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Lachlan hopped in last, catching his balance with Trace and my help as the boat drifted away from the shore.
Trace moved over as far as he could on one of the seats, letting me squeeze in next to him. The thing was small, maybe the size of a small rowboat, and though there were only four of us, the t
hree guys were pretty big. Lachlan looked like a giant in the thing and had to sit in the middle to make sure he didn’t tip it one way or the other.
As soon as we were all seated, the boat began to pick up speed, rushing over the fire water almost faster than the current around us. My stomach dropped as I realized we had just walked into something we had no control over.
Trace realized it too, and I felt his body stiffen beside me.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” he murmured. “How do we stop this thing if we want to get out?”
Merrick looked out at the flowing fire river below us, his face a hard mask. I had a feeling he hated this the most out of all of us. “Yeah. I don’t think we do get out. Not until the boat is ready to let us out.”
“Well, keep your eyes open, because I don’t trust this even for a second,” I put in, staring around as we made our way down the river. “This whole challenge has brought nothing but danger, and I have a hard time believing the gods would let us have a boat that doesn’t burn just to take us to wherever we need to go. There’s gotta be a price built in somewhere—for everything they give, they take something else away. The gods can be real dicks.”
Merrick’s gaze darted over to me. “This whole realm is their home. You know they can probably hear you, right?”
I glanced up at the sky as if I expected to find a god floating up there, ready to smite me.
But all I saw was bright, clear blue, a strange contrast to the fiery blaze all around us.
Was he right? I knew students back at the academy could peek in and see what we were up to via that magical sort of livestream that covered the contestants’ movements. But were the gods actually watching?
How was this fun for them?
Unless they really were assholes, and they just got off on watching a bunch of barely trained mages flounder against the insane challenges they kept throwing at us.
Yeah, that sounded pretty believable, actually.
Not that I liked it. I wasn’t big on my life-or-death struggles being used for someone else’s entertainment. Even if the someone was a god.
“Tough titties,” I told Merrick with a grin. “If they don’t like what I have to say, they can go spy on Alaric. Or Brielle.”
Merrick huffed a laugh and opened his mouth to reply when a low bubbling sound from my right caught my attention. I thought maybe I was just hearing things, but then it came again.
Putting up my hand, I cut him off. All three men stared at me, and I could feel them drawing their magic up, close to the surface. They knew I wasn’t the kind of girl to be paranoid.
“Do you hear that?” I whispered.
We sat perfectly still, listening hard.
Another small burbling sound. Still from my right.
Lachlan nodded, his gaze scanning the rippling fire on that side of the boat.
“I hear it. But I don’t know what—”
Before he could finish that thought, a loud roar split the air.
Chapter Seventeen
From my right, three medium-sized dragon-like creatures burst up from the flames, their wings blazing and fire pouring from their nostrils.
The fire water churned and rippled, several waves almost splashing over the edge of the boat.
“Oh, fuck!”
I swiped my hand through the air quickly, creating a shield around us. We all ducked as the fire hit the shield and bounced back.
