Page 44 of Spirit Trials
“Watch out!” I call out. “It’s a trap!” I don’t know if she didn’t hear me, but she just keeps running. “Stop!” I yell. “It’s a—” my words die in my throat when she’s struck in the chest. She staggers to a stop and then falls over backward. My scream lodges in my throat, and I watch as the spirit wolf whirls around and races back to her. I stare in horror as he flickers once, twice, and then disappears into the girl.
“No.” A soft sob follows the word.
“Kinsley, are you okay?” There’s no response for a moment. “Kinsley?” There’s panic in my voice now.
“She’s okay,” Harper says in a softer than usual tone. “Just...too tenderhearted.” I turn back to the girl. I know she’s gone. The arrow went right through her heart.
“What happens to the spirit animal?” I ask softly.
At first, I think neither of them are going to answer me, but Harper finally does. “It dies with its bonded.” Even though I think I already knew that in my subconscious, it hurts my heart. None of us say anything. Every few minutes, I stick a hand out.Each time, an arrow lands on the tree right next to where my hand was. Until finally, it doesn’t. I pop my head up.
“Harper, you try,” I call out.
“Oh, sure. I'll be the sacrifice.” But she does it anyway. When nothing happens, I take a tentative step out from behind the tree. “I think—” The blast of a horn cuts off my words.
Kinsley turns to me wide-eyed. “What’s that mean?”
“Run!” Harper and I both say at the same time, and we take off. I run faster than I’ve ever run before. I have no idea if that was the last horn, and we’re already too late, but I’m not taking any chances. We get to the edge of the woods and don’t stop as we burst into the clearing. Kinsley cries out, and I whirl around. She’s on the ground. I race back to her. Harper’s further ahead but comes back when she sees Kinsley down.
I drop to the ground next to Kinsley; her eyes are wide with pain and panic. I see the blood on her arm. “It went through,” I shout and pull her up and put her arm over my shoulder. “Harper, other side.” Together we run with Kinsley between us.
Harper cries out and stumbles, and we almost all go down. “Harper?”
“Who’s still shooting at us!” She demands. “I’m okay,” she says roughly, getting to her feet. “It just grazed me. Let’s go.” We’re back to running, even though I know we’re just running right into enemy fire.
“We’re not going to make it,” Kinsley says.
“Yes, we are!” I snap. “Run faster.”I did not come this far to fail now. I hear the arrow a second before it hits. I cry out when it hits my leg, only centimeters from where the last one did. “Let’s goooo,” I push out through grit teeth. “Keep moving.” I limp through the agonizing pain. The end is so close; we’re almost there. And then the horns blast through the air, shaking the ground. “Don’t stop,” I tell them, afraid we’ll get cut if we’renot right up where the rest of the constants are. We get to the back of the group just as the horns cut off.
“That is the end of Trial One,” Terron, the gryphon says. “If you are standing here, you passed. Congratulations.”
I can’t help but suck in a breath of air and fight back emotion.We made it. We’re alive.“You have seven days to recover before Trial Two begins. Get some rest. Remember, that in between trials, you may not do damage of any kind to any other competitor, or you will be eliminated from these games. From Trial One,” Terron continues. “Twenty-three wolves and two jaguars presented.” I can’t help but feel despair. I mean I knew nothing was going to happen to me, but I know how much my two friends are hoping for theirs to make an appearance. “And now, please listen as we call out the placements of each competitor after Trial One. First, the ones who didn’t make it.”
He begins to read the names, and my stomach turns. I don’t want to hear any more. He calls out more than a dozen names, and my stomach turns for each one. But it’s not until he calls out Sariah’s name that I think I’m actually going to be sick. Somehow, I keep from throwing up. The king steps up and says more of his pompous nonsense, and then finally, we’re done. “You may go,” Terron says. “You have seven days to rest up. Be here at sunrise eight days from now.”
Everybody begins to disperse. I take a breath as it finally hits me that we made it through the first trial. Suddenly, every ache and pain of the last four days comes rushing back. I look down at my leg and see the arrow sticking out. I take in Harper and Kinsley; they look just as rough as me. I start laughing; they stare at me like I’ve lost it, but I just can’t help it. “I’m sorry,” I gasp out. “We’re just such a mess.” They give me tired smiles.
“Farrah.” I turn and can’t help the smile that crosses my face when I see Lox. It fades when I see he’s not smiling. “What’s wrong?” I ask instantly.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, eyebrows raised. “Have you seen yourself? And your friends are just as bad.” He shakes his head. “Let’s get you back to the house and get your injuries taken care of and some meat on those bones.”
I shake my head and smile softly. “I was only gone four days.”
“Yeah, and you’re skin and bloody bones.”
“Hey,” I protest weakly.
He eyes my leg. “Want to deal with that now or when we get back to the house?”
“When we get to the house.” He nods and starts walking over to a horse. “Oh, and Lox?”
He turns back to me. “My friends are coming with me.” I keep my eyes locked with his when I say it.
He smiles. “I figured.”
My eyes widen when I see three more horses behind his, like he already knew they were coming. Suddenly, it hits me that they might have families they want to get back to. I turn around. “This is Lox. He’s a friend of the prince’s. I should have asked first. Do you want to go with us, or did you want to go back to your homes?”
“Back to the streets or to the prince’s home? Let me think about it.” Harper rolls her eyes. “Of course, I’m going with you.”
