Page 35 of Dragons' Mate
And beneath all the din, there is a soft, barely noticeable sound that beckons me to leave the current festivities. Like a siren’s lullaby. Or maybe that’s just me hallucinating. After the morning I had, I’m allowed a little hallucination.
“Where are the dragons?” A girl next to me asks. She has ginger hair nearly the color of the orange trim on her uniform.
Someone points up, to where a translucent dome covers the top of the arena, its edges shimmering with an iridescent sheen that distorts the otherwise pristine blue sky. A dozen feet below the top of the dome, a metal catwalk stretches over the arena. That’s where the males stand. Silhouetted by the sun, their faces are difficult to make out, but I can feel them. Or, more accurately, I can feel the bond with Quinton. It pulsates with anxiety. He is afraid for me. Not exactly comforting.
It makes me wonder what the males can see of the trial arena that I can’t.
“Well, I’ve always been curious about what a mouse feels like with hawks circling above,” the ginger girl says with a forced smile. Her pale face makes her freckles stand out. “Though if they are going to circle above us like that, they could at least offer cheese. Mice in a mousetrap should be offered cheese at the least.”
“Cheeseandwine,” I agree.
A tiny giggle escapes her mouth before she clamps her hand over it, the women around us giving us dirty looks.
“I’m Leesandra,” the girl offers her hand. “Or just Lee.”
“Kit.”
She snorts, her voice lowering to a whisper. “Oh, I know. I mean anyone deaf, dumb and blind knows who you are. You’ve the dragon princes on your side. What are they like?”
“Dominating pains in my ass mostly,” I whisper back. I feel like I’ve not had a normal conversation with a human my age since I’ve left the Agam estate.The fact that this is my idea of a normal conversation is all kinds of messed up.
Lee’s face lights up in delight, drawing more dirty looks from the others.
I like her already. Clearing my throat, I return to surveying the trial grounds. From where we all are, on a platform at the east end of the oval, I can’t see what the challenge is actually about, except that the center of the oval appears to be a large hole.
The sound of the gong ricochets off the stone walls, bringing with it an eerie silence. The spectators stop their cheering, turning their heads in unison to the imposing figure of the head priest. He stands atop a raised platform on the opposite side of the arena from us, his face shadowed beneath the cowl of his robe, the holy insignia of Orion gleaming on his chest.
"Subjects of the Goddess Orion," the priest’s magic enhanced voice fills the arena, commanding and full of authority. "We gather here today to observe as our competitors prove their strength and wit in the first of the trials.”
Subjectsof the goddess? That feels bold to me, especially with the king of Massa’eve in attendance. But the priest doesn’t ask my opinion as he continues in a poetic prose about Orion and fertility and being worthy. I want him to get to the point of the rules already.
It takes him a while, but eventually the priest swings his outstretched hand over the arena, guiding our attention from the east side platform where we stand to the west side one he orates from. "Your trial is simple yet formidable. The women must cross this arena to this platform on the west. Here, where the sun sets, shall the end—and new beginning—be found.”
He pauses, letting the gravity of his words sink in. A few women exchange nervous glances, but Bianca's face remains composed, determined.
"But be warned," he adds, his voice dropping lower, the words heavy with foreboding. "The path will not be easy. Orion's favor is not given, it is earned. The pit before you is a testament to this. You must navigate its depths and rise victorious on the other side. Let the first trial begin."
With those final words, a wave of anticipation sweeps through the crowd. Lee and I exchange glances and walk two dozen feet to the edge of the platform, getting our first glimpse into the pit.
The challenge sprawling before us seems deceptively simple. It's a ridged path carved from the earth itself, a twisting serpent between one platform and the other. The walkway itself is two feet wide, but drops off sharply on either side, falling away into a pit that yawns open a good twenty feet below.
“Tell me I’m hallucinating and that isn’t really a horse-sized worm.” Lee points to a brown thing I’d thought was a pile of dirt.
But it isn’t, not unless dirt slithers about and has rows of sharp teeth.
There are piranhas in the pit,Tavias’s voice informs me.Do not fall.
“Piranhas,” I tell her.
“Oh good. They have a name.”
“And a stench.” I pull my face away, the putrid stench rising up from the piranhas’ layer prickling at the back of my throat. It smells like decay, like things long dead and forgotten.
"This is it? The great trial?" A girl with yellow trim around her uniform scoffs, pushing her way to the steps leading down to the start of the path. “You want to know if we can walk a two-foot ridge without breaking our necks? Fine.” Without further ceremony, she steps onto the path with a confidence that I envy. She is probably one of the women who’d been training for this since childhood, her graceful unhurried steps making her seem to be out on an afternoon stroll.
The girl makes an uneventful turn around the first of the three bends in the path, and continues to the second with an increased bounce in her step.
“There is no way in hell it’s that straight forward,” Lee mutters.
