Shadow Trials

by Isla Frost

  That and the fact bows needed both forewarning and distance to draw made me leave it on the table.

  Grimwort had been talking about magical affinities, but I would follow his advice in the physical sense.

  I was best with a dagger.

  They were useful at short and medium range, weren’t unwieldy, and could be used indefinitely. So long as you didn’t lose them anyway.

  The daggers were of just as fine make as the bow. I picked up an unadorned one—made for utility rather than decoration—and tested the balance of it appreciatively. It came with its own belt sheath, so I strapped it beside my wand.

  Half the students had already disappeared, waved through gateways by one professor or another. I rejoined Bryn and Ameline where they were hanging back at the end of an informal queue, waiting for me.

  This was it then. We’d each be facing whatever lay on the other side of those gateways alone.

  I forced a note of cheery confidence into my voice.

  “Good luck.”

  The words were so feeble, so inadequate. But I couldn’t bring myself to even consider the possibility that one of us might not come back.

  “And try not to wear yourselves out. We’ve got snooping to do tonight now that Millicent no longer wants to bury me beneath her basement.”

  Bryn snapped a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ameline choked on something that was half laugh, half sob.

  I hugged her and spoke into her ear. “I love you. No matter what happens, we’re still in this together, okay?”

  She nodded against my shoulder. “Right back at you.”

  We turned as one and hugged Bryn too.

  “Eww, get off me, you pervs,” she protested. But she hugged us back, and I thought she might’ve swiped at one of her eyes afterward.

  Then we were at the front of the line and the teachers were waving us forward. Ameline went to Professor Fenfurrell, our botany teacher. Bryn to Cricklewood.

  I went to Dunraven. “Your only objective is to reach the ground alive,” he told me quietly. “Speed is less important than magic conservation and wits.”

  Still processing the words, I stepped through my personal gateway. And almost went plummeting to my death.

  Chapter 22

  I was standing on a small, circular platform about three feet in diameter. Beyond that, there was nothing but air.

  Low-hanging clouds—at least I hoped they were low-hanging—floated around me, smearing my vision. But in the distance I could see dozens and dozens of ivory-colored columns stretching into the sky.

  Many were shorter than mine, and I could just make out kids standing or crouching on top like I was. Some farther away extended far past my own.

  All of them were too tall to fall from with any hope of surviving.

  Guess that’s what our magic was for.

  I should have chosen the rope.

  I sank into a crouch to lower my center of gravity and leaned over the edge to gauge the distance.

  The dizzying height made me curse. Then curse again. I was about three hundred feet up.

  I supposed I should be grateful that I’d spent too many years jogging up and down skyscraper stairwells to be afraid of heights.

  Still, I’d have to be a fool not to fear this one. There were no safety rails. No Before-style rock climbing harnesses. And no way down except one I might conjure for myself.

  I huddled into my cloak to ward off the chill and tried to think. Even if I had selected the rope, there wasn’t anything to secure it to. Were the items we’d picked a distraction? Or were they just making sure the trial wasn’t too easy if you were lucky enough to pick a useful object?

  I kept my senses alert to my surroundings in case of attack, but I had a sinking suspicion that this test wasn’t about fighting. Which meant the dagger was about the worst object I could’ve chosen.

  Forget my weapons then. I’d figure something else out.

  I considered my options. My minimal magic options.

  Even if I hadn’t flamed out so recently, there was no way I had enough power to fly or float down. Grimwort had made us practice summoning a small amount of wind to blow our books off the desk, then catch them as they fell. It had been challenging and exhausting.

  Moving objects with telekinesis was easier than mastering the wind, but I hadn’t moved anything half as heavy as myself. If moving oneself was even possible. I didn’t have magic to spare for experimenting now, and if it worked, I wasn’t about to trust my life to being able to maintain it all the way down.

  It was a very, very long way down.

  Could I shrink the pillar itself? Compress it somehow? Or sink it into the earth maybe? I peered over the edge again and discarded the plan. The column might only be three feet wide, but it was incredibly tall. And that made for a lot of volume to morph or bury. Too much.

  Growing a plant to spring up from the earth and save me was equally unfeasible. I knew from my botany classes that I had about as much knack for growing things as an egg has for flying.

  So what else did I have on hand?

  My daggers might be useless, but perhaps my leather belt that held the newest one at my hip would help. I could lengthen it with magic, and it would hold my weight. But extending a piece of leather to hundreds of times its original size was beyond me.

  I chewed my lip.

  I’d heard about how people used to climb trees with the aid of a rope or strap. They’d loop it around the trunk and their own bodies, then use it for leverage to work their way up and down. But the technique relied on the tree’s textured bark for grip—to stop their feet and the strap from slipping.

  The platform beneath me looked smooth. Too smooth.

  In case appearances were deceiving, I ran my hands over the surface. The material was unfamiliar. It had the appearance of stone but felt almost warm beneath my fingers. And though it was hard, not giving at all beneath my weight, it felt less solid, less dense than stone might. Like it was porous and would weigh less than stone. Maybe less than timber.

  It was, however, as smooth as it looked.

  Ugh.

  Frustrated and acutely aware of time passing, I stabbed the stupid pillar with my useless dagger. The tip of the blade slid in with little resistance. Like a fork into an uncooked potato. Pulling it out required equal if not more force.

  Interesting.

  I stabbed the pillar a bunch more times, testing different sections, angles, and weight-bearing capacities. The weird properties of whatever material it was might just offer me a way down.

  A non-magical way down.

  Well, they wanted us to conserve our magic, didn’t they?

  It was the best idea I’d had.

  That didn’t mean it was good.

  But hey, if it didn’t work, I had such a long way to fall that I might come up with a better one on the way down.

  I drove my two daggers deep into the side of the pillar and prepared myself to descend. I magically stretched and strengthened my leather belt. I secured my cloak so it wouldn’t get in the way. And I put my wand between my teeth, trying very hard not to think about what it was made from. No creatures had attacked me from the sky yet, but both my hands were going to be occupied, and I didn’t want to be left defenseless.

  Then I lowered myself over the edge.

  To my intense relief, the blades stayed lodged in the pillar as I hung the full weight of my body from the dagger’s handles.

  I swallowed. Maybe for the last time. Here goes nothing.

  I yanked one of the daggers out and slammed it in again two feet below the first. Then, painstakingly switching arms and blades to hang from, I repeated the process with the dagger on the left.

  Damn. This was going to hurt.

  I was strong and fit, but the mechanics involved put intense strain on my arms. And I found a new appreciation for all the strength exercises Cricklewood made us do.

  Thirty feet down the pillar, I decided this was a terrible idea.


  Every two feet I descended sent lances of pain spiking down my shoulders and back. My limbs were trembling, and I was so far off halfway that it might be smarter attempting to climb back up than continuing down.

  I needed to think about something other than the pain. The mind was powerful. And when the need was great enough, the body could dig deep and accomplish feats that seemed impossible.

  So I thought about how my friends were doing. Imagined meeting them at the bottom. Ameline’s face lighting up when she saw me safe. Bryn smugly pointing out how she’d saved my ass with that dagger.

  Each thrust of my blades into the strange, porous surface reminded me of that first day with Millicent.

  If these columns turned out to be sentient, I didn’t want to even begin to imagine what I’d have to do to earn a pardon.

  I’d made it another thirty feet.

  But despite the cold air and the colder wind, I was starting to sweat. Not a good combination when my grip on the daggers was the only thing between me and death.

  It wasn’t long after that before my sweat-dampened fingers turned numb from the cold.

  Numb, slippery, and fatigued. What could possibly go wrong?

  I’d made it another thirty feet and was now about a third of the way down.

  I needed to rest.

  This was what I’d lengthened my belt for. I’d envisaged hooking it over the two dagger hilts and then looping it under my butt as a sort of swing seat, leaning my back against the warm pillar and resting my arms.

  But I hadn’t envisaged having to orchestrate all that with wet, frozen fingers and tortured muscles that burned with the fire of a thousand suns. Or maybe just one of Bryn’s blazing fires, but still.

  I yanked out the topmost dagger. I needed them side by side, about a foot apart, for my swing seat thing to work. But as I prepared to drive it into position, my hand spasmed around the hilt.

  The blade fell from my deadened fingers.

  Instinct made me lunge to catch it, but I pulled up short before I followed its tumbling descent.

  Instead, shaking with exhaustion and adrenaline and dawning horror, I wrapped both hands around the hilt of my remaining dagger.

  I was barely a third of the way down. And completely stuck.

  Only magic could save me now.

  Magic… or a nice quick plummet to my death.

  I let go.

  Chapter 23

  I used both feet to shove myself away from the pillar and toward my target.

  Wind roared around me, my cheeks, my hair, as if it were trying to push me upward. But it was only the result of how fast I was falling.

  I had to slow myself down.

  Focusing was near impossible, but I’d done half of what I needed while I’d still been hanging from the pillar. Awkwardly using my wand to affix my cloak to my wrists and ankles, and detach it from my neck.

  Now I rolled until I was doing the world’s largest belly-flop and spread-eagled my arms and legs.

  My cloak streamed behind me, flapping and twisting to catch the least air possible. The exact opposite of what I wanted. I twisted my neck to aim the wand, still clenched between my teeth, at the thrashing fabric. And visualized it stiffening and smoothing out, like a rectangular, body-sized umbrella. Or an upside-down magic carpet.

  I felt when it worked. My rapid descent slowed. Not enough, but some. And the noise of snapping fabric ceased, leaving just the roar of the wind.

  My eyes were squinted and tearing against the air’s assault, but I scanned the forest below. The forest I was fast approaching. There. A large fenbrosia tree, the kind I knew to have slender but densely packed branches that might help break my fall without breaking my body simultaneously.

  Maybe.

  I had about two seconds.

  One.

  I rolled so my stiffened cloak hit first. Branches smashed, bashed, scratched, and walloped me. I protected my head and prayed I’d survive. That I wouldn’t be paralyzed or skewered. But I could feel myself slowing down. The tree’s beatings coming a little farther apart. Then I slammed into something and stopped.

  It was so quiet.

  I drew a cautious breath, taking stock. Everything hurt. My head, my back, my front, and every single limb. I supposed I should be grateful they were still attached. My skin was on fire. Actually, there were probably more scratches than skin now. And when I breathed, pain shot through my abdomen.

  Okay, a couple of broken or fractured ribs then. But if that was the worst of it, I’d gotten off lightly.

  Then again, maybe shock was keeping the worst of the pain at bay.

  I opened my eyes. My vision worked, and all my organs were still on the inside. Another excellent result.

  Then I looked beyond my poor, broken body and realized I hadn’t made it to the ground yet.

  I was still seven feet up, caught in the lower branches of the tree. And the thought of using my abused hand, arm, and back muscles to climb down made me want to cry.

  Screw it. Perhaps it was the shock or the concussion, but I sat up, rib cage screaming, head spinning, and arms hanging dead at my sides, and let myself fall the final seven feet to the earth.

  The jolt of the impact made everything worse. A lot worse. But I had to get to Ameline. To Bryn. Had to know they were okay. So I forced myself to stand up. Take one step. Then another.

  Dunraven rescued me from torturing myself further. He popped his head through a newly formed gateway and beckoned me back to the lawn.

  Ameline and Bryn rushed toward me as soon as my feet touched the grass. I was so relieved to see them both alive that my knees gave way.

  They caught me. One on each arm. And I realized they were better than just alive. They looked whole and unharmed. Maybe even perky.

  “How’d you get down so fast?” I asked.

  Bryn smirked. “With an explosion, what else?”

  I raised an eyebrow in question.

  Even that hurt.

  “I used the explosive powder plus a spark of magic to blow out the base of my pillar, then clung on and magically cushioned myself while it teetered and crashed into a neighboring column. A bit of fire melted and stuck the two together, and then I rode that baby down like a slippery slide. It was so much fun I wanted to do it again.”

  Her tower couldn’t have been half as tall as mine for that to work, but it was a gutsy solution.

  Ameline smiled and shook her head. “My technique wasn’t quite so—”

  “Dramatic? Sensational? Electrifying? Spectacular?” Bryn supplied.

  “—I was going to say destructive.”

  Bryn smirked again. “That too.”

  “I saw a griffin flying overhead and lured it down with the sack of grain. They’re omnivores, you know. Then I used my magic affinity to suggest that if it flew me down to the ground, I would get it some more.”

  As simple as that.

  “Wow. Well played. Both of you.”

  I was impressed and a tad embarrassed I’d dragged myself out here to protect Ameline and then been so thoroughly trounced.

  Bryn eyeballed me. “How did you get down?”

  “I think I’d better go see Healer Invermoore,” I said.

  It was true, but more than that, I wanted to postpone the humiliation. So being careful not to breathe deeply nor move my arms (or eyebrows for that matter), I limped my way back to the infirmary bed I never should have vacated.

  Chapter 24

  Needless to say, we did not go snooping that night. Or the next.

  Healer Invermoore managed to knit up my ribs, fix my concussion, and soothe my tortured muscles, but she was limited by my body’s meager reserves. She could use magic to greatly speed natural processes, but she couldn’t do any more than a patient’s life force could provide energy for.

  I was healed enough to hold a pen, but that was the extent of my physical activities for a few days. Magically aided healing required rest. Flaming out required rest. And falling hundreds of fee
t into a tree required rest.

  I was even excused from Cricklewood’s classes, though he made me sit in the rain and watch.

  We never had progressed to weapons training. I didn’t know if Cricklewood had been messing with us on the first day, or he still thought we were too pathetic to hold a blade. I supposed by walker standards, even our new levels of strength and fitness didn’t amount to much.

  Millicent’s forgiveness was the only silver lining of the whole ordeal. I was looking forward to snooping and finally getting some answers to my many, many questions. But more immediately, I spent every moment I could in the bathroom, soaking under an unending stream of hot water.

  My skin wrinkled to the point where if I’d cut the beard off Cricklewood’s face and glued it to my own, I could’ve passed for the old coot.

  When I finally recovered, we set about to snooping with a vengeance.

  Over the next few weeks—whenever classes and fighting for our lives in the trials hadn’t left us too exhausted—we explored every room in the manor. From the ancient wine cellar in the basement to the hidden crawlspaces in the attic and everything in between. Everything, that is, except for the blood-locked dormitories and the few rooms we couldn’t find a way into.

  But we turned up very little.

  There was a small arsenal of medieval weapons locked up on the second floor—which was useful since, despite owning the same dagger for ten years growing up, I seemed to keep misplacing them here. There was a large territorial plant in the attic. And in the professors’ shared wing, there were piles of books in different languages and many objects we couldn’t fathom the purpose of.

  But all in all, the manor appeared to be what the walkers claimed. A training ground for students housed in a repurposed and now-sentient manor from the Before. There was a bunch of antique furniture shoved into storage rooms, a few cloth-covered painted portraits of a family who probably lived here before the stairs began to creak, and a salt-damp problem in the basement.

  We magicked up the salt damp for Millicent over several nights, careful not to overtax ourselves, and she in turn allowed us free rein. Occasionally she would even warn us when someone was coming.