I didn’t like how Darren was able to turn my body against me. He had stolen reason and made me no better than a swooning convent girl whose only purpose was to marry and waste her life away bearing spoiled palace brats. Like the one in front of me now.
“You should never trust a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Darren said faintly. His eyes burned, scalding my flesh as if he had torched me with flame. “Because the only thing the wolf will ever want to do is break you.” He reached down to catch a strand of my hair that had somehow fallen loose, twirling it with his finger and watching me the way a hunter regarded its prey. “Is that what you want me to do?” he murmured. “Do you want me to break you?”
Yes.
Wait…
What was wrong with me? I snapped free of the tempered fantasy to glare up at the manipulative young man in front of me. “I don’t know what lines you feed the ladies at court,” I told him angrily, “but they won’t work on me.”
He laughed softly. “Are you sure?”
I opened my mouth to protest, and Darren stepped aside. “Rest assured you are not one of my conquests, Ryiah.”
I choked indignantly. “I would never!”
The non-heir raised a brow. “You have a long road ahead of you, my dear. If you want to join the victor’s circle, you are going to have to stop taking offense to everything I say.”
“If I want to join your ‘victor’s circle?’” I shot him an incredulous look.
The dark-haired prince opened the door and waved me forward. “I wasn’t lying when I said you might have potential.”
“Well, as long as it’s been decided,” I said sarcastically.
“That,” he said slowly, “is a decision I have yet to make.”
I woke the next morning feeling as if I had downed an entire bottle of my parents’ precious wine stores. My head spun, my limbs ached, and my dreams had been alarming to say the least.
If you want to join the victor’s circle.
Frustrated, I heaved my pillow at the wall. I don’t want or need your help, you self-inflated peacock.
Do you want me to break you?
I felt bile rise in my throat as I recalled my weak-willed reaction during the prince’s attempts to disarm me.
No. I want you to leave me alone. I tore off the bed sheets and hastily pulled on my breeches and tunic.
“Bad dream?” Ella inquired from the bunk beside. She looked groggy as well, and I could tell from the way she stretched, flinchingly, that I wasn’t the only one who would be suffering during today’s lessons.
“You have no idea.”
“Well, it’s a new day,” she remarked. “I’m sure another session with Piers and Cedric will leave your nightmare far behind.”
Not far enough though, I grumbled.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the last day of Combat’s orientation, no one had resigned, and Piers came into practice with a raging fervor.
“I told Barclae I’d cut this flock by five!” he roared. “And yet you have all remained to spite me… Apparently your lot has a backbone. I intend to break it. No one leaves my class today until I have five.”
I exchanged nervous glances with Alex and Ella. We had all known this was coming. Piers had been growing increasingly upset as the week progressed, and today would be the accumulation of his wrath.
We were not mistaken.
Piers had teamed up with Master Cedric and his team of assisting mages to create the four most intensive hours of our time thus far. Instead of the traditional obstacle run around the stadium we were led out to the mountainous terrain just east of the Academy and the Western Sea.
Today there was only one rule: don’t ask for help. There would be no healers. The only way we would receive treatment was if we withdrew. We’d had almost two months of training: “At this point you either have what it takes—or you resign.”
The course had been designed for Combat, but we were still expected to participate even if it wasn’t our intended faction. Endurance and stamina were prerequisites for all lines of magic. Any student that chose to leave would never have made it far anyway.
Now we were now supposed to race up and down a treacherous trail dodging a random assault of castings. The constable’s team had been invited to participate too, only unlike the last six days they now lurked throughout the entire mountain, awaiting unsuspecting first-years to engage.
We were to reach a ravine that was only accessible by a long climb and descent a good hour or two in each direction. And, of course, somewhere in the middle of that narrow valley was a chest filled with a hundred copper tokens.
There were one hundred and twenty-two of us.
“You have not completed my course until you hand me your token,” Piers warned. He didn’t tell us what would happen if we didn’t, but it was clear that those without would be subject to some sort of horrific test, the kind that wouldn’t end until he had gotten his five deserters “by whatever means necessary.”
There was no direct path to our destination, and it seemed that whichever way I turned, a new obstacle was waiting.