Page 38 of Fae Champion

“Wow. That’s impressive. How … how’d the rest of the fights go? I’m glad to see you all here, even you, West, though you’re being an asshole.”

“She called it there,” Ryder said with a snort.

Rush circled them to reach me, placing a gentle touch on my waist. “Everyone else is either eliminated or dead. There’s only one fight left, the final. Tomorrow.”He looked at the others. “Which is why we have to get her as far away from here as we can before then.”

“Why? Surely I’m disqualified by now.”

“No. I’m to fight you tomorrow. Azariah announced it today. I’m guessing the queen thought you’d either be dead by then or weakened. Either way, she would have been pleased.”

A phantom piece of fruit caught in my throat; I coughed a few times to clear it. Voice rough, I said, “But the competitors were supposed to fight every day.”

Rush’s eyes grew stormy again. “The uneven number of fighters at the start meant that one of the contestants would skip the fights of days four, five, and six. Who those people were was supposed to be random.”

“So obviously the magic of the Fae Heir Trials isn’t as impervious as you thought, then, huh?” Appetite gone, I walked over to toss the half-eaten fruit on the now mostly empty tray.

“Obviously not,” Hiroshi said, “or the queen wouldn’t have been able to try to kill you so many times. Glad to see she failed.” He offered me a smile.

I smiled back for a split second before I realized tomorrow I’d be in the ring with Rush—unless I escaped.

“So if the Fae Heir Trials magic isn’t a true thing anymore, then I can escape, right? Then I won’t have to fight Rush.”

“That’s the hope,” Rush said, but his face was a maskof torment.

“What? What is it?”

“The queen knows you slipped the dungeon. That was West’s news. Which means we can’t chance the previous escape route. It’ll be too obvious. She’ll be anticipating it.”

“Then you guys should all go. Right now. Before she realizes you’ve helped me.”

None of the guys, not even West, moved to leave. Their expressions were a mixture of tension and resignation.

“Oh no,” I breathed.

“We shouldn’t have helped her,” West said.

“Hey, dickhead,” I snapped, “just because you have a problem with Rush and me having sex?—”

“It’s not that.” He rubbed a hand over his face, offering me a perhaps apologetic sigh. “I wouldn’t want you to die alone in that cell, obviously not. It’s just that … the cause is greater than any one of us. Every single one of us here, and Roan too, we’re prepared to die to help faekind. To bring the mirror world back to what it once was. What Embermere’s supposed to be. If the queen knows we’re helping you, and Rush especially, it’ll change everything.”

“How exactly?”

“At this point, Rush has to be the next heir. We’re so close to making it happen after all these years. Whoever his new wife is won’t matter. He’ll get her to agree. But it has to be him. He’s the only one of us left in the Gladius Probatio.”

“If the queen doesn’t trust him anymore…” Ryder left the unspoken threat hanging.

“She’ll still have to accept him as the heir though,” I said, feeling desperation mounting and not liking it. “Those are the rules of the trials.”

West frowned. “When have you seen the queen follow the rules the way she’s supposed to? Even when they’re her own rules?”

“She’ll figure something else out,” Ryder said. “If she’s already been messing with the spell of the trials, then who knows how she’ll do it. She’ll get someone like Lennox to take his place.”

I scarcely breathed. “You mean she might kill Rush?”

Rush met my panicked eyes then, but in his I found none of the fight I hoped for. He really did think he was broken, a victim of her cruelty. “It’s the only way I can think of for her to replace me with someone else.”

“I won’t let that happen,” I barked. “You swear to whatever you guys find holy in this twisted, sick, fucked-up place and tell her you didn’t help me. And it’ll be true enough. I’ll get Xeno and Saffron and find a way out all on my own. If you don’t tell me which way to go, you can tell the truth when you say you didn’t help me leave the palace at least. And then wherever I pop out will probably be unexpected.”

Of course, the more knowledge of the queen’s actions and reactions I possessed, the better my chances of survival. But at least I’d had Rush lead me around the grounds before the Gladius Probatio. What I’dlearned then, which wasn’t much, would have to be enough.

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