Page 92 of A Trial of the Heart

“Wise.” I sighed.

“Please don’t insult me by suggesting otherwise.” Castor reached out and accepted the key, tucking it around his neck and into the high collar of his shirt. “And with this, I’ll take my leave. Oh, and by the way,” he said with a pause, flashing me a cunning grin, “don’t die, Skylar.”I grinned at him with a firm nod.

“Stopping by the archives before you leave?” Gunnar asked in a taunting tone with an all too knowing smirk spreading wild across his face.

Without so much as a reply, Castor grunted and waved away Gunnar’s remark and turning on his heels to leave.

“Touchy,” Gunnar muttered under his breath. “All right,” he said, turning to the gathered cadets. “Ready?” He raised his hand. “And… go!”

My attention on Castor lasted only a second before cheers and echoes across the group of budding warriors drew me away.

Gunnar and I watched wave after wave of High Fae enter the course with only about half reaching the top under the allotted time. Those who were successful were granted the patch of a single mountain on their shoulders from Daxton. Wearing brightly beaming smiles as they descended the rocky pathway winding down the backside of the course. Thankfully, none had fallen to their deaths, but the looks on the faces of those who did not meet the time constraint indicated they almost wished they had.

“Are they able to try again?” I asked.

“In due time, they may train with us again and re-enter,” Gunnar answered, “but many don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Shame and embarrassment cling to us longer than they do to your kind, I’m afraid. Call it one of the downfalls of our immortality… but some refuse to give up and try again even though they fail. Daxton keeps a close watch over them and tries to help in any way he can. The strength of their will and determination is worth watching.”

“What if—” My question was cut short when a deafening scream tore through the sky. “Oh no!” Igasped in horror as a silver-and-brown-haired male High Fae cadet dangled from the narrow beam walkway toward death waiting below.

Gunnar tensed and grasped my arm as he yelled out, “No! Fuck, Reece!”

Reece, my memory connected with the name, and I remembered where I had seen him before. This was the male who helped carry Daxton to Castor’s room at the Court of Aelius.

Daxton looked over the edge of the warped wall, unable to step in and help the dangling cadet. “Grab the ropes!” he screamed.

“No!” Reece yelled in reply, his dark eyes wide and full of terror. “If I do, then I fail. I said this was the last time. I reach the top or I die trying.”

“Grab the rope!” Daxton commanded this time.

Reece shook his head and tried to swing his leg up onto the beam, but he slipped. The ice on the wood made his grip give way, and he fell.

“Reece!” Gunnar yelled as he sprinted toward the bottom of the Gauntlet with me close on his heels. A fall from that height would surely kill him. If the jagged rocks hadn’t already torn through his flesh and caused him to bleed out from catastrophic injuries that even his High Fae healing couldn’t combat.

Reaching the bottom of the course outside the wards, I gasped at what I saw. Reece’s body was twisted and broken with his back arched at an unnatural angle, so his head lay next to his feet. Blood pooled underneath him from cuts and scrapes from the jagged rocks …No one could survive that. Then slowly, as if the Mother and Father themselves reached out their hands, his chest rose and fell.

“Move!” I yelled at Gunnar, shoving him aside and calling upon my healing magic the next second. Icouldn’t believe his luck. The male was still somehow, by the grace of the Gods themselves, alive.

“You’re one lucky bastard,” Gunnar cursed.

“Keep him still or else he won’t be alive much longer despite my healing magic,” I grunted, not once allowing my gaze to leave the frail body.

I let my powers flow through me, mending what had been broken and trying to feel where the body experienced the most pain. “Slowly unbend his spine,” I instructed Gunnar. “Very slowly.”

My magic glowed, golden in my palms, as I felt it flow into the mangled body of Reece. The bones bent and snapped back into place with the guidance of Gunnar pulling his body straight. I moved to mend the open wounds next, closing the gaping holes in his flesh and stopping the bleeding before there was nothing left to bleed out. The color returned to his tanned face, and the ends of his hair once again shimmered with the vibrant silver color that matched the metal threading in the ground around him. His chest fully expanded, and his eyes flashed open once more to see the world anew.

“What… What?” he stammered, looking around to assess his surroundings before finding me. “I fell.”

“You fell,” I replied in a low tone, trying not to startle him, “and I healed you.”

“You saved me,” he answered with darkened, sorrowful eyes pooling with tears of gratitude.

“I’m still in shock that you were able to heal him like that!” Gunnar said from up ahead on the spine of the Nox mountain trail.

The thick pines of the surrounding forest and green grass of the meadows gave way to the rocky path leading up the spine of the second-tallest peak of Silver Meadows. Large boulders and slick gravel terrain guidedour way, with an increasingly thick fog. My sweat-slickened hair at the nape of my neck began to freeze as we climbed higher and higher toward the peak.

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