Preventing his father from knowing.
And that’s when I heard Ella’s rampant screams. And then my parents’. And then Derrick.
****
Two knights hauled my brother out into the center of the arena.
For thirty-nine minutes I had sat still, fighting the verge of panic as Darren whispered into my ear and Wren clung to my arm, pretending everything was fine. The king had been too busy watching the rest of the third-rank trials to notice, and during the brief break between rounds Blayne had hastily engaged his father in a long, drawn out conversation.
But now my brother was back.
I saw the look of horror as some of the candidates as they recognized their own among the prisoners. The soldiers were addressing their group and it was clear from their stance they were explaining the king’s orders, pointing to the extra judge who would make sure my brother didn’t attempt to heal himself during the second-rank trial.
And then it began.
I watched as my brother crumbled to the floor.
I watched as the candidate knelt to the sand and began to treat the first of his injuries.
I watched as the soldiers continued with beatings, and then, later, three stabbings across his chest.
The crowd’s clamor was so loud during the final minutes of the round that my cry didn’t stand out amongst the rest. I was gripping the rail, eyes glued to the stadium floor, screaming at the top of my lungs until I went hoarse.
I watched as the soldiers hauled my brother away. Healed by his candidate, but still wet blood dripping from his robe, the whites of his eyes like saucers, the trembling of his limbs…
And then they brought him out all over again.
I didn’t have to worry about screaming. By the time it was over, I had nothing left to give.
****
When the first day of the Candidacy had concluded, the king had Alex brought to our box. I had to pretend that my heart wasn’t breaking, shattering into hundreds of tiny shards as the king’s men threw him before Lucius’s feet.
Alex’s gaze briefly met my own, and the betrayal was enough to make me bleed out and die. There was so much pain and confusion and anger, but I saw him swallow as the anger vanished and he looked up to the king.
“What is your name?” the king barked.
“Rex.” At least my twin knew better than to tell the truth. He croaked the last words like he’d swallowed a mouthful of rocks. “Your majesty.”
“Rex. If you dare to humiliate your country like that again I will have you beheaded. Today was a blessing, you should count yourself lucky I did not de-robe you on the spot.”
The knights released my brother, and he pulled himself up, limping as he stood. Darren’s grip tightened on my own as I took in the full light of his face, a purple bruise still marring his right eye and sandy brown bangs caked in blood.
He wouldn’t even meet my eyes.
****
Darren half-dragged me out of the stands. I’d wanted to go to Alex, my family, Ella—but he had warned me to wait. He promised Paige would help me sneak out that evening after the rest of the manor was asleep, but I had to at least pretend for the sake of my twin.
After all, if the king found out it was my brother, the consequences would have only been worse.
When I finally did go to my family, it was in the dead of the night. My best friend was sobbing, and my parents couldn’t even bear to look at me. Alex just stared at the wall, hands locked on the steaming mug in his hand.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I fell to my knees, taking his hand in my own and pleading for him to look down at me.
“You could have stopped them.” Derrick’s raging whisper cut across the inn’s room like a knife. “You could have done something!”
Paige spoke up. “She would have made it worse. The king—”
“I’m not talking to you, bloody traitor! You might be a former lowborn, but you are just as bad as her. The both of you make me sick.”
“Derrick—” My voice cracked. “I—”
“I hate you!” he spat the words in my face.
“Derrick.” My father cleared his throat and looked to me with a pained expression. “If Ryiah said she couldn’t do anything, your mother and I believe her. She is not a member of the Crown, she may not have as much sway—”
“She doesn’t care about us!” His cry was hoarse. “Look at Alex. Look at what she let the king do to him”
“I didn’t want to!” I was sobbing. My twin continued to ignore me as my little brother tore out my heart. “I love him—”
“Not more than that prince. You’ve forgotten all of us! First you act too high and mighty in the keep—”
“Derrick, I—”
“—Then you let your own brother be beat within an inch of his life for the Crown’s entertainment! You aren’t my sister. I don’t even know who you are anymore!” He tore off his chain and threw my old ring at the floor. “You are nothing to me.”
Then he stomped across the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Ry.” My mother’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “You promise?”
“I promise I never wanted...” My knees were shaking, and I looked down at her and my twin in anguish. “When I first saw the prisoners—I said something. The king made it clear if I did it again he would punish my family.”
My mother choked and my father stumbled back against the wall.
“He didn’t even know Alex was my family.” I fell down beside my brother with a sob. “If he had, it would have been worse.” My hand reached out to touch his wrist. Alex didn’t tell me to move it, but he didn’t acknowledge me either.
After a while my parents returned to their room across the way, and Ella finally walked me to the door. She hadn’t spoken once. I prepared for another angry goodbye, but all she did was wrap her arms around me, shaking.
“I forgive you,” she whispered. Her voice broke, and I could feel the tears through her shirt. “He will, too.”
Chapter Twelve
I watched the second day of Restoration without feeling. Each rank’s winner challenged the winner from the next, and whoever won went on to challenge the next. It was an opportunity to advance from one’s ranking during their own year’s ascension, and a chance—albeit very slim—to wear the Red Robe should they win each subsequent challenge. In the past three Candidacies the most a mage had ever advanced were two ranks—and none of the factions had ever had the winner of second-rank best first.
Four matches in all, nine hours in total, and the final winner was a young man I didn’t recognize named Torrance. He became Jerar’s newest Red Mage, though the title was not to be formally bestowed until the Victors’ Ceremony on the seventh day of the weeklong Candidacy.
Alchemy’s trials were very similar to Restoration. The first day was the display of their castings’ brews. Great fire flasks lobbed into the sky only to come crashing down and burst into an explosion of flame. Heavy gases that clouded the arena in smoke. Prisoners forced to undergo hallucinogens or paralysis in the blink of an eye. A swift display of potions-fortified weapons against the standard steel of the Crown’s Army.
On the second day, each rank’s winner competed against the next by poisoning their opposition’s prisoner, and then scrambling to create the antidote for the one they received.
Two prisoners died before the appropriate cure could be completed.
As soon as the trials were over, I dismissed myself from our box and hurried out to the Montfort training ground to drown my frustration in rage. I needed to rest for my trial the following day, but if I did there was a very real chance the restless frustration would spill over into violence.
I would do something I’d regret—and that something would come at the cost of my family and Darren. Two things I swore never to risk.
The only person who followed me was Paige, and by now she knew my habits like her own. She joined me by sparring in silence.
I was leaving the
Montfort training grounds when I spotted Lynn, my older mentor from my first year of the apprenticeship, quietly practicing her blocks, imitating some of the same moves she had taught me during my first few months of the apprenticeship.
It was a blessing in disguise. I was angry at the world, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save the prisoners, I couldn’t stop the king, but right here—right now—I could right the past.
I was about five steps away when she spotted me. Her black bangs swung as she adjusted her stance, almond eyes cold.
“Do you need something, Ryiah?”
I made myself speak. “I’m sorry, Lynn. What I did during our apprenticeship—it wasn’t fair. I knew you had feelings for Ian and I ignored them. I should have apologized before.” I sucked in a breath. “You were a great mentor, and I never should have hurt you like I did.”
She didn’t say anything and after a moment I started to walk away. My conscience was clear.
“You know I actually pitied you.” Her voice rang out behind me, and I turned around. “I kept thinking how hard it must be to have the master pick on you all the time. To care for that prince who so clearly could never return your affections.” She laughed. “This was never about a boy, Ryiah. Ian was charming and handsome, yes, but it was more than that. I was your friend, too, and you didn’t even have the decency to talk to me after it happened. Not once. Maybe I could have understood, but you never gave me a chance.”
I looked down at the ground, shame-faced. “I don’t expect your forgiveness. I just needed to let you know what I did back then was wrong and I’m sorry. I meant what I said. You deserved better.”
Lynn resumed her drill, and I took that to mean the discussion was done, but then she raised her voice, pausing.
“We won’t ever be friends again…but thank you, Ryiah.” She gave a resigned sigh. “I can respect your apology.”
****
I wasn’t ready for my own Candidacy. Not after what had happened to my twin in Restoration. Not after watching a series of prisoners tortured for the sake of entertainment. It didn’t matter that Combat didn’t need prisoners since the candidates were fighting one another. I had no enthusiasm anymore.
Had I not feared the king’s wrath, I would have withdrawn. But I couldn’t. Lucius had heard Darren and me talk about competing several times over the Crown’s progress to Montfort. While the kingdom might not know I had changed my mind, the king would, and he had made it perfectly clear what my missteps would bring.
You get the moment you were always waiting for, and you don’t want it anymore. Irony, in every sense of the word.
Now every Combat candidate—regardless of rank—was crammed into the tunnels listening to the judge detail what we could expect for our tourneys. There were eighty-one of us in total. Far too many to be at their best potential. I could see some participants that were past their peak, and I memorized those faces in hopes I could use it to my advantage.
“Alliances happen, but make no mistake: the second you trust a friend they’ll betray you on the field. Happens every rank. The melee is a battle to the end. There will only be one winner.” The man’s brow furrowed. “You are encouraged to surrender should a fight grow precarious. Should you fail to speak the ever so sensible word there is a possibility we will be finding a corpse before the healers can treat you. Deaths are most common in Combat because so many candidates find themselves unwilling to surrender when they should. If you are unable to speak you must raise both hands, palms forward, to indicate surrender.”
Some of the candidates began to murmur amongst themselves. Ella gripped my hand tightly, no words necessary. She was—if it were possible— worse off than I. She had already put her name on the Combat roster the first day of the Candidacy. She’d wanted to withdraw after what happened to Alex, but both of us had been too afraid the king would have someone checking the lists.
The tunnels were bright—a long row of torches lined each wall and two gaping holes revealed sunlight at either end of its mouth. Darren, who had been standing next to me for the judge’s speech, retired to the back soundlessly. I saw him pass Ian on his way over, eyes momentarily meeting, but then he just glanced away.
The non-heir had other things on his mind. Like winning. Something I had wanted so desperately, but it was hard to recall now.
I saw other familiar faces. Lynn was here, standing off to the side with another girl I’d never met, and Priscilla and Tyra were closer to the front of the cave, the former refusing to acknowledge Darren’s or my presence.
I adjusted the leather straps of my vest—they pinched against the skin of my arms—and watched as Ian found Loren, Ella’s old mentor during the apprenticeship, and the two sidled up to where we were standing.
I half-expected Ian to comment on what had happened to Alex. My brother was his friend too. But the mage said nothing, just gave us a smile and cocked his head in Darren’s direction. “Your betrothed looks a bit nervous today.”
I forced a nod and Ella cleared her throat.
“Think that makes all of us.”
“I saw Lynn earlier,” Loren added. “She looks good.”
Ian and I cringed—we had both wronged the girl in our past. Ella was the one to speak. “Byron underestimated her. She shouldn’t be fifth-rank. But I suppose it’ll play out well against the others in her melee. Byron only gave Lynn that rank because he hated women.”
“Well then, that’ll make me a winner in fourth.” Ian was met with confusion. “Come on, you three, have a laugh. Byron hated me just as much as Ryiah, which makes me much better than the other fourth-ranks, yes?”
Ella and I tried to make ourselves smile, but it was almost worse.
“Alright, I can see the two of you are too nervous to talk. Loren, how about that wall? There. Away from our favorite princeling?” Ian dragged our Loren away with a chuckle.
“So that was awkward.” Ella glanced at me as soon as the boys were out of hearing distance. “What ever happened in Ferren’s Keep? I thought the two of you were friends.”
I shook my head. “We are but…it’s complicated. I never got to tell you but—”
“FIFTH RANKS. YOU ARE UP. OUT ON THAT FIELD. NOW.”
I watched Priscilla, Lynn, and Tyra hurry out onto the field with ten others of their rank. The audience’s shrieks were deafening. No faction was more anticipated than Combat.
****
We weren’t allowed to watch the other ranks’ melees, but we could hear them. And we could hear the crowd chanting each winner’s name. Fifth rank went to a young woman named Gwyn, fourth rank to another unknown named Argus, third rank, much to my disappointment, did not go to Ella. It went to a young man, Rowan, who’d been a fifth-year apprentice when Ella and I had been second-years.
Second rank was called and Loren wished me luck. He was one of the twenty first-years still waiting to go. We had nineteen second-years. Darren’s eyes met mine briefly across the way and his lip twitched, a half-smile forming along his mouth.
“No luck?” I whispered as I passed him.
“You don’t need it.”
****
The first thing I noticed was the sun. When I stepped out into the arena I could feel it beating down my back, blistering against the crystalline glass of sand that crushed beneath my boots. It was midday and the glare was almost directly over the stadium.
I walked the five minutes—the arena was that large—to the stadium’s center with the rest of the second-rank candidates. Everyone was dressed in similar fashion, tight leather vests and loose trousers for movement. Some—like me—wore fitted armguards, or in two cases: shoulder armor. One even wore a full chest plate—something I sincerely believed they were regretting now that they were out in such a humid arena.
As I was studying the other candidates, I realized two things. One: I was the only girl in the lot. Thanks to Byron’s legacy of bias he had never awarded a good rank to any female in his time serving the apprenticeship. I was the only ex
ception—not because I was the only girl worthy, but because it was I who had finally drawn the Black Mage’s attention to Byron’s injustice.
Two was Merrick, Priscilla’s younger cousin. Somehow that insufferable boy had finished his ascension one month before and been awarded my same rank. Considering his lack of skill, I couldn’t put it past the training master to have awarded him the rank on purpose. Byron had known my old mentee would get under my skin.
And he did. “I know we aren’t supposed to make alliances, but the judge can hardly punish us for going after the girl. She’s the weakest. We all know Byron only gave her our rank because she was betrothed to the prince.”
I was mere seconds from ripping his face off. Merrick knew Darren hadn’t proposed until after the ascension. But disputing the truth would get me nowhere.
Still, listening to some of the older men chuckle at the boy’s joke was pushing my patience. I pretended to be oblivious, listening to the herald announce the candidates. His voice rang out in the arena thanks to a mage’s assistance.
“So, Ryiah, how does it feel knowing you are going to lose?” Merrick’s voice broke my meditation, and I saw the blond mage grinning.
“How does it feel knowing Byron only gave you this rank because he knows how much I loathe you?” I spat.
“Ohhhh!” Merrick raised his hands in mock surrender. “The girl got mad. Watch out, everyone. She’s going to get us!”
My hands formed fists in reply.
“CANDIDATES, PLEASE TAKE YOUR PLACES ALONG THE ARENA. NO LESS THAN FIFTY FEET APART. IN TWO MINUTES WE WILL BEGIN THE TEN SECOND COUNTDOWN.”
I began my jog toward the edge of the stadium. I wouldn’t reach it, of course, but there was no point in keeping such close range with the others. Perhaps some of them would battle it out before they reached me. I wasn’t sure if everyone else planned to follow Merrick’s scheme, but I wasn’t about to risk it.
I was still jogging as the countdown began. Putting as much distance between myself and the others as possible. Impatience and a restless rage were pumping through my veins. As the herald declared “ONE” I realized Merrick had done me a favor.
The Black Mage: Candidate Page 18