The Gauntlet

by Rebecca Ethington

  "I can't see the future," I gave my dad a look, making special care to let my words sink in. "And even I can tell you that it is nothing good. I mean, how many times has Giovanni Demarco stormed through the halls this week?"

  "Which is why we need to be prepared." Ryland stuck the final lesson home, like a rugby coach after a good inning. Fitting.

  I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. The smoke had cleared now, but I would gladly take it back, and wipe out the looks on their faces.

  "Are you guys serious? Speeches on vigilance and preparedness?" They gave each other a look, any pestering they had been planning sliding into oblivion. My heart sunk, the uneven beat falling into nothing. Yes, they were serious. "What happened?"

  Ilyan gave us both a look before he continued toward the door, gesturing us both after him.

  "Sia's awake." He sounded like he was announcing a funeral rather than a birth of a new Chosen, and new magic. Even Ryland was looking uncomfortable.

  “I suppose Giovanni will be storming the halls in all his grandeur?” And stinking up the place, too. I didn’t know if it was his magic, or his cologne, but there was always a stink that followed him around.

  “He’s already come and gone.” My father’s mournful tone was flooding his face now, his eyes downcast as he looked toward the door. Talking to Mom more than likely.

  “Leaving a tidal wave of destruction in his wake, no doubt,” Ryland chuckled. “Hopefully he won’t cause any more issues now that his daughter is awake and humming with baby magic.”

  The laughter died away, the tone and temper of their voices dropping the closer we got to the exit of the massive practice hall. I tried to fall back a step, sure I was eavesdropping, but they followed suit.

  “We got lucky.” My father continued, giving both Ryland and I a side glance. “Sia slept longer than anyone in over thirty years.”

  “Three weeks?” I asked, my mind wracking through all the histories. I know I had heard of many people waking from the bite long after that.

  “Yeah.” Ryland laughed, running his hands through his hair. “Remember when me sleeping for five months was ‘not long enough’. Or Joclyn’s eight-month coma?”

  “I’m glad no one has slept that long, lately.” My father’s voice was still dark, booming right along his footsteps. It was making the whole conversation that much of knot in my gut. “Imagine how much worse things would be if they all slept that long, and had the magic to match.”

  “I don’t even want to think if it,” I mumbled under my breath, my mind was suddenly full of that moment, when Gemma took down the Gauntlet.

  “Even without the months of sleep that used to be, Sia’s magic is still powerful. Which I am sure will create some problems for anyone around her for the next few years.” My father was looking at me, I was stubbornly ignoring him.

  “Yes, because we’ve never had problems with the offspring of douchebags who have powerful magic.” Ryland rolled his eyes. I had heard enough of the stories of the war to know he was talking about himself.

  “We will just need to watch them, all of them.” It was as though someone turned a crank. They rotated toward me in tandem, eyes narrowed at what I had said.

  “Luckily, it seems that Giovanni Demarco has given us the key to doing just that.” He was looking right at me now. The ‘proud dad’ look I was so used to getting replaced with a tight jaw and furrowed brow that never accompanied anything good.

  “Why do I have a feeling that I am not going to like this?”

  “The Demarco’s have requested that you escort Sia to her first day at Imdalind Academy, and be her liaison for the first few months.”

  “Escort?” I choked on the word.

  “Yes. Be with her, accompany her…”

  “I really don’t like where this is going.” It wasn’t the first time something like this had been suggested after all, Talon may not have been less heavy-handed. But it wasn’t any better this time around. My stomach was threatening to empty itself all over the front of my father’s button-up shirt.

  “This feels like I am being set-up on a blind date from hell.”

  “A set-up of the best kind.” Ryland was beaming, I scowled at him.

  “I’m not going to be forced to waltz around with some Chosen snob--”

  “Actually, it’s just what we need right now.” I stuttered to a stop at my father’s interruption, his words frozen and painful in my ears. I had heard him, but his tone didn’t match. He sounded like he had eaten something rancid, maybe he had.

  I had.

  “You need me to date a girl that I don’t know, have nothing in common with, and possibly hate?” So much for keeping my voice down. We were back to yelling.

  “I’ve had to do worse,” Ryland said softly. “Just stay with her, help us monitor her magic. Help her control it. Be with her as much as you can, Rowan. Until we can calm them down.”

  “Being forced into a relationship is going to help no one. Giovanni wants this, they won’t stop until they get me on an altar, forcing down their lies!” Now I knew where my father’s tone from a minute ago had come from, each word tasted foul. Each word was vile, unwanted, shit.

  The world had officially gone mad. Everything was spinning, my uncle was looking like someone had smacked him, my father was setting me up with a nut job, and that warm buzzing at the back of my neck had picked up into overdrive.

  That was the moldy cherry on top of the foul sundae I was being forced to choke down.

  “Rowan. Son. My people had never done such a thing. You know that a match between souls and hearts begins with a match of magic. You can’t force that.” And we were back to ultra-smooth King. “No matter how much Giovanni attempts to convince us of it otherwise.” Well, until that.

  “He wants that,” I was growling, hand dragging through my hair as I turned from the two madmen that I was really regretting being related to right then. “And you are going to give him that?”

  “No, we are going to give him the illusion of that.”

  My hands fell to my side, my magic running a marathon through my veins even though everything else felt numb. Cold. As dead as Giovanni’s grey eyes.

  “You can’t be serious.” I wanted to punch something.

  “We need to calm the Chosen after what happened. I am afraid of what they will do if they feel the scales tip too much away from their favor. The additional seats in the Gauntlet had been meant to give everyone a fair shot, to allow more of the Undermortals into our home and begin healing ties between all of our people. She blocked that path.” ‘She’ meant Gemma. Her. Although he didn’t say her name with nearly as much malice as he did the Demarco’s my stomach still dropped.

  “Now, every time your mother looks into future all she sees is fire and she can’t make heads nor tails of it. You can help us, Rowan.”

  I had a feeling he wasn’t being completely honest there, but I wasn’t going to argue it.

  “You named me aptly,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fists against the worn jeans on my thighs. “You are shoving the entire world on my shoulders.”

  Ryland chuckled, “Rowan, you have as much dramatic flair as your mother when she was your age.”

  The mention of my mother was like lighter fluid against my rattled nerves. I had been struggling to control my magic, to control the spinning heat on my neck, but now it was everything. The world was twisting and fading to the dreaded red of sight.

  Ryland’s jaw dropped to a wide ‘O’. Clearly my eyes were fading to black.

  I smashed my head into my hands, blocking me from them and them from me, and perhaps even stopping whatever was happening from getting in.

  Even I knew it didn’t work that way. This was already inside of me, like a disease.

  “I don’t want to be like her at my age.” My hands dropped to reveal a rainbow of pain and frustration on their faces, the two men staring at me in disbelief.

  Yeah, I know, I was harsh. But right then I meant i
t.

  Right then I would do anything to scream it from the rooftops. Before I did anything I would regret, however, I turned and walked away.

  I needed to get out of this cave, and away from them. If only they would stop following me.

  "You know," Father said as they caught up to where I was storming to the large stone exit in the hollow cavern. "When your mother was mastering her sight she wanted nothing to do with it, either."

  "What do you mean, either?" I was growling between clenched teeth; she had told me all this before and I wasn’t interested in a summary.

  "I mean, it was too much responsibility for one eighteen-year-old girl."

  "I guess it's good I'm not an eighteen-year-old girl," I said confidently. Tacking on, "Or a Drak," when they both exchanged a look.

  "Listen," I said, doing my best to keep my voice level, but everything was brewing too hot under the surface. "I'm going to that damn school. I'll be your poster child, and I'll smooth things over with the Chosen so they don't go blowing up the underground. I’ll even date the Demarco girl. But I don't want this. I want nothing to do with this. This," my voice was booming off the walls of the cave now, fingers sparking angrily as I gestured to myself. "This is not safe, and it does nothing but get people killed."

  "Rowan, I--"

  "No!" I cut my father off, a dangerous move at any time, but this time he didn't seem so much liable to explode as he did disappointed. That was worse, but I plowed on before I lost steam. "I don't want it. Stop bringing it up. Now, I am going to go sleep for an ungodly amount of time because I can't help it, take a shower and prepare to woo your Sia Demarco so her parents don't start a war."

  I stomped past them, feet sliding against the stone in my haste to get away. I expected some snide comment from Ryland, a firm reprimand from my father. But there was only silence.

  Dripping, awful, silence.

  It froze me to the spot, the ice of their frustrations cold against my spine.

  "And tell Mom we can have family breakfast Saturday before I leave. I'm sure she will ask." I didn’t turn back. I stayed there, hand on the door, stuck somewhere between fuming mad and ultimate regret.

  "I love you, Rowan," was all he said.

  It almost made it worse, the simplicity. I said nothing as I plunged through the door, pulling it shut behind me, practically racing toward my old KISS albums and my sweat-stained bed. Gross, but anything was better than what I had left.

  And what I was being forced into.

  14

  Gemma

  "Remind me to never trust you again. Ever." Eddy groaned, rolled over, and promptly vomited all over the deep grey carpet of the hotel room they had holed us up in for the past two weeks.

  The Skȓítek guard that had been placed by the door curled his lip and promptly ran out the door, muttering under his breath,

  The air breathed easy at the sudden departure of the towering golden-haired man who had been something like a ghost. A creepy stalker ghost. He had done little more than stare at me, while I stared at Eddy, neither of us talking as we waited for the big ol’ doofus to wake up.

  Three of the longest weeks of my life. Even then, I think it had something to do with the fact that the Queen stopped by last night with that same weird little creature perched on her shoulder that she had shown up with two weeks earlier.

  Rinax.

  The thing, with its blue skin and a body of a mutated cat, glittery wings, and face of a man was horrifying. But it was nothing like the tiny creature that bit me. That brown, leathery monster had haunted my nightmares for years. I would never forget the way it screamed as it broke through the pile of trash I had been digging through in my search for food.

  Seeing it again in the Gauntlet had brought all of those fears and nightmares back to reality.

  Tangles of blackened limbs, long claws snatching and cutting at my skin. Bloodshot eyes wide as its snarling fangs pushed into the skin on my arm. The pain was like fire. Pure agony that I was amazed did not end me.

  After watching Eddy writhe on the fancy hotel bed, it’s a miracle they hadn’t left me to rot in that old tunnel, assuming me for dead. Ed had screamed and moaned for days, until he thankfully fell quiet and slept while I watched weird movies about "marrying a prince" that was playing on every television station.

  These people were obsessed.

  Last night, however, neither the Queen or the blue Rinax was concerned about the stalker quality of the movies, but rather that Eddy had not woken up yet. After mumbling about needing to speed up the process, the queen had gone all voodoo and put her hands-on Eddy, mumbling in that same weird language, all while the creepy blue dude stared at me.

  I half expected another pillar of future water to sprout from either her hands or Ed’s chest. But we got nothing. Nothing for hours, until now, the next morning he woke up and vomited all over the carpet.

  I think I would have taken the creepy ass predictions over this. This stunk like rotted flesh. Rotten flesh that was now splashing over the front of the nightstand.

  "In fact," Eddy continued, wiping a bit of vomit away with the back of his hand. "Remind me to never let you talk me into anything again."

  "Surely you don't mean that," I said, throwing a towel at his head. The white squishy thing landed on his shoulder, sliding down towards the vomit as though it was magnetized. He barely caught it.

  "Gem. I feel like I ran into one of those old train cars, was trampled by rats who then tried to eat me. Oh! And then I was run over again but this time by a train car that was on fire."

  "Sounds to me like your complaining about magic. Are you complaining about magic, Ed?"

  "Bitch." He teased and leaned back on the bed, leaving the vomit pile for me to clean up. Gross.

  After seeing the queen magic away an explosion I was sure there was some way to clean that up with a snap. But I wasn't about to try. I would probably light the carpet on fire. Which I had already done twice, much to the distaste of our guards.

  "This is the worst thing ever," he said so dramatically that I knocked my fist into his shoulder. He didn’t even flinch. "How in the world did you survive it?"

  I shrugged and put a towel over the vomit, contemplating if I should try to scrub up the much or not. Cleaning it would at least get me out of this conversation.

  "I survived it because I am not a whiny baby." I scowled at him, hands on my hips. "Now get your ass out of bed and clean this mess up."

  His eyes grew wide, his lips a tight line, as he stared at me whimpering.

  I slugged him in the arm. Hard this time.

  “Oh my god, Gemma. Why?”

  “Baby,” I said, smirking and throwing another towel on the vomit pile. That should smother the gross enough that the smell couldn’t get through.

  Mission accomplished.

  "Of course, I’m a baby. I've been awake maybe five minutes. I feel like my veins are on fire, or full of sewer water, or smothered in flaming sewer water. I'm pretty sure I am going to explode."

  "Well, explode in this direction. Because it's not my job to clean that up," I said, motioning to the vomit as I collapsed back on my own bed, holey jean shorts and tights stretched over the white bed sheet. Even after a few showers I still felt like a stain against their bleached world.

  "Yes ma'am." He gave me a side eye, he clearly wasn't meaning to say that, but the door had opened as a few of the guards had streamed in flanked by a short blonde woman with hair down to her waist, and steel grey eyes. She looked much different when not covered in blood, although her expression still looked like she was ready to eat us.

  Figures they would send an Eternal. At least she didn't have that blue thing with her.

  "Hello, Mira," I said. Figured since I was on first names with Wynifred she would be included in that. She only gave me a thin-lipped smile, nostrils flaring.

  "Gemma," she gave me a nod. "Edward. Nice to see you awake." She nodded to him.

  "Thanks," Ed said, his eyes wide as he sta
red at her. "But, ummm... actually it's just Ed. Gemma calls me Eddy because--" He halted, giving me a side glance as he shifted on the bed, trying to shift himself to sitting again.

  Thankfully he didn't throw up this time.

  "Because when Ed and I were kids I didn’t want him to have a name that rhymed with dead." I gave her a smile and wagged my shoeless feet at her. "And dead sucks."

  I could have sworn a few of the guards were smiling. One even restrained a laugh, trying to disguise the thing as a cough.

  "Well, Eddy," she emphasized his name this time. "It's nice to see you awake, and just in time too."

  "Just in time?" I didn't like the way it sounded. "Is there a Gauntlet part two that we have to run?"

  "No, not at all. School is officially starting tomorrow and we would like very much for you both to be there. We have come to do a few checks and transport you to the Academy so that you can join your peers." She was smiling, although her eyes were still that clouded steel color. She didn't look happy about it at all.

  "So yes, I was right. Gauntlet part two." I glanced at Eddy, expecting a smile, a head nod, fist bump, something. He was sitting on the bed, staring at his fingers as little sparks of blue shot into the air like drops of water.

  I guess he wasn’t hurting as much anymore.

  "Magic, Gem," he whispered, not looking away. "I have magic."

  I don't think I had ever seen Ed smile so big. He sat, his smile squishing his eyes as he focused on the magic, on the way it jumped, trying to make it mutate in some way. Any joke was lost in the amazing wonder that I still saw in the kid’s eyes when we brought home food.

  “Well, yeah. What did you think was going to happen?”

  "How is this possible? It looks so much different than yours." He didn't look away from his fingers.

  "You were bitten by Rinax," Mira said, leaving the guards behind as she stepped between the two beds, her focus darting between me and Ed as though she expected us to attack.

  "The blue guy, right?" I asked, leaning forward like the children when the elders told them of how things used to be.