Page 26 of Elven Crown

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Sitting here, helpless to stop what she’d set in motion, stoke a rage in Rebecca bordering on panic. She clenched her fists, desperate to ground herself in the only thing that made sense right now. Her anger.

With Maxwell, for always dredging up these…feelingsinside her. She wasn’tsupposedto feel them, whether she understood them or not.

At Rowan, for having foiled her attempts to remain forever disconnected from and unfound by her past.

At all of Shade, for having made her their new commander at the absolute wrong time, for trusting her and believing in her and needing her when so much of what they thought she’d given them was a lie.

She shouldn’t have had to deal with any of this, even one at a time, but now it all crowded in around her as if she were drowning.

None of this was part of the plan.

Now that they were all here in the same room, on the brink of becoming something else entirely, it felt like she was being forced to choose. To pick sides.

The shifter, who might have started to grow on her with their tentative new truce as they tried on for size their decision to work together…

Or the Blackmoon Elf moving through The Striving right now, who was probably the only person on Earth who knew Rebecca Bloodshadow inside and out.

The only person on two worlds, to be more precise.

She shouldn’t have to choose. She’d chosen something completely different by leaving the Bloodshadow Court in the first place. It shouldn’t have followed her all the way here.

The worst part was that she couldn’t even let herself trulyfeelany of it. Not in any real way. Her only option was to interact with Maxwell, with Rowan, with Shade in a way worthy of being Shade’s commander.

This wasn’t supposed to be her life, and already in less than a week, everything had changed.

She forced herself to look away from Maxwell too, because he was no help to her either. She didn’t look his way again for the duration of The Striving, though she didn’t know if it was because she wanted to maintain focus and control or becausenotlooking at Maxwell somehow felt like punishing herself.

When Rowan finally got the puzzle box open, the spectators erupted in cheers, whistles, and roars of approval, stomping their feet and banging fists on the closest hard surfaces, sometimes even each other.

Rowan merely laughed as he set the puzzle box down within the circle and waited for his next challenge to begin.

Rebecca didn’t register his third trial. At this point, she could only focus on not looking at Maxwell, on not letting herself smile at the sound of Rowan’s laughter, on watching the clock tickingdown the seconds without making it glaringly obvious that she watched the clock.

It served as a focal point for her eyes while the rest of her mind wandered. When Rebecca next consciously noted the time, however, another instant flush of aggravation surged through her.

Rowan had been taking his sweet time with this, hadn’t he?

He’d made it through two of the four trials, now working on the third, but the clock hanging on the wall above the gym’s double doors now read 11:29 p.m.

Thirty-one minutes for Rowan to finish the third and fourth challenges, and not an ounce of urgency had filtered into his actions. Even his casual amusement remained when he finally finished the third challenge and received another roar of approval from the crowd.

Dammit. He needed to hurry the hell up and get this done, or they’d reach midnight before he knew it. Then his time would be up.

Rebecca had no idea what would happen if The Striving reached midnight and he still hadn’t completed it—successfully or otherwise. Would it count as an automatic failure? Or would they offer him an opportunity to finish first?

She didn’t want to find out. After tonight, Rebecca didn’t think she could handle the answer.

The final item within the casting circle illuminated in front of Rowan, not with the eerie green light or even the yellow glow as before. This time, it was a bright, shimmering blue lighting up the center of the casting circle for everyone to see.

A blue that matched the exact shade of the glowing blue light from the potion waiting for him within the clear flask.

The second that flask illuminated brighter than anything else in the room, Shade’s applause and cheering encouragementhushed immediately, as if everyone had held their breath together.

Once Rowan noticed the flask, he took two slow steps toward it, smirking still, then turned in a slow circle to eye everything else inside the glowing ring on the floor.

The only sign of what he was meant to do next existed in that flask filled with the potion meant to force him into facing his truest self—the deepest, darkest parts of him.

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