by Tate James
Gritting my teeth against whatever surprises were still in store, I stepped through into phase two.
The second room was even more bare than the first, but I'd learned my lesson on how deceptive that could be. Near the door, which slammed shut behind me, was a small podium containing a short sword and three throwing knives.
Clear enough, but who was I supposed to fight and where should the knives be thrown?
Keeping my eyes on the empty room, I slipped the throwing knives into my pockets, then picked up the sword and tested its weight in my hand.
Sure enough, the second I had the weapon in my grip, my opponent appeared seemingly out of nowhere. His blade whipped up, aiming to take my head off, and it was only through my years of practice that I dodged and rolled out of the way.
As I rolled to a stop around halfway across the room, two things made me gasp. Firstly, the entire section of floor I'd just rolled over cracked and crumbled, dropping away into a seemingly bottomless pit below the room.
Secondly, was my opponent.
“Lord Taipanus?” I spluttered, crab crawling back a few more steps and seeing the floor crumble away as I moved. Worse still, Taipanus seemed totally unconcerned by the lack of solid ground beneath his feet as he advanced on me with his sword raised.
Yelping a curse, I dodged another swing and scrambled to my feet. Fuck chitchatting, I needed to beat this sucker.
Our blades met with a nerve-grating clash of steel, and I gritted my teeth hard. I was still weak from my night of poison, and Taipanus's strike reverberated through my arms painfully. It only took a few more blows exchanged to notice a key aspect to his style.
It wasn't his style.
Or at least, if it was, then it was a pretty damn huge coincidence that it was also my style. Confirming my theory, I noticed every one of his attacks, parries, and defenses were textbook moves I'd learned from Master Bloodeye. So how did one beat themselves?
By being unpredictable, I guessed.
Throwing my less than considerable weight into my next few moves, I went as erratic as possible. Totally throwing my experience out of the window, I fought on pure instinct. For the most part, it worked. But one small slip up saw Taipanus's blade nick my upper arm, and it was very real blood that trickled down my skin.
Well crap. That ruined my vague idea that he had been nothing more than an illusion. Illusions couldn't make you bleed... but this version of the King's Snake certainly could.
With renewed urgency, I pressed my attack harder. Not dumb enough to forget the sheer drop into darkness that chased my heels, I needed to duck past Taipanus rather than retreat. This movement would see me gain even more ground toward the end of the room... and the door that hopefully led to the last room.
It was after one such duck that I spotted my opening. Funny enough, it was an error I’d made often while training with boys in the Pond, and one that left Taipanus' whole left side unguarded just long enough for my blade to slide between his ribs and end the fight.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, bouncing with glee as the disgusting older man crumpled to the stone floor, and I yanked my bloodied sword from his body. “Kind of makes me wish you were the real Taipanus,” I panted as I stood over the moustached man in his death throes. “Somehow I doubt he'd go down so easily, though.”
Fake Taipanus met my eyes, and there was something familiar there. Something pleading. His lips moved, and I crouched closer to hear what he was trying to say. When I did, my blood ran cold.
“Lo,” he whispered. “How could you?”
Startled, I sat up, and my gaze flew back to his face. A face that no longer sported the curled, greasy moustache and heavy lines of Lord Taipanus. Instead it was a pair of piercing green eyes that met mine, full of betrayal. It was a strong, chiseled jaw dusted with black stubble that blood trickled down, running from lush lips, which I knew kissed like I was the only woman in Teich.
“Ty?” I whimpered, hardly believing what I was seeing. “What? How?”
The gorgeous combat trainer coughed then, a wet, rattling sound full of blood and pain, and I covered my mouth to choke back a sob. How could this have happened? How had I not known it’d been Ty behind that illusion? Of course it had been! He’d been going easy on me deliberately. That stupid, fool man!
“Lo,” he breathed when his rattling cough stopped. “I love you, Lo. I know it's only been a week, but I felt it in my soul. Didn't you?”
Frantically, I shook my head back and forth. Not to disagree, but to try and deny what I was seeing. Ty couldn't be dying, it wasn't possible. It wasn't fair.
“Ty, this can’t be happening,” I sobbed, my hands pressing to the ugly wound in his side to staunch the bleeding. A wound that I was responsible for. Surely they wouldn't leave one of the trainers to die in this stupid game? Then again, they'd been actively killing ladies of highborn families all week, so what would the royals care about a soldier? A servant, no less.
Still, it didn't stop me yelling for help. Begging. But the room remained silent... Not even the sound of Ty's ragged breathing filled it anymore as he slipped into death.
“No,” I whispered, feeling the tears stream down my face and my nose run with snot. My heart was breaking in half, and I could scarcely believe the utter cruelty of these Royal Trials. Surely this wasn't the way Queen Ophelia and her ancestors had conducted them. This was wrong. So completely wrong.
I knelt there sobbing, my hands slick with sticky blood for what seemed like an eternity until the gut twisting realization hit me that I'd been tricked. Again.
“Ty's” body faded before my eyes, leaving behind nothing. Nothing. Not even the blood on my hands had been real, despite the fact that I could still feel its wet stickiness and smell that sharp coppery tang.
Now I was really pissed off.
Pushing myself off the ground with weak, shaking knees, I approached the door, then ran my hands over the smooth wood and found no handle. No way to open it, which meant there had to be more to this test.
Taking one of the throwing knives from my pocket, I slapped it against my palm as I looked all around me. Most of the room was gone, and I stood on a short ledge less than three feet wide in front of the door, which narrowed things down somewhat.
“Of course,” I muttered, then laughed bitterly. My face was still stuffed up from crying over a fake death, and I was in a foul mood. But sure enough, right beside the door I'd entered through was a push button with a red circle painted around it.
What was the betting that button unlocked the door to the third room?
Shaking my head at my own stupidity for not seeing it sooner, I flipped the knife over into an easy pinch grip and hurled it at the button. As expected, the second my blade depressed the square, the door behind me clicked and swung open.
“Just like that, on to room three,” I sighed. “Politics, history, and etiquette. Great.”
For the third time, the door slammed behind me, and I shivered. Watching Ty die at my own hands had shaken me more than I cared to admit, fake or not. It only served to reinforce how close I'd let myself get to them. It wasn't safe, for them or for me. The only saving grace so far was my suspicion that the Trials chamber was an entity of its own, pulling images from my own mind rather than someone actually knowing about my affection for Ty.
“Okay, so here I am. What do you have for me this time?” I shouted my challenge into the empty room, but really didn't expect an answer. I didn't get one either, which was probably the best thing for my already frayed nerves.
The floor of the room was laid out in squares, each painted with a colorful crest representing each of the eight kingdoms, including ours. I dimly recognized it as a gameboard from a game that had been popular pre-Darkness. It was one that required pieces be moved onto correct squares according to trivia question answers, so I could only assume that in this case, I was the game piece.
In the pit of my stomach, I just knew this would have been a game discussed during the history lesson I
had missed. That, combined with my apparent lack of knowledge in the aristocratic history of Teich, didn't bode well for this room.
Shit.
Standing at the edge of the gameboard, I studied the squares and wracked my brain for how the game was supposed to start. I'd played it once with Master Bloodeye when I was very young, so the details were more than a little fuzzy. Something about paying respect to the kingdom of our allegiance? I only recalled that detail because Bloodeye had made a joke about how he owed his allegiance to no kingdom.
So if that was correct, I needed to begin on the symbol for Teich.
Stepping forward, I placed both feet onto our kingdom's crest and waited.
Nothing happened.
I had to be missing something. This was a human-sized version, rather than a board with inch-high figurines, so the rules were probably more literal. If the game opened by paying respects, then perhaps that needed to be a more literal show.
Feeling just a fraction stupid, I tucked one foot behind the other and bent my knees into a deep, traditional curtsey, as befitting royalty in Teich. When I straightened back to standing and found my first game question hanging in the air with glittering letters, I sent up a silent thanks to Zan for teaching me how to curtsey.
“Okay,” I breathed, reading the question. “Which kingdom was first to offer its assistance when the Time of Darkness struck Teich?”
I chewed my lip and considered the correct answer. It had already been proven that the facts and history I'd learned in the Pond differed greatly from what the upper class taught their children. So I knew the answer wasn't Woustenland, even though they technically had been the first. The new King Titus had shunned their offer and waited for Asintisch to step up. So, I stepped cautiously across to the closest Asintisch crest.
Again, nothing happened until I paid my respects to that kingdom, after which my new question appeared in hovering letters above the gameboard.
“Who is the major trade partner of Asintisch?” I chewed my lip as I considered this one. I knew little to nothing of our neighboring kingdoms, but had a feeling they traded in silks. Or was it dyes? So which kingdom would have the most need for those items? Surely not Isenmedin—they were known as a warrior kingdom and specialized in creating the finest bladed weapons in our world. They'd have no need for silks or dyes, anyway.
I ran through the remaining options in my head until I'd narrowed it to just two. Us—Teich—or the Schon Islands. What would happen if I got the answer wrong?
Not willing to test the theory with my own body, I pulled one of the spare throwing knives from my pocket and tossed it onto the crest for the Schon Islands. Nothing happened... but did that mean it was correct? Or just that the game wasn't fooled by my test?
To be sure, I tossed the other knife onto the nearest symbol for Teich. The knife hit the square and bounced. It never made the decent back to the floor as the whole tile shot up in a white-blue column of flame and disintegrated the cheap weapon in midair.
“Schon Islands it is,” I muttered to myself, still feeling the heat of that fire even as it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Careful not to touch any other squares, I hopped onto the crest for the Schon Islands and collected my last remaining knife.
Wobbling slightly, I executed the traditional curtsey for that kingdom, and my new question appeared. It was a political marriage question, and one I already knew the answer to. Six generations ago, the Schon Islands had formed an alliance with Isenmedin by marrying their youngest princess to the Isenmedin crown prince.
There was an Isenmedin crest directly in front of me, but there were still a lot of squares to get through before I reached the other side. Was it against the rules to take a farther away tile?
Only one way to find out.
Lining up my throwing knife to the Isenmedin crest four more tiles away, I tossed it with precision, and it struck the tile dead center.
When nothing happened, I grinned. Maybe this game wouldn't take so long after all. I just needed to get myself over there now.
Sucking in a deep breath, I coiled my muscles and pushed from the tile I was on with all the power I still possessed. It wasn't much, certainly nothing compared to my ability had I been full strength, but it was enough. Just.
The heel of my boot clipped the tile beside my targeted one, and I just barely yanked my foot out of the way before foot-long, deadly sharp spikes shot up from the tile.
“Holy freaking gods,” I breathed, feeling my heart pounding. “That was close.”
Still, my sneaky plan had worked, and I was now five squares closer to the end.
For the next three questions, I repeated the same method, and I quickly found myself within one square of the end of the gameboard. Assuming it was probably against the rules to just skip the last question and jump off the board, I needed to answer this one correctly.
“Which kingdom is responsible for the Darkness?”
It was a trick question; it had to be. No one knew who had killed Queen Ophelia, no one except the killers themselves... and me, if my poison delusions were to be trusted. King Titus had originally come from Verrater, where he'd been the ruling king's cousin. His link to royalty was weak, but it had been enough to satisfy the balance of magic at the time. Not so much anymore, it seemed. But that was a train of thought for another day.
There was no way the royals would admit their guilt in this game, so Verrater's tile was clearly not the correct answer. Each of the other kingdom had weak enough reasons that they could be called responsible, but nothing stood out as a clear answer. None except one.
Gritting my teeth against the sheer hypocrisy of the answer, I stepped forward onto the crest of Teich.
So, we were responsible for the Darkness, were we?
My blood boiled in anger and indignation on behalf of our former queen. Someone needed to expose the usurper who'd stolen her throne, and it was starting to look like that someone was me.
25
I emerged from the last room with a renewed clarity in my purpose within the Royal Trials. I wasn't here to win myself a royal husband or a throne or even to gain a foothold within the court for my former mentor to make a grab for power.
Our kingdom deserved better than a greedy, murderous piece of shit for a king. Hell, our whole world did, considering what was currently happening with the balance of magic.
“Callaluna!” Agatha exclaimed as I entered what seemed to be a waiting room of sorts. “You made it! I knew you would.”
“Uh, yeah.” I frowned, looking around and only counting six other ladies—eight, including Agatha and myself. “I thought I was last?”
Her eyes widened at this, and another girl gasped. “You could have been,” Agatha replied. “I was sixth to enter and only the third to arrive here. I get the feeling that failing that test was a little more permanent than we were led to believe.”
I nodded, remembering what Lee had warned me before I started. “Yeah, I think it was. So, shit. Eight of us left.”
“What a shame,” Princess Sagen sneered, strutting over to strike a pose in front of me. “I had really hoped the ranks might have been thinned out a little more.”
Giving her a tight, sarcastic smile, I resisted the urge to punch her in the face. “Your Highness, I'm so glad you made it.”
Holy Aana, she was like a cockroach. No money to be won for guessing who my biggest competition was.
“I'm pretty confident I had the fastest time too,” she bragged, flipping that glossy hair in her uniquely infuriating way. “Which means I will get my choice of the princes for the whole night. Hmm, I wonder which I'll pick. Prince Thibault has such broad shoulders and strong arms I bet he could really throw a girl around the bedroom. Then again, Prince Alexander has that angry, brooding thing that is just so damn sexy.” She gave an exaggerated sigh and pretended to fan herself. It was almost pathetic how obviously she was trying to make us jealous. Especially given she didn't actually know who had won.
Come to think of it, Lee had mentioned on day one that our scores across the whole week would contribute to our overall test score. So, considering Sagen had missed the first few days, there was probably a good chance she wouldn't be winning shit today.
“What about Prince Louis?” Agatha asked in a small voice. “You don't like him?”
Sagen rolled her eyes dismissively. “Youngest prince, barely ever speaks in public? No. He won’t be getting the throne, so why waste my time?”
Agatha and I exchanged a look, and I was sure she thought Sagen was just as stupid as I did. But each to their own.
“Fascinating,” I murmured. “If you'll excuse me, I need some water.”
Without waiting on her response, I brushed past her and headed for the refreshment table at the far side of the room.
“She's threatened by you,” another lady informed me as I filled my crystal tumbler with citrus water. “You came through that test fast.”
Raising my brows at her, I tried to place her name. Hazel... I think. “How do you know?”
“Because Gracelin came through before you, so we had a reasonable indication of how long it took you.” Lady Hazel—I was pretty sure that was her name—smiled at me, and I found myself smiling back.
Agatha sidled up beside us and poured her own glass of water. “Not to mention you're the clear favorite with the princes.”
“Huh?” I blurted. “How so?”
Both girls looked at me like I was insane. “Seriously?” Agatha asked. “They've sat near you at dinner how many times this week? Plus, they seem to go out of their way to make conversation, even when you clearly aren't interested.”
“And then there was that kiss at the dance,” Hazel added with a teasing smile. “You don't think that slipped past anyone's radar, do you?”
My stomach flipped at the reminder, and it was like I could feel Prince Alexander's strong, confident grip on me all over again.
“Ladies, please gather around,” Lady Savannah called out, entering the room and clapping her hands sharply. “You have completed the first trial. Congratulations. There will be a ball tonight in your honor, where the week’s winner will be announced. Please take the rest of the afternoon to rest and prepare yourselves. Lots of important people will be in attendance tonight, so keep your senses sharp and your etiquette flawless.”