stumble to my door, heart hammering, and barely need to crack it open before I hear the words I’ve been dreading, murmured frantically by a passing fledgling to her friend:

“It’s here. Colonel Cavat announced it—the first trial.”

Chapter 7

Leah

They make us choose our weapons before we know what we’re up against.

It seems unnecessarily cruel as I watch the fledglings agonize over their options in the armory. I see some of them closing their eyes as their hands hover over the table loaded with weapons, and I guess they’re hoping their foresight will give them some sense of what to choose.

“They must want us to be strategic,” Filippa murmurs to me when it’s our turn. She looks gray under the usually warm tone of her skin. “There must be a way to show wisdom in our choice. Anyone can load themselves up with weapons⁠—”

“But in some battles, it’s better to travel light and be quick on your feet,” I finish for her. “Or wings, I guess.”

“Make up your mind!” instructor Baxir barks from the end of the table. “Good warriors don’t hesitate!”

I grab a bow and quiver of arrows as well as a small knife. They’re the weapons I’m most comfortable with anyway, and they shouldn’t weigh me down too much. Filippa selects a single sword.

“I’m a bad shot,” she explains as she buckles the sheath to her waist.

It doesn’t seem much compared to what some of the others choose. Keros is wearing half the armory, his whole body glinting with sharp objects.

They wait until we’re all gathered outside the front of the academy to talk to us again.

“Now you’ve made your preparations,” Captain Hasteed says, looking us over with her serious gaze, “you will proceed to the Eyrie.”

“The Eyrie?” I repeat under my breath.

“It’s an arena on the other side of the city,” Bianca answers.

Panic bubbles inside me at yet another reminder of how little I know about this process and this place.

“However, there will be no flying until we reach the arena,” Hasteed continues. “You must walk there.”

“What?” snaps Eteine—the thin woman who backed up Keros on my first day. “Why can’t we fly?”

“Because your trial has already begun,” Baxir says smugly.

I exhale in relief. I really didn’t like the idea of having to be flown anywhere by my peers, or worse, getting left behind. Making us choose our weapons makes even more sense now, because the more heavily armed we decided to be, the more tired we’ll be when we actually have to fight.

I look over at Keros, enjoying the furious look on his face.

“Now,” Baxir says, “get marching.”

It takes us nearly two hours. By the time the Eyrie comes into view, I’m starting to feel the awkwardness of my quiver as it bumps up against my spine, hitting the exact same spot with every step I take.

Thankfully, there’s no mistaking the arena—it’s a huge glass dome that, like the rift gate, sits on the other side of a bridge, jutting out from the main body of the city.