Page 54 of Merciless Prince
“My apologies. Please continue.”
“The next year, we had another school camp. We went to a different place this time, and one of the activities we did was a long hike up a mountain. On part of the trail, there was a suspension bridge over a deep gorge. It was winter, and we were at a high altitude, so it was very misty. It looked really cool, like something from a movie, so we all stopped on the bridge for a while to take photos and look over the edge. After a while, I noticed that one of the boys who’d bullied Rufus was standing near me, making a video on his phone. He was alone. I was too, because my friends had gone up ahead to the end of the bridge to ask one of the teachers a question. The nearest person to us was several feet away, looking in the opposite direction, and with all the mist everywhere…” I stopped and gnawed my upper lip for a few seconds as cold ribbons of guilt streaked through me. “I realized how easy it would be to push him. The fence along the edge of the bridge wasn’tthathigh, and he was really tall, so if I shoved him hard enough at the waist, he would’ve lost his balance and gone right over. No one would’ve seen me do it because no one was looking, and the mist was shrouding us anyway. I could’ve said he slipped and fell when he was trying to film over the edge, and everyone would’ve believed me.”
“You felt he deserved it?”
I nodded slowly. “A big part of me did. I thought it would make him feel the same fear that Rufus felt the year before. I thought he’d regret it then, for those last few seconds of his life.”
“But you didn’t do it.”
“No. I walked away and joined my friends on the other side of the bridge.”
One of the red-cloaks cocked their head. “What stopped you from doing it?”
I bit my lip again. “Well… it was just a tiny fleeting thought, really. I wouldn’t have actually done it,” I said. “It’s not up to me to be judge, jury, and executioner, no matter how much I might hate a person and think they deserve to die.”
I knew it probably wasn’t what the Hellfire Club wanted to hear, given the bloodlust Francesca had described, but I couldn’t help it. The truth serum in the skull cup was still compelling me to say whatever was on my mind, leaving me unable to lie.
You’ve failed. Go home now,I imagined one of them saying. Instead, they nodded and murmured sounds of satisfaction behind their ominous black masks.
“She’s the last one,” one of them said, glancing around. The other initiates were already being untied and helped to their feet.
Two of the red-cloaks knelt behind me to undo the knots in the rope that held me to the poplar. When I was finally free, they pulled me up and told me to shake my arms and legs to rid myself of any pins and needles.
“Is that it?” I asked. “Did I pass?”
The red-cloak closest to me laughed. “You’re not even close yet,” he said. “The night has barely begun.”
“Line up again!” someone else called out, clapping their hands loudly. “Single file this time!”
I joined the other initiates near the middle of the clearing and took my place in the line. Most of the red-cloaks ran off somewhere up ahead, while the original eight stayed to guide us down a new path that went farther into the woods.
The moon was high in the sky now, throwing fractured pools of light onto the trail, splintered into skeletal streaks by the shadows of the trees surrounding us. It gave the path a grim, ghostly feeling, like we were venturing into the underworld. The eerie silence from earlier had returned, too.
We ended up in another clearing, but it was miniscule compared to the last one. It contained a few logs and stumps, which we were commanded to sit on.
“Your next trial must be completed alone,” said one of the red-cloaks. “We’ll be going by surname, in alphabetical order. Elena Abernethy, you’re first.”
I sighed and settled onto my log. With a last name like Sinclair, I was bound to be somewhere near the tail end of the trials.
It turned out that I was actually dead last. One by one, the other initiates were led down a narrow path and brought back around five minutes later. All of them returned looking flushed and happy, except one who had a sour expression on her face. She was quickly led away from the new clearing, and we were told that she’d failed her trial.
“Shay Sinclair. You’re up,” one of the red-cloaks finally said.
I rose to my feet, heart thudding nervously. The other initiates gave me tight-lipped smiles and short nods of encouragement as I stepped past them.
“You’ll be fine,” one of them whispered to me. “It’s not so bad.”
The red-cloaks led me down the narrow path until we reached the steep side of a mountain. I briefly closed my eyes and pictured the topography around Mirror Lake. We had to be near the Cochrane Hills, which lay to the northwest of the lake.
One of the red-cloaks aimed his creepy mask directly at me. It felt like he was looking right into my eyes, into my soul, but all I could see was blackness. “How far are you willing to go to prove yourself, Shay?” he asked.
“Um… I’m not sure,” I murmured. It was such a broad question.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he cocked his head and moved closer. “Are you ready?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“We’ll see about that,” he said with a chuckle, taking my left arm in his firm grip.
