Page 135 of Once the Skies Fade

I shot a wan smile at Ursula before sliding the last spoonful of dessert into my mouth. Something about the way she smiled back sent a cold jolt through my veins.

As one set of staff members cleared away our dessert bowls, another brought in a tray of wine goblets, placing a drink in front of each of us. Four more of my staff followed after them, each balancing a silver tray and stopping beside the competitors. All at once, they took four identical cordial glasses from their trays and placed them in front of the males.

My gut writhed at what was to come. Isa nudged my leg with her foot, a concerned look on her face. Mouthing the words “I’m fine,” I reached for my wine and took several hearty gulps.

Bracing her hands on the table, Isa started to rise but stopped at the sound of Ursula’s chair sliding back noisily. The bitter female stood, clasping her hands at her sternum as she stared down Isa.

“There’s been a change of plans, general.”

Chapter 58

Matthias

That meal had certainly been uncomfortable, but that compared little to the tension coursing through the air when the advisor cut Isa off. Isa noticeably fought to keep her features calm, though it wasn’t hard to recognize the fury burning in her eyes, whitening her knuckles as she clenched her fists.

“What do you meanchanged?” Isa demanded, pushing to her feet. “What did you do?”

Korben’s gaze darted between the two females. He sunk lower in his seat as if expecting them to throw punches any moment now. Graham, however, had his eyes locked on Calla.

Calla’s hand started to tremble as she lowered her wine back down onto the table. “Isa,” she said weakly, and her general spun around and leaned over.

“Calla, look at me,” she said, gingerly lifting the queen’s chin when she didn’t comply, but Calla’s eyes had already glazed over, turning distant and unseeing.

“What did you do, Ursula?” Isa growled, not taking her attention away from Calla, whose head began to sway from one side to the other until Isa cupped her cheeks with both hands. “Calla, are you okay?”

Ursula’s harsh voice cut through the thick air. “The Assembly decided to amend your third trial, General Marlowe.”

Isa’s eyes widened in horror, her face slashing around toward the Assembly members. “You had no right!”

Ursula shrugged. “Regardless, what’s done is done. The trial remains the same; the only change is who drank the poison.”

Poison? Fuck.

My focus shifted back to Calla, her face still cradled in Isa’s hands, but her eyelids blinked lazily, her lips forming silent words. On the table her hands fell open, her shadows flashing erratically in her palms like a monster trying to break loose. Then she stilled, and my heart fell into my stomach like a lead weight, cold and heavy.

“Calla! Calla!” Isa called out to her friend, gently tapping her cheeks, squeezing her hands, shifting her head, anything to try to rouse her. Angling her chin over her shoulder, she screamed at the Assembly. “Why would you do this?”

None of them answered. Even the sweet-looking Fern remained quiet, though she at least seemed somewhat uncomfortable with what they’d just done. Their silence was met by a deadly glower from Graham whose panic—while less obvious than Isa’s—was evident.

“What were you thinking?” He hissed the question at Ursula, but then swung his gaze across all of the advisors. “Whose fucking idea was this? And the rest of you just went along with it? You spineless?—”

“It was a collective decision,” Warren said in an irritatingly calm tone. Graham tensed, leaning forward suddenly as if he’d been about to lunge across the table at him.

“I bet,” Graham muttered, though he relented and slowly returned to his seat.

My muscles itched to leap up from my seat, grab Calla, and somehow save her, but they’d said they’d only changed one piece of the trial. All I had to do was win the trial. Win and save her.

Drawing in a deep breath to calm my nerves, I called out to Isa. She didn’t look at me, didn’t respond, so I said her name a little louder. Surprisingly—and rather uncharacteristically—Korben reached a hand out and tapped her on the back. Jerking around, she stopped short when she found me staring intently at her.

“What is the third trial? What do we need to do?” I asked as coolly as I could with Calla’s head lying limply in Isa’s hands.

At first, I thought she wasn’t going to respond, or maybe she hadn’t heard me through the fog of panicked grief, because she slowly turned back to Calla without a word. A hush fell over the room as she laid Calla’s head against the back of her chair and folded her hands in her lap. Isa’s own hands shook as she turned back to the rest of us, not looking at anyone in particular when she spoke.

“This trial was—is—to test wisdom,” she said. Her voice came out much weaker than usual. Slowly she brought her eyes up to mine, her distant gaze slowly finding its focus as she spoke. “Use whatever knowledge, prowess, and experience you possess to determine which of the four glasses in front of you contains the antidote to the poison.”

“And who was to be poisoned originally?” Phillip asked.

I leaned over to him and said—loudly enough for everyone to hear—“Us, I assume.”

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