Trials

by Sadie Moss

  “Princess. You didn’t die.”

  Dmitri’s voice from behind me makes my stomach flip in a weird way.

  I turn to look at him, squaring my shoulders. “No. No, I didn’t. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  He looks at me for a long moment, nostrils flaring and jaw clenched. Then he reaches out with one hand and drags me into his body, wrapping his arms around me. I squeak in surprise, hugging him back. His arms are like bands of iron, and as I bury my face in his shoulder, feeling his solid warmth and inhaling the sweet scent of cloves, I realize he was genuinely scared for me.

  “You did well.” His tone is gruff and low, his words spoken into my hair.

  “Thanks to all of you helping,” I murmur.

  “No. You did it.”

  I want to ask him if he did go easy on me in our fight during the battle royale. Does he think he should’ve been the one in this competition? Is that why he’s been so angry—because he’d be the one in danger and not me if he hadn’t thrown that fight? Has his extra crankiness over the past weeks been because he’s beating himself up for that?

  But before I can say anything, a hand falls on my shoulder.

  Disentangling myself reluctantly from Dmitri, I turn and see Roman gazing down at me, cobalt eyes shining.

  I know it’s not smart, but the crowd is distracted and chaotic, and the other guys are surrounding us, so I hug him.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I couldn’t find the third man.”

  “It’s okay.” I tighten my grip on him, feeling his heartbeat thud against mine. That doesn’t matter now. We can go to Dean Hardwick after the award ceremony and tell him everything, and they can do a formal investigation. I survived, that’s what matters.

  And I won. Holy fuck.

  “I’m so proud of you, Reckless.” He gives me a tight squeeze and presses a soft kiss to my neck, one that nobody can see.

  I shiver. “Does this mean I’ll get a nice reward later?”

  His answering growl makes heat pool in my belly, and I almost wish I could skip the damn ceremony. Who needs a medal when they could have this man worshipping their body?

  He pulls away, his gaze shifting to something behind me as he grins. Before I can turn to see what he’s looking at, I’m being lifted by Cam and Dmitri. My yelp turns into a laugh as they hoist me onto their shoulders.

  “Hold up your coin,” Asher says, beaming at me.

  I do, and the audience screams and cheers louder.

  For me.

  Chapter 23

  Ho-ly shit.

  I did it.

  I can’t believe I did it.

  I’m covered in dirt and blood and bruises, and everything hurts like a bitch, even breathing, but I’m alive and more importantly—I won.

  The goddamn coin is clutched in my hand, held aloft over my head. I found it, I fought for it, I earned it.

  The whole crowd is losing their shit. I can pick up a few dirty looks as the cheers finally start to wind down, but as the field clears and a stage is brought in for the awards, all I can see from my fellow competitors is respect. They were in those challenges with me, and they know how hard all of them were.

  I’ve never had so many people looking at me like this, with awe, and I’ve damn sure never had people cheering for me. It’s surreal. I keep wondering when I’ll wake up.

  Part of me wants to run and hide, but there’s no way I can do that with my dignity intact—and since the award ceremony will start soon, it’s not like I’d have much of a chance to get far.

  We’re all given time to clean up, get our wounds bandaged, and change into new clothes while the staff finishes setting up the stage, and then we all stand on it in a row. I came in first. Nicholas, the Syren student, came in second. Since no one else actually won a challenge, the scores from the various trials are going to be added up to determine who’s in third place, fourth, and so on.

  I stand nervously, feeling everyone’s eyes on me, as Provost Johnson, the mage in charge of the entire Phoenix Training Program, comes up to the podium. He’s the head judge in this whole thing, and he’s given out the awards for all the previous challenges, so it makes sense he’d be the one handing out the big medal. Despite being high up in the world of magic, he looks incredibly… normal. He’s of average height, with a strongly receding hairline and a round face. He has a few garish pins on his lapels, and the rings on his fingers glint in the sunlight. He doesn’t look at all imposing, but I know appearances don’t have much at all to do with the magic a person can have inside them.

  Hell, some people probably don’t think I look all that tough either.

  Johnson steps up to the podium, his gaze sweeping over all eight of us. It lingers on me for a second, and then he looks down at the large medal in his hands—the one he’s supposed to present to me, the one that means Griffin Academy won this entire competition.

  I might pass out, actually.

  “Greetings,” Johnson begins, his magically amplified voice booming out over the crowd. “Today marks the end of the twenty-fifth Inter-magic Trials. Over the years, this competition has come to stand for something—for the strength and unity of the magical community. It’s a chance for students from different schools to get to know each other, and to realize that although our magic may be different, we all stand together.”

  Huh. That’s a nice message.

  Maybe I’m still hopped up on the adrenaline of winning, but I can see now why everyone made such a big deal about the Trials.

  “You all here probably haven’t seen much of me or my fellow judges as we’ve tried to keep our distance in order to judge fairly,” Johnson continues with a stiff smile. “But every year, it is my privilege to declare the winner and hand out the award to the top-performing student. And for the first time in Trials history, this honor is supposed to go to an Unpredictable.”

  The stupid grin I’ve been wearing ever since Cam and Dmitri mobbed me on the field slips, and my brows pinch together. There’s something about Johnson’s tone that makes unease prickle down my spine. And the way he said “supposed to” not “will”. It’s a little thing, but I’ve gotten decent at reading people from my time at The Den, and there’s definitely something odd going on here.

  Johnson looks down at the medal in his hand, then back up at me, and something flashes in his eyes. For an instant, he doesn’t look normal and unassuming at all.

  He looks dangerous.

  And furious.

  My breath catches in my throat and my hands unconsciously curl into fists. Oh, fucking hell. Goddamn it. Is this guy the third conspirator? The head of the Phoenix Training Program?

  I don’t have any proof of that, but I can tell something isn’t right here. I can’t signal to anyone for help though. The guys and Kendal are all in the crowd, and I’m stuck up on this damn platform. Any movement I make will be too obvious.

  Unless…

  Asher! Trying to keep my face neutral, I mentally scream at the top of my lungs. Roman removed Asher’s cuff along with everyone else’s so they could distract the mages while I was competing. I just have to pray he hasn’t put it back on yet. Asher! Help. Something’s wrong!

  “Supposed to,” Johnson repeats, and this time those words definitely sound bitter. “This award? This prestigious honor? I’m supposed to feel privileged to present it to a freak?”

  Holy shit.

  All the air drops out of my lungs. I’ve been called worse in my life, but for some reason, none of those barbs ever hit me quite as hard as this. Maybe it’s because it comes so far out of left field—I wasn’t braced for it, I wasn’t prepared for it.

  My fellow competitors look around at me and at each other, and I don’t need to be Asher to know what they’re thinking: did he really just say that?

  There’s a ripple of reaction in the crowd, low murmurs and whispers rising up.

  Johnson’s hands are gripping the medal tightly, and the veins in his forehead bulge a little. His voice still booms o
ut over the crowd, but it doesn’t seem like he’s talking to anybody but himself now. “An Unpredictable. An uncontrollable freak of nature, winning something like this? It’s absurd. It’s unacceptable!”

  I can’t help myself. Hurt and anger bubble up in my chest, and I step forward. “Hey, I won that damn thing fair and square whether you like it or not.”

  His head whips toward me, his face turning a blotchy purple color. “No, you didn’t!” he roars. “You cheated!”

  I cheated? Oh, that’s rich.

  “Are you kidding me?” My voice isn’t amplified, so most of the crowd probably can’t hear me. But I just risked my life defending my school’s reputation. I’m not going to let this guy smear it in the mud. “I didn’t cheat! I won it—”

  “You had to have cheated!” Johnson interjects, his face red. “That’s the only way. Every challenge was rigged against you! You shouldn’t have won!”

  Oh, fuuuuuck.

  My jaw drops open. The entire crowd is losing its shit right now.

  “Elliot! We’re coming. Just stay calm, Roman’s on it.”

  My heart jumps at the sound of Asher’s voice in my head. It’s the weirdest thing, almost like they’re my own thoughts in his voice.

  Yeah, I hate to say it, Asher, but I don’t know if Roman’s going to get up here in time. The crowd’s creating too much of a stir, and this guy is literally right in front of me.

  “So you were one of the ones trying to sabotage me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even. I’d rather have him talking than attacking or something, and since he’s obviously gone pretty far off the deep end, maybe I can get him to confess the whole thing in front of the crowd. I tilt my lips up, forcing a smirk. “You know you’re paying me a compliment when you say I won despite you purposefully trying to make me lose, right?”

  “Shut up! You filthy, unclean little bitch!” Johnson snarls.

  My stomach clenches, and even though I’m terrified of this guy, I also hate him so much I contemplate taking a swing at him.

  “Okay, so I think we can add ‘bigot’ and ‘misogynyst’ to your list of problems, buddy.”

  “Their magic is unclean!” Johnson bellows, turning to the crowd and waving his arms around him to encompass the whole school. “It’s impure, wrong—it goes against all sense of order and balance! There are seven pillars of magic, and they are stronger together. There is no room for an eighth! It’s uncontrollable and chaotic!”

  A horrible feeling fills the pit of my stomach, and I back up a step, murmuring quietly to my fellow contestants, “Um, guys? I think maybe you need to run.”

  None of them move. They’re staring at the unraveling man before us with their jaws hanging open.

  Johnson looks back at me, and the hatred on his face stuns me. How did no one see this in him before? How did he preside over the Trials this whole time and keep all that crazy bottled up inside? It reminds me a little of Raul, and how he hid his anger and resentment all semester, attacking students and searching for the Brimstone Orb while studying for exams and whispering answers to me in Theory of Magic.

  It’s like there are two sides to him—two halves that don’t add up to a whole.

  “You don’t deserve this.” The provost brandishes the medal in front of him like a weapon, like if he could use it to kill me, he would. “And it’s about time someone taught you a lesson, you little bitch.”

  My eyes narrow. “Wow. Original insult, truly.”

  You know, Mom always told me I should take a second to think before I speak, and I probably should’ve listened to that advice. Because as soon as the words leave my mouth, Johnson’s face purples and his stance shifts.

  Then he hurls a spear of rock at me.

  Ah, fuck.

  Chapter 24

  I manage to dodge Johnson’s magical rock spear, tucking and rolling. Thank God, the one thing I’m damn good at is fighting; it’s the only thing saving my ass right now.

  The crowd has lost their minds, chaos erupting around us. I launch myself to my feet and unleash a sonic boom at Johnson as several people—not just my guys, I notice—try to reach the stage to get to us. To help me or to help Johnson, I don’t know, but it almost doesn’t matter because a war is brewing in the crowd.

  To my shock, Kendal’s at the front of my fellow Unpredictable students, yelling something. I’m pretty sure it’s a battle cry or at least an outraged speech of some kind about how this competition was rigged, or how Unpredictables are treated, or both.

  But, damn. Okay then. You go, Kendal.

  Some of the visiting mages are siding with Kendal and the rest of my classmates, but others are looking pretty damn hostile, and people are shoving and yelling. Then someone from Terra Academy conjures a massive ball of earth and stone and hurls it into the crowd.

  Both sides lose their collective minds, and it’s an all-out melee.

  The Unpredictables will be hugely outmatched, I realize with terror, because of their cuffs—but then Tamlin pulls something that looks almost like a whistle from a chain around her neck. She blows into it, and although I don’t hear a sound, it sends out a blast of magic like a wave, and I see all the cuffs on my classmates glow briefly before they tumble off.

  She’s deactivated all of their cuffs so they can fight fair.

  Okay, I definitely can’t hate her now.

  It’s heartening to see that a lot of people are on the side of the Unpredictables. It looks pretty evenly divided, actually, between the ones helping us and the ones attacking us, and if that isn’t a goddamn symbol of the magical community in a nutshell I don’t know what is.

  I search the crowd, trying to see if any of the guys are near me, but Johnson sends a whip of fire at me and I yelp, dodging, just barely avoiding the lash. Fuck, that would’ve hurt. I can feel the heat from it as the thin strand of fire misses my face by inches. Shit.

  How the hell can he control both ice and fire? That should be impossible for an ordinary elementalist.

  That’s when I notice him manipulating one of the rings on his fingers, and it hits me—those aren’t just obnoxiously garish jewelry. They’re enchanted objects. I’m pretty sure he’s a water elementalist, but with the help of all those charms, he’ll be able to throw all kinds of other shit at me.

  Scrambling to regain my footing, I try to gather my wits. Okay, what do I do? I’m not sure where the guys are, or how long it’ll take them to reach me. I have to stop this somehow, and I’d like to get out of this alive, if that’s not too much trouble. My magic’s strong—or at least some of it is—but this guy’s wearing a fuckton of charms, and he has more experience than I do.

  Don’t use your emotions, I remind myself. Focus. You’ve been coached by six different people by this point, for fuck’s sake.

  I can do this. Or at least, I can hold my own until someone with more actual experience gets here.

  Johnson claps his hands together. Some of the charms decorating his fingers glow, and a wave of water hurls itself at me.

  I yank my hands up and think wall, and my sonic boom emerges, blasting the water backward, keeping it from hitting me and sweeping me away.

  “Just hold on, Elliot!” It’s Asher in my head again.

  Doing my best here, Ash! I shoot back. What does he think I’m doing, just lying around and letting Johnson walk all over me?

  “You were supposed to die!” the balding man spits at me. “Just die already!”

  Fuck, this guy really has lost his marbles. Doesn’t he see what he started? What his hatred has caused? People really could die here today. On the ground below us, my friends are locked in an all-out battle as they fend off people who, until a few minutes ago, were our fucking guests.

  I have to stop this. And that starts with taking out Johnson. Once he’s not whipping the crowd into a panic, and once I’m not desperately trying to defend myself from him, maybe we can get everyone to calm down so we can explain what the hell happened. That we’re not the bad guys here.

>   Johnson and I have been circling each other on the large platform, and as I pass the display rack holding the remaining seven medals, smaller than the one he was supposed to give me, I snatch them all up. Clutching one in my grip, I stretch out my hand, thinking hard about all the work I’ve been doing with Tamlin. I focus intently and use mental strength, not emotion, to direct a small sonic boom out of my palm.

  It works.

  The small metal disc flies out of my hand as if it’s a baseball and I’m a world class pitcher. It slams into his chest, knocking him backward several steps. He actually goes down to his knees, coughing and wheezing, and I dart forward, blasting another one at him. My aim isn’t as good on the second, and it goes wide, but I’m so close, if I can just reach him before he gets up—

  No such luck. He staggers to his feet, twisting one of the rings on his hand and making a beam of bright blue light shine from it.

  I hurl myself to the side, knowing instinctively that I don’t want that light to touch me. The blue beam dies for a moment, and as soon as I regain my footing, I blast another medal at the asshole enchanter. This time, I nail him right in the hand. I don’t have to hear the crunch to know bones break; Johnson howls, cradling his injured hand to his chest. I’d like to say that shot was on purpose, but it was at least ninety percent luck.

  Whatever. I’ll take it, especially if it means he can no longer use any of the enchanted rings on that hand.

  But now he’s fucking pissed. He’s got charms on his lapels too, and he uses them to send a barrage of attacks at me.

  From below us, stray blasts of magic are flying everywhere, and I have to dodge those as well as Johnson’s shots. To my surprise, I’m actually handling myself pretty well. This is nothing like the terrifying fight that broke out in the cafeteria when Raul made all of our cuffs burn off. That was pandemonium, and so is this—but now, I’m more in control. I can handle this, I realize.