The Gauntlet

by Rebecca Ethington

  Normally this room, and its massive privacy glass, served as a kind of twisted viewing area. We would sit here, year after year, as the new Chosen crossed the finishing line to their new life.

  It always struck me as odd that we would watch as they screamed and writhed from their bite. More than a few people had to be tied down to their bed before the magic overtook them and they fell into a deep sleep. Watching it every year, made me grateful that I had been born with my magic.

  How long they slept determined how powerful their magic was and after a few hours the room would drift into silence, the Skȓítek nurses finally allowing the families in.

  The whole thing was creepy when you got right down to it. But I would take that to this any day.

  The newly bitten chosen had been swept away to underground caves of Imdalind hours ago. It was only the mortals left. The children of the Chosen lying right beside the Undermortals like the equals they were supposed to be.

  I was sure this wasn’t what my father had in mind when we had wanted to unite the people.

  “Angie, don’t you think--?”

  “I’m not supposed to leave yet,” Angie said with that tone that I had always associated with a Drak, and therefore never used myself. “You can though. I know you want to help.”

  I gave her a look. She knew full well that my helping was consisting solely of making sure she didn’t get in trouble.

  “I won’t go down there, Rowan.” She gave me an exaggerated sigh and sat back in her chair, swinging her legs in a move that was way too cheerful for the horrors that were around us.

  “Sure, you won’t.” I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair.

  Screams and moans and the rogue shout in Czech echoed through the glass, turning the tiny room into a buzz of energy. No, a buzz of magic. Magic that dripped in the air and whispered over my skin, pooling in the back of my neck in a warmth that was nearly begging me to follow it. To see, to really see.

  My mother was pulling sight.

  Real sight.

  Not just the peeks into past and future that she normally did. Someone had touched Black Water. It had been ten years, but I would never forget that feeling. The power, the way light and time pulled through me as though you could reach out and touch it.

  My chair banged to the ground as I jumped up, hands pressing against glass as my spine straightened, magic twisting through my bones as I stared at the door.

  All I would have to do was close my eyes and I could see everything. It would take nothing to give into that side of me, to become that part of me. To grab the mug again and make that choice.

  I turned, curious if Angie felt the same. But she just sat. Serene. Perfect. Happy.

  Alive.

  No. I would never let that magic fill me again.

  Not now. Not ever.

  If only for her.

  I breathed a low sigh of relief when the magic finally abated, the warmth fading away and leaving me gasping against the window like a fish caught in a tank. I couldn’t suck in enough air.

  “Row?” Angie’s voice was soft, the whisper far away and not just a few feet from where I stood. “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t turn. I didn't dare. I had no way of knowing what state my eyes were in and it wasn’t worth the risk.

  Thankfully, the door on the other side of the auditorium opened before I could gasp enough air to respond. Mother, Father, and a few of their guard whipped from the hallway and back into the massacre, all of them surrounding one painfully familiar, and exceptionally smug face.

  She was alive.

  I hated that it made me happy.

  My parents were more apt to offer her a job and take her under their wing than sentence her. But from what I had seen of her, and how hard Talon had hit her, I half expected her to go into some kind of suicide mission.

  She still might with how she walked, nose in the air, eyes darting around the room like an animal in a cage.

  My fists clenched against my jeans, jaw tightening with each step they led her toward the other end of the hall. Where the buses were waiting to take her away.

  Perhaps forever. I couldn’t lose this.

  I swallowed, magic prickling as I tore through the door, yelling something about ‘staying there’ to a smiling Angela.

  I tore down the ornate steps and into the overfilled room, frantically searching for where they had gone. From this angle, however, the room was a sea of hair and blood. I could sooner find a pink mohawk as I could a Vilỳ.

  Being locked up in our tiny observation tower had not prepared me for the smell of blood and vomit that drenched the air, for the heat of hundreds of bodies that sweated the air. My head was swimming, heart thundering and before I had thought better of it, I smashed my magic into me, wind bustling as I prepared to take off into the air and track them down.

  “What in the world do you think you are doing?” Dramin snapped in my ear, his wide hand wrapping around my wrist and slamming me back down to the ground.

  My brother glared at me, the wind falling to nothing as his magic smothered mine. Everyone frantically rearranged blankets, bandages, and the healing leaves. Side glances and mumbles followed us as Dramin pulled me away, his own curses mumbled between clenched teeth.

  “I need to find her.” I tried to break free of him, his usual passive face breaking into a wide smile.

  “What have you seen baby brother?”

  “Hellfire! Has she told everyone?” I yanked my hand away from his, ready to take off toward the shadow of my mother’s magic.

  “I’m assuming you mean our mother, and she has told me nothing.” A tiny smile was playing at the corner of his mouth, his soft blue eyes completely out of place amongst the screams.

  I could never tell if he was being facetious or not and now was not the time to play his weird games.

  “Sure she hasn’t,” I snapped, taking a step back before I lost track of her magic altogether. “I need to stop her.”

  “Do what you need, but stay on the ground, Rowan. Now is not the time for dramatics. I dare say we have enough of that already.” Dramin rushed one way with little more than a nod, leaving me to wind my way through the panic on my own.

  Skȓíteks, Chosen, and even some Goldens wandered every which way, creating a forest of bodies that was moving in the opposite direction I needed to go. I pushed myself against the tide, sneakers slipping on the layer of wet that covered everything.

  People ran, they pushed, they cried, they screamed, and I was sure I was getting absolutely nowhere.

  “Move your fucking asses,” I grumbled under my breath, shoving my way past a bandage laden Skȓítek and toward the door that the faint whisper of my mother’s magic was concealed behind.

  I was steps away.

  “What are you doing down here?” I was stopped for a second time when Talon intersected with me, fingers twisting around the collar of my shirt as he dragged me through the last of the crowd and toward the corner of the makeshift hospital. No one noticed either of us, Talon could have been carrying me to the slaughter for all they knew. The shadowy corner didn't help with that illusion. At least I could hear him over there, plus it also gave me a straight shot to the door, and my mother. Except that both my parents were now leaving the room, and the girl was not with them.

  I could make it there if Talon would stop dragging me around like I was a child.

  “Damn it, Talon, let me go. You are being ridiculous."

  “I'm the one being ridiculous? You are the one who left our baby sister alone when we are under attack,” he spat, shoving me against the wall as he let me go. Thankfully the floor wasn’t as slick here or I would have fallen on my ass. The look he gave me made it clear that was his intention.

  "We aren't under attack," I grumbled, rubbing my head as my magic sparked over the bruise I would have gotten from my impact with the wall.

  "Oh really? Then what do you call this, dip shit? A Drain set off a bomb, and hundreds of our people are bleeding
out, while more than a hundred Drains finished the Gauntlet and sit all nice and pretty in Imdalind. The last place they should be. This was a coordinated attack."

  I glared at him. Drain. He spat the word around like poison. It twisted in my stomach.

  "It wasn't coordinated..." I stopped midsentence, not really wanting to get into it right now. Dramin knowing about me was one thing. Acknowledging that Talon knew what I was, no, what my blood was, was as uncomfortable as the slur in the air.

  “What are you doing down here, Rowan? What are you doing here?” He glared at the same door I had been trying to make it to, his eyes narrowed as though it had personally offended him.

  “I need to talk to her.” I didn't dare say much more than that.

  "You were supposed to--” he stopped. He was staring at the same door I had been trying to make it to eyes narrowed as though it had personally offended him. “Her? You mean the girl?”

  My stomach twisted as Talon’s lip pulled into a sneer.

  “Yes.” I snarled, slipping out from where Talon had cornered me and returned to my attempt at the door. I didn't get more than a few steps before he was in front of me again. "I don't have time for this, Talon. I need to see her before it's too late."

  "You think I’m going to let you waltz away from me?" His wide frame towered over me, his magic pulsing through the air right alongside his anger. His eyes narrowed, his macho-man brain making the connection a second before I was able to weasel my way past him.

  "Let me go, Talon." The words squeaked out right before his magic wrapped around me, holding me in place and sucking the air from my lungs. "I thought you wanted me to go back to Angie?"

  "You were going to the Drain." He glared at the door the second I did, although at this point it looked as bare and forgotten as the rest of them, no sign of what lay on the other side. "And I have a feeling you weren't going to kill it."

  It. Both my anger and magic flared at that, my hand flexing as a single spark of white flew right into my brother, knocking the wind out of him, and giving me a thankful gasp of air. It had been his favorite trick since I was old enough to counter it. Not that it made it any better.

  "It? What the fuck is wrong with you Tal?"

  "Wrong with me? Look around you, shit head. They tried to kill our people!" He gestured around himself so wildly that he looked like Angela when Dad was teaching her to fly last year. The memory did little to calm the boiling fury that was moving through my veins.

  He was acting more like a shit-head than I ever was.

  "They are all our people, Talon. The Undermortals, the Chosen, the mortals," I cringed, realizing for the first time that both titles for those that lived underground were a bit derogatory. “All of them.”

  "You know, for all of your talk about not representing your birthright, you sure have taken a nice long drink of Dad's politics." He scowled, stepping closer to me until we stood toe to toe, magic sparking in the air between us as the lone light above started to flicker.

  "Up until a few minutes ago I could have sworn you had too."

  Talon sighed, running his hand through his hair as the bulb above us continued to flicker. I didn’t dare move.

  "I have, Rowan. I am with him on this." He was speaking through a tick in his clamped jaw, his eyes narrowed so severely that I was having a hard time believing him. "I'm with you, with Mom. But we have to think of this logically. We need to be united, but that means that some Drai--Undermortal who fell into a Vilỳ can't come and beat the shit out of us, either. Come here."

  Talon's magic flared, his grip tightening as he pulled me further into the dark our parents had been heading toward. Our parents, Aunt Wyn, Uncle Ryland, and Aunt Mira stood around a bed, the sheets and floor so blood covered I was certain Aunt Wyn's magic was the only thing keeping whoever laid there alive. I could taste the sulfur of Wyn's magic even from here.

  "See her?" Talon nodded toward the bed as Wyn shifted, the blood-soaked girl barely visible behind the vice-grip Wyn had on her shoulder. "She's the one who saw that Drain use her magic. She was right there, and she tried to stop it."

  I recognized her at once, even with the bandages. It was the same girl from my dream, but whatever had happened, hadn't gone down anywhere near what Talon was claiming. She hadn't tried to stop anything. She had egged the Undermortal on.

  "Sia Demarco. The eldest daughter to one of the most prolific Chosen families in our region." He, of course, didn't have to tell me that. Just the name and I knew who she was. And what her parents were.

  Big old pains.

  Our parents complained about Giovanni Demarco enough, fitting with the way the man strutted through the halls of Imdalind on more than one occasion.

  "Can you imagine what the Chosen will do when they hear that their places in Imdalind Academy were taken by Drains, and that the girl who tried to stop it, the girl who almost died was the daughter of their elected voice in the monarchy." He was hissing in my ear, leaning closer to me as she turned to face me.

  Her eyes had been hard and dark in my dream, the anger and vitriol seeping from her. The pain and sadness she fixed me with now, however, made it hard to believe it was the same girl. She smiled, the shy grin playing into the beauty I was sure she possessed when she wasn't covered with blood.

  "If we want to unite our people, both Chosen and Drains have to be behind it. If they are attacking each other, that's not going to happen. The best thing you can do right now is to show the Chosen what they mean to us. The Drains are already at the academy, that's a start. But the Chosen need to know they still hold their place. That starts with this girl."

  "I don’t see what she had to do with me. We are standing in a hall full of blood..."

  "I am trying to show you why your role at the Academy matters, and why you need to leave the Drains alone." His grip on my arm tightened, his fingers digging into my skin as little pricks of magic moved into me. They were clearly meant as more than a warning.

  "Let me go, Talon. And stop using that word," I snapped, pulling my arm away from him, and away from the now boring stare of the girl.

  I had seen that look before, it followed me around anytime I went to a public appearance. Even before then I had seen it in the eyes of every Chosen girl that Talon crossed paths with. Sia Demarco had more on her mind than 'being my friend.’

  I wasn't interested.

  Besides, I still had somewhere I needed to be.

  "That Drain attacked you too, you know," Talon said, halting my escape, although I didn't turn. "That attack was on the royal family. She doesn't want to kill Chosen; she wants to kill Eternals. Us. Mom. Dad. Ryland. Angela. Get your priorities straight and start thinking like a Krul.”

  “My priorities are straight.” I dug my fists into my jeans, part of me questioning if they were.

  If standing in a room full of injured people, trying to find the girl who hurt them was really the smartest thing. And not for the son of the King. For anyone.

  “Sure you are, Rowan. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, glancing behind me.

  “Dad decided to lock that Drain up in Imdalind Academy with you, Row. That’ll help remind you what they really are.”

  I whipped around, but Talon only smiled, laughed once and walked away, right toward a few other injured Chosen who had been staring at him. I didn't move. I stood, frozen in the shadows between the door that the uncomfortable whispers of sight that were pulling me towards and the gaze of the blood covered girl.

  "I never asked for this."

  9

  Sia

  “This group is fine, there are a few broken bones in the back, but I sent some of the Skȓíteks to heal them. They may be whining like spoiled brats, but they will be fine. Did you get them?” A woman’s voice swam through the buzzing sound that was cleaving my head into two uneven halves.

  Ripping everything in half.

  High pitched ringing rattled against bones that felt splintered an
d broken, as though the shards were stuck out at odd angles. Okay, so I had no way of knowing if it was that bad, I couldn’t see anything beyond the painful yellow glow of the most fluorescent sun in existence.

  Something heavy was covering my face, smothering both the incessant buzzing that was trying to explode against my skull and the screams and yells that were filling the cave.

  “Hello?” The one word question caught in my swollen throat, filling my mouth with blood and sending a new wave of pain over me.

  I guess moving was out too, the agony was too much. Even if I tried, I couldn’t lift so much as a finger.

  It was like I had been hit with a bomb.

  A bomb.

  That girl, the one with the mohawk. The last thing I remembered was the sparks dripping from her fingers like jelly. Liquid lightning, just like the illegal, uncentered, magic that we had learned about in school back when they had taught us about the war. But that was impossible. They had captured all the Vilỳs and reserved power for those who won the Gauntlet, not some punk Drain that was inside of it.

  I needed to get out of here, tell someone, warn them. Find her so they could execute her before she caused more damage. If they wouldn’t kill her because of their damn morals or whatever, I would.

  I tried to shift my weight, and push myself to sitting, but the best I got was rolling over. The cloth that had been covering my head slid to the slick tile floor with a slap, the blood-stained fabric followed by a stream of vomit that sent whoever had been rushing toward me back, the green and red splattering over the toes of their black converse shoes.

  “This is really not how I saw this day going. Nasty.” The same woman from before spoke from above me, but I didn't dare move. Not that I was sure I could, even the dim reflective light from the floor was increasing the crippling agony. Whoever that was better take a step back, more sick was coming.

  Thankfully, my stomach was empty. Bits of bile splattered over the ground before I was forced onto my back, blinking furiously at the long fluorescent light above me.

  The cave had gone, replaced by so much light that if it wasn’t for blood, vomit, and smoke I might have thought I died. That, and the pain. I was in so much pain I didn’t even realize I was laying on a soft feather bed.