The Gauntlet

by Rebecca Ethington

  “Thank you, My Lord, and give my thanks to My Lady as well.”

  “I will,” Ilyan said with a nod.

  “I do not deserve such an honor.” Tears, real honest tears were dripping down my cheeks and I looked from the king, to Ryland, to Wyn, to the boy that stood off in the shadows with Talon, his dark eyes trained right at me.

  Rowan.

  He was here. He was right here, and he was looking at me.

  “I will make you proud, my King,” I lifted my voice as loud as I could, giving Rowan a prolonged stare before I turned to his father, forcing my arm to lift as I bore my bare wrist to the King, the wrist that would normally receive the bite. “I will serve you and your family in any way I can. It’s an honor.”

  Humble. Obedient. But instead of a smile, I was met with a scoff from the very boy I had been trying to impress.

  “Be honest and forthright to yourself, and you will make yourself proud,” Ilyan said with a rumble. He gave me one tiny nod before he turned, beckoning Ryland after him with a wave as they bee-lined right to where Rowan stood.

  “I’ll send someone over, Wyn. Don’t do anything I wouldn't do,” Ryland said before he took off after the King, leaving Wynifred and I alone, the heat in her hand slowly pulling back into her like it was an old-fashioned tape measure.

  “Well, you’re off to a rocky start,” she mused, giving me a wink before she removed her hand from my shoulder, the last of the warmth leaving as all the pain from before came rushing back.

  “What start?” I asked, the words swallowed in my throat as everything ripped to shreds and I fell back against the pillow, my head turning to the side, and to Rowan, who was still looking right at me.

  Not one hint of joy on his face.

  10

  Gemma

  “Damn. Is this really how you live? I mean, I’ve seen worse. Especially right after the war, but I had assumed we had moved past this.”

  “You thought wrong,” I interrupted the bubbly ‘guard’ that had been sent with me to collect my things and my ‘one friend’ before I was shipped off to Imdalind Academy.

  Or, what I was officially referring to as magic hell.

  Although, that started the second they had assigned her to escort me to and from what had always been home.

  Eyes followed us through the filthy blankets and makeshift homes that littered the main hall of Last Pyre. It had always been safer to sleep together, but now I realized how bad of a choice that was. After the Queen had centered my magic and fixed whatever it was that was making me so tired, I had been locked in some weird hotel outside the Gauntlet to heal, rest, and bathe according to the snooty Skȓítek that had taken me there. Which was all fine until we walked in here, into this wall of a stench that was nearing a level of harassment.

  That I could deal with, though. The aroma was familiar. And as foul as it was, I didn’t want to leave.

  I would gladly take this against fancy hotels, running water, and something called a buffet that I had sat at and stuffed my face until I threw up. Which, when you got right down to it, was why I subjecting myself to all of the rules and regulations and fancy hotels. So that it all could be familiar to everyone.

  They deserved that too. I was going to give that to them. The path to get there had changed, that’s all.

  Awe rippled through the mud streaked faces and hungry eyes as I walked through my home in search of the one person I was taking away from this mess.

  “Gemma?” More than a few people whispered, shock radiating the air before they saw who I was with and more than a few Undermortals scuttled back into their makeshift homes, or out of the room altogether the look of fear, panic, and betrayal glancing back to me.

  It was hard to be a bad-ass leader of the revolution when you were escorted by an Eternal. When you had brought an Eternal into the one place we were supposed to be safe.

  Wynifred Krul was bright, overly happy, and quickly becoming a pain in my ass. If it wasn’t for the faint outline of tattoos that lined the entire left side of her body, I would say she didn't fit in here at all.

  “All of this,” she continued, waving her hand in front of her. “This is balls. I’m going to fix it before it gets too gross and hair, although it might already be there. I’m bringing food, speakers, and holding a Styx dance-off down here next week. Sorry you have to miss it, kid. It’ll be epic.” She threw her arm around my shoulder like we were some kind of squealy girlfriends. I shrugged it off. Chick was too far into my personal space.

  “I don’t know what in the world you are talking about, but there is no way anyone will come to a dance-up…”

  “Dance-off,” she corrected with a wink, the shadows of her tattoos wrinkling around her eyes.

  “Whatever. That doesn’t change anything. They aren’t coming.” I turned away from her, motioning at Eddy, who had strutted around the corner and froze, eyes popping out of his head at the sight of me and my rambling companion.

  “And why won't they come? I throw a wicked party, trust me. My music may be three hundred years…”

  “They don’t trust you.” I interrupted, tapping my foot and making eyes at Ed in an attempt to get him over here. The guy looked terrified.

  “This guy trusts me,” she said, nodding to Eddy who was slowly walking towards us. So slow he might as well have been walking backwards.

  I gave her a look, my eyebrows twisting together. She beamed with a broader grin. Damn, all these Eternals were delusional.

  “This guy is terrified you are going to eat him. Eddy?” I asked when he was only about half way too us. “Do you trust her?”

  He froze in place, taking one slow step back.

  “I don’t know how to answer that. If I say no, will she kill me?” Poor Eddy was practically shaking in his boots. I didn’t blame him, Wynifred had always been an unknown. I would have avoided her too. But then I was stuck with her prattling on about renegade magic for the past two hours while she drove us here. I was amazed to be in a car that nice, she wanted to lecture me on a hundred different ways to blow things up.

  So yeah, I guess still terrifying. Just terrifying and irritating.

  “I haven’t killed anyone in a few hundred years, kid, and I used to be pretty good at it.”

  Eddy took another step back, a tiny squeak echoing from behind one of the tents in the communal sleeping space we were traversing through.

  “You enjoyed blowing people up?” I asked, regretting the question when she smiled. Despite my rage against the Demarco girl, had never killed anyone. Although my plans to do so had not changed, I sure as hell hoped I didn’t look deranged when I talked about, like she did right now.

  “You enjoy turning buildings to rubble,” she shrugged, smiling again.

  “I enjoy standing up to oppressors for the sake of my people.” It was taking everything in me not to throw her into the wall. But I wasn’t about to go throwing murderesses against walls if I wasn’t sure I could win.

  “The thing about causes, kid, is that you have to make sure you are on the right side. The bad side looks just like the good one when you don’t know any better.”

  “I know which side I’m on,” I said between the grit in my teeth, fists tight against my thighs. Maybe I could punch her.

  “Sure you do, come find me after you’ve killed your third ‘tyrant’ and tell me if you still think so. Maybe we can go blow up buildings together. Or people. Guess it depends on how your revolution pans out.” She looked around her, again. The curious under mortals who had peeked out to stare at us retreating back into their holes.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Boredom.” She shrugged her shoulders, the maniacal light vanishing from her eyes.

  How in the hell was this a four-thousand-year-old immortal and mother of the headmaster to Imdalind Academy?

  I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This had to be some sort of a show, or every bit of reconnaissance we had done on the royal family was glaringly wrong. />
  I wasn’t holding out much hope of any of it being true after my run in with Thomas and the Queen.

  “Well, go be bored over there.” I waved off in the direction of the toilets. “I need to talk to him.” I knocked my head toward Eddy, the guy still trying to make an escape for it.

  “Is he your choice, then? He looks fun. I like your shirt, dude. The Doctor is a classic.”

  Eddy jerked to a stop, all escape forgotten as his jaw sagged, “You know Doctor Who?”

  “Hell, yeah! Everything 1970s is my jam.” She pointed to her shirt and some weird montage of robots, as if we were supposed to know what that meant. “If you ever end up coming to Imdalind I’ll show you a few episodes, I doubt you’ve got a ton of access to them down here.”

  “I finagled some stuff last year after I found a VHS and Gem was able to get it running. It was bad-ass.”

  “Well, if Gem,” she gave me a wink on her discovery of my nickname. My blood was starting to boil. “If Gem brings you with her then we should totally plan something. Row--”

  “Enough of this. I have things to do, and you have a dance-up to plan. Over there.” I snarled, pushing myself between Wynifred and Eddy, giving the former a slight zap of warning. I didn’t dare do the same to Wynifred seeing as she was bored and liable to kill people.

  “It’s a dance-off. An epic dance-off.”

  “You can’t be for real,” I hissed, she just laughed.

  “Yeah, I get ya, too strong. I would turn on the other side of me,” her tone dropped with that, laughter pulling to a halt as her eyelids drooped. Feet slid over stone as she stepped closer to me, fingertips running over my shoulders. I shivered, I honest to god shivered, and I almost slapped her for it. “But I don’t want to scare you.”

  She lifted her hand, the exposed fingertips of her gloved hand hovering less than an inch from my face, flicking, moving as if they were touching me. I swear I could feel her magic, either that or the blood was boiling.

  “There is darkness in the world, you know, it's often hidden behind the smiles, behind the joy that would mask it, just ready to strike.”

  It was clear she had used this trick before, that she expected me to cower and scuttle away like some obedient Undermortal.

  Enough of this.

  I laughed in her face, grabbing her hand and wrapping my fingers around her wrists, pulling her hand away from me. It wasn’t just the air that was boiling.

  Her skin felt like a freaking furnace.

  I lifted my magic to match, not sure if it was doing the same thing before I shoved her away, sending her stumbling on her old ratty sneakers.

  “Nice trick,” I said, shock covering her face. Now it was my turn to smile. “Seems you lot are full of them. But I grew up here, and have been blowing up your precious stores for the past few months. Pretty sure you can’t scare me.”

  “Was that a threat or a promise? Because I enjoy both,” Wynifred said with a wicked grin, giving me a wink. “You have ten minutes and then I’m dragging your ass out of here.”

  Daggers flew between our glares, magic and threats assaulting before she turned toward the bathrooms that I had indicated. She only got about half way before she stopped to wave at the few people who were brave enough to peek out from their hiding places to see her.

  I was suddenly glad the queen hadn’t restricted my magic yet. I wasn’t about to blow Wyn up, but it felt better knowing that I could if whatever darkness in her took control.

  “What the hell was that?” Eddy hissed in my ear, staring at Wynifred who was now trying to coax a litter of kittens out of their home.

  “That was another bit of crazy from a bag of rats that I seem to have accidentally opened.” I sighed, running my hand over the shaved parts of my hair, and the old tattoo that was hiding underneath the prickles.

  “Yeah, speaking of bags of rats,” Eddy said, grabbing my forearm and pulling me away from the Eternal who was now conducting her own parade toward the bathrooms, complete with kittens and a few children. “What the hell happened in those caves? We all ran the second those Eternals started descending from the sky like some giant birds. One second you were there, next, you were carried off by that guy with the dreads.”

  “Thom,” I corrected, realizing a second too late that I had. He gave me a look.

  “You looked dead, Gem. We all thought you were dead.”

  Which explains most of the shocked looks that had followed us in.

  “I don’t think they ever planned on killing me. Or any of us. They say they want the same thing we do.”

  “Which is?”

  “End to the class system. Equality. They want me to help them achieve it.” Saying it aloud was twisting in my stomach, that flash of an image I had seen in the Queen's hand gnawing at me. This bag of rats was getting out of control.

  “And you believe that?” His hushed whispers broke into a shriek, his hands flying into the air in frustration. Luckily the one woman parade that was still making her way to the bathroom hadn’t noticed.

  “About as much as I believe the psycho back there is going to show you some old television collection.” His face fell. I shrugged. “Sorry, dude, it’s the truth. I don’t know what they are up to, but at this point I’d more trust the CCC to host a dance-up down here.” Eddy gave me a look, I waved him off. “Doesn’t mean I have a choice though...”

  “Gemma?” Another whisper filtered around the corner as Adrian, Aria, and a few other of my Undermortals froze after turning around the corner. There was a flash of shock in his face, and some confusion I didn’t understand before he inhaled and bolted right to me. Adrian’s tears dripping on my shoulder as he swept me up in his arms, muscles pressing me against him as he attempted to kiss me more than a few times.

  Normally his touch was more of a numb nothing; there was no swoop of a stomach or twist of desire between us. This time, angry fury was rumbling through my veins. My magic was on a rampage, bubbles of hostility moving under my skin and sparking dangerously. I pushed him away, if only to save him before I hurt him. The second I did, the magic fell away, moving into an uncomfortable rumble at the contact.

  What the fuck was that? My magic better not have turned into some kind of sentient being with her own taste in men, because that was so not going to fly with me.

  “Oh baby, I thought you were dead.” He smashed me against him again, oblivious to the danger he was in. After being around the pampered Eternals for the last few days I think I got my first good whiff of him.

  Man, we all stunk.

  “Seems to be a common theme,” I said, grateful for the excuse to pull myself away again. “Not dead yet. I might be by the end of the year, though.”

  They all exchanged a look, and I took another glance at Wynifred, who Adrian thankfully hadn't noticed yet. I wasn't sure what he would do if he saw an Eternal here. The guy was more muscle then smarts and it made him fly off the handle dumb sometimes.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They are enrolling me in Imdalind Academy.” The reaction I got from that couldn't have been more varied. Most of them gasped, hands flying to mouth in shock. Adrian looked about ready to pop some heads off some Chosen, and Eddy, Eddy was chuckling.

  “What in god's name are they thinking,” Adrian snarled, pounding his fists together. “They can’t take you away from me.”

  Yes, because that was the concern. My apparent hip attachment with him. He seriously needed to get a grip.

  “They are thinking I either learn how to control my magic and bow to them, or they bind it and end our revolution right here and now,” I said, ignoring Eddy’s quizzical expression. He hadn’t missed that I had omitted the whole ‘working for them’ thing. “But you can’t tame a snake. You can tie it down. You can torture it. It will still bite you in the end. I don’t see why I can’t keep this fight going from within their walls.”

  “You are going to try to start a coup from inside of a school filled with Goldens, Chosen, an
d more than a dozen Eternal spawn? You have more of a death wish than I thought.” Eddy chuckled like it was some kind of joke.

  If he thought that was funny, then he was really going to hate what came next.

  “More than a hundred of the new enrollees are Undermortals. The school is filled with our people ready to fight for our cause. Adrian, I need you to keep building up the next generation at home.” I took one step toward Adrian. I was going to have to fan his ego if the guy was going to get over what I was about to do to him. “The Undermortals love you as much as I do. You will need time to reach out to the other communities and build an army while Eddy and I work from inside. We will take them down using their own--”

  “You’re taking Eddy with you?” Adrian interrupted me, his voice feral and frightening. So much for padding his over-inflated ego.

  “I negotiated one additional enrollment; Eddy will be able too--”

  “Eddy is a soft pussy who can’t take a shit without help,” Adrian cut me off again, shoving Eddy back and sending him stumbling toward one of the lean-to camps. He barely caught himself.

  Adrian wasn’t so lucky.

  My newly centered magic went into overdrive, rumbling through my veins as a wind I hadn’t known I could summon whipped around me, lifting me off my feet and bringing me right to Adrian’s towering eye level. He didn’t look nearly as imposing when facing him head on. Reaching my hand forward, his eyes widened as magic sparked and jumped between my fingers. No longer was it the drippy illegal stuff I had been using for years, but the clear brilliantly colored sparks of real magic.

  Adrian looked at me with true fear for the first time.

  “You don’t get to interrupt me, Adrian.” I snarled, his eyes widening as the lightning jumped from my fingers to snap above his head. “You don’t get to question my choices. You are the one I have chosen to lead in my stead while I am at school taking them down from the inside. You don’t trust me? You don’t respect me? There are hundreds of others here who would want the job. But I chose you.”