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“It might not be plates of bacon and orange juice, but I’m starving enough to eat anything. If I had to eat another bug, or the insides of a moving vine, I told myself that Trace’s arm would be the next thing to go.”
Trace wrinkled his nose, then brightened. He gave me a bawdy wink as he opened up his rations. “I’m going to take the fact that you’d eat me first as a compliment, Snow.”
We all laughed and sat there comfortably as we ate the same tasteless granola bar-type things that we’d had last time. Whatever. They were just as gross as always, but I hadn’t been kidding about being hungry enough to eat anything. After I’d finished my share, I leaned back against a nearby boulder.
“So, how long have we been walking?” I asked.
Merrick took a sip of the water and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth “A little over a week since we got Lach back. I didn’t even think it was possible to walk through the godly realm for that long.”
I nodded. “From what I read in the library back at the school, the godly realm is roughly the size of earth. A portion of it is given to the Gods’ Challenge, and while it’s not a relatively large piece, it’s very broad and spread out. Only here, it’s constantly changing and someone else has control of what we see.”
Everyone sat in silence for a moment, thinking about just how large of an area we had traveled. Exhaustion seeped through my bones like lead, and I groaned. “As good as it feels to just sit here, we’ve got to get going. Remember, once one of the actual contestants finds the gem and claims it, we’ll all be brought back to the academy. So we need to find what we’re looking for before that happens. Last time, we were here for almost a month, but it’s already been a week. I really don’t want to have come all of this way just to miss out on it because we took too long.”
All the men grunted and nodded, and we heaved ourselves to our feet. Sitting for too long was dangerous. We needed to get a move on, and we had to find that same sense of urgency we’d had at the beginning. The answers to our questions were so close, it was almost as if I could feel it. There was a pulling in my chest, a strange sort of surety that filled me, growing stronger every day; I wasn’t even sure where it was coming from.
I packed all the things we had found back into the bag, and Lachlan swept it out of my hands, throwing it over his back before heading out. I swatted his well-toned ass, but didn’t object. He’d let me carry it for the past several hours, so I could accept his chivalrous gesture without feeling like a slacker.
The next hour or so of hiking passed in almost complete silence, but as we crested another hill and came into a clearing, we all stopped, speechless. Our gazes scanned the area, finding what looked like an invisible but very powerful barrier separating us from the rest of the godly realm.
“Well,” I muttered. “I think we found the end.”
Merrick began to walk forward. “Or the beginning. Whichever way you want to look at it.”
I lifted my eyebrows and followed after him, reaching out and pulling him back before he could touch the shimmering shield that plummeted into the ground in front of us. It moved as if it were alive, and it was so thick and foggy that I couldn’t see to the other side.
Lachlan scowled at the barrier. “So, exactly what are we supposed to do now? Is there some sort of challenge to this? Are we supposed to figure out the right way to get through it?”
Trace shook his head. “No. This is a barrier to keep us away from the gods. None of us were even supposed to reach it. This isn’t a test. There’s a good chance that this barrier could instantly kill all of us, or at least spit us out back where we started. In fact, I have no real clue what it does. All I know is this is our side, and that’s their side. I can’t imagine they’ll be too happy when we get over there.”
I shrugged, not giving two shits what the gods wanted. “They’ll just have to deal with it. They’re the ones who have all these fucking secrets, who made us need to search for answers, so they’ll have to deal with us coming into their territory.”
The guys looked at me for a moment as if I was crazy, and then Merrick laughed. “You’re the fucking best, Aria.”
I bit back a grin. I’d never admit it, but I loved that the men all seemed to like my fiery temper. I didn’t need to hold back with them or pretend to be anything but what I was.
W
e all went to work, pacing back and forth in front of the barrier as we tried to figure out a way through it. We stood just a few feet apart from each other, reaching out toward it but never quite touching it. It didn’t seem to hurt any of us, but at the same time, no magic that we cast was able to part it or move it aside.
Trace chuckled. “It reminds me of the slime in those movies. The stuff that comes off of the ghosts.”
Merrick laughed. “Ecto-plasm.”
Suddenly and without warning, the barrier began to swell and expand. Before any of us could move, it had wrapped itself around our arms and was sucking us in like invisible, powerful Jell-O. I yelped and struggled hard, trying to reach for the men. They reached back, grunting hoarsely as they tried to lock arms. But the strange magical material was far too strong. The substance ripped us apart, and before I could put up any more resistance, I was completely immersed in it.
I opened my eyes, holding my breath. It was literally like floating in a sea of Jell-O. I knew I couldn’t suck it into my lungs—I couldn’t breathe it like air. I’d never been hugely claustrophobic, but the feeling was so fucking foreign, so strange, that it made panic beat in my chest. I renewed my struggles, flailing my arms back and forth. My limbs moved too slowly through the substance, and I couldn’t pull my magic to my fingertips.
You’re going to die. You came all of this way and you’re going to die in a fucking vat of Jell-O.
No way. I shushed the stupid voice in my head that kept insisting this was the end. There was no way I was going to let the godly take me down like this.
I had to calm down. I had to use the very finite second I had left to figure out a way out of this.
I stopped my body from moving and allowed myself to stay suspended in the magical barrier. Closing my eyes, I drew power from within myself, picturing my magic inside of me, searching for anything that I could use to fight through this. The gods may have control over a lot of things, but the magic inside me was mine.
My magic spun and turned inside of me, and I began to push it out into my limbs. I imagined heat, a fire inside me that burned so hot it cut right through the gods’ shield around me. Even with my eyes closed, I could see the bright red burning light that emanated from my skin. I could feel the thick substance pulling back from my body, and suddenly, I felt a yank. My entire body flew forward, emerging from the barrier and tumbling down onto the ground. As I landed, steam hissed from all around me, and I released the magic from my skin.
The barrier had spat me out, apparently in reaction to the magic that I had used. I leapt to my feet and spun around. Inside the barrier, I could see my three guys all struggling. I wished I could tell them what I’d done to get out, but I honestly wasn’t even sure what it was. I couldn’t describe it. I could only do it.
