Page 24 of Elven Crown

Rebecca couldn’t hear it over all the cheering and whistling and stomping feet, but the look on his face said it all. Especially when Rowan turned in a slow circle to take in every aspect of the room, as if declaring in surprise how new and unexpected that fun little trick in the wall had been.

Or maybe he was just surprised by the amount of people cheering him on right and the fervor with which they did.

Of course he found this amusing. None of these people knew who he was, or where he’d come from, or why he’d shown himself on Shade’s property to begin with. But here they were just the same, cheering him on, anxious to watch the elf man overcome and complete The Striving to earn his place.

Two more blazing yellow energy shots burst from two different casting circles in the wall. This time, they thumped into existence where they’d been conjured, one right after the other, as if Bor had figured out how to rig them specifically for the element of violent-magical-surprise.

In the chair on Rebecca’s right, Zida leaned toward her but kept her gaze squarely focused on Rowan’s calm, casual demeanor. Once again, he dodged both attacks barreling toward him, first one and then the other, casting stretching and shrinking shadows across the walls and floor and every other surface as they passed.

“Hey, elf. Don’t look so pissed.” Zida snorted. “If it goes well tonight, we get a new member. If not… Well, at least we’ll have had some entertainment, right? Ancestors know we could all use some of that right about now.”

Rebecca might have appreciated that little assessment if it hadn’t been Rowan standing inside the central casting circle, held prisoner there by the laws of The Striving until he either completed all four trials or failed miserably in his attempts.

No, she didn’t find this nearly as entertaining as Zida clearly did. Still, she remained in her honored Thon-Da’al seat, smiling tightly and chuckling through her nose whenever in response to comments she barely heard.

On the outside, she looked very much like someone else enjoying the show.

On the inside, her nerves had tangled up in knots, all of them growing tighter and more constricted with every magical attack bursting from within the casting circles in the walls andbarreling across the room from every direction, all of them aimed at Rowan.

Once again, Rebecca had assumed she’d accounted for all the factors without once stopping to consider The Striving might have had a mortality rate. She couldn’t just sit here enjoying herself, because Rowan could die.

Especially if what she’d added to the flask did what she’d originally intended it to do.

Of all the things she’d pretended to be—the identities and the backgrounds and the intentions and goals—sitting here, pretending to enjoy this display among dozens of magicals howling and screeching and stomping their feet was the most physically sickening by a longshot.

Because Rebecca had more to lose in this than her own anonymity or the secrets she knew full well how to keep. If Rowan didn’t survive, she wouldn’t even have the chance to say goodbye.

Or to apologize for having royally screwed up, at the cost of his life.

The Blackmoon Elf passed the first trial with flying colors. He ducked and dodged and evaded every powerful blast thrown at him from the casting circles in the walls—first one at a time, then in twos and threes, and finally in a complicated volley of blazing, crackling attacks for the grand finale.

Twice, he tried to incapacitate one of those casting circles by attacking the wall on which it had been drawn, succeeding on the second attempt. He gained an ear-splitting round of applause from the spectators when a thick chunk of the wall cracked away, breaking the circle’s seal and neutralizing one of a dozen simulated enemies around the room.

The magicals watching him went nuts over that one. Their enthusiasm only increased when the remaining casting circlespowered down in a series of stuttering flares and showers of green sparks bursting from the walls.

Rowan’s physical proficiency had been tested and marked, and now it was time to move on to the next trial.

As the dummy attackers powered down, removing their eerie green light from the gym, a wane dimness hovered in a momentary lull over both initiate and spectators. The transition was quick and efficient.

Two seconds later—plenty of time for Rowan to have realized the pattern of challenges had not changed—the larger casting circle around him on the floor flashed once with a deep green hue. When that light faded again, a single item among all those laid out before him around the iron brazier illuminated on its own.

A wooden cube, small enough to balance in the palm of his hand but large enough to lend a certain extra weight to its complexity and importance. Rowan clearly got the message. He stepped forward toward that glowing cube that filled the central circle with more eerie green light, then stopped in front of it to hunker into a squat.

The first thing he did was to lift his head and look right at Rebecca again. He caught and held her gaze for a split second before returning his full attention to the box and gingerly picking it up.

Whatever he’d intended by that look, Rebecca got the distinct impression he was laughing at her. Still.

She wished he would take this seriously, but she couldn’t blame him for getting a big head about it.

She’d known he would easily ace every other trial tonight before the very last, which was why she’d tampered with the potion in the first place. Only now, these first three incredibly easy tasks wouldkeepgoing to his head, one right after theother. They would make him that much surer of himself before the end.

When he got to that potion vial, he would find himself dangerously unprepared for what awaited him within it.

Once Rowan sat in the center of the circle and crossed his legs beneath him to hold the wooden box in his lap, a new type of expectant silence filled the gym. All the better for the initiate to maintain his focus.

Rebecca vividly remembered how easy opening this same puzzle box had been during her own Striving, once she’d figured out the underlying mechanism. It wouldn’t be difficult for Rowan, either, though he had yet to discover the contraption’s secrets.

The first one hit him when he attempted to open the puzzle box. He received a burst of deep purple light and a zap of painful magical energy bursting through his fingers and up his arm—the prize for his incorrect methods.

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