After endless minutes of trudging through the storm, we stop. A door opens, and a moment later, I’m airborne. I land hard on a chilly stone floor.
I try to stand and scream through the gag, straining at the bonds around my wrists. I try to work off my blindfold so I can at least see where I am.
To no avail. The lock clicks, footsteps retreat, and I’m left alone to await my fate.
XL: Elias
My blade cuts through Helene’s leather armor, and part of me screams, Elias, what have you done? What have you done?
Then the dagger shatters, and while I’m still staring at it in disbelief, a powerful hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me off Helene.
“Aspirant Aquilla.” Cain’s voice is cold as he flicks open the top of Helene’s tunic. Glimmering beneath is the Augur-forged shirt Hel won in the Trial of Cunning. Except, like the mask, it’s no longer separate from her. It’s melded to her, a second, scim-proof skin. “Do you not recall the rules of the Trial? Battle armor is forbidden. You are disqualified.”
My battle rage fades, leaving me feeling like my insides have been whittled away. I know that this image will haunt me forever, staring down at Helene’s frozen face, the sleet thick around us, the screaming wind that can’t drown out the sound of death.
You nearly killed her, Elias. You nearly killed your best friend.
Helene doesn’t speak. She stares at me and puts her hand to her heart, as if she can still feel that dagger coming down.
“She didn’t think to remove it,” a voice speaks from behind me. A slight shadow emerges from the mist: a female Augur. Other shadows follow, creating a circle around Hel and me.
“She didn’t think of it at all,” the female Augur says. “She’s worn it since the day we gave it to her. It’s joined with her. Like the mask. An honest error, Cain.”
“But an error nonetheless. She has forfeited the victory. And even if she had not...”
I would have won anyway. Because I would have killed her.
The sleet slows to a drizzle, and the mist on the battlefield clears, revealing the carnage. The amphitheater is strangely quiet, and I notice then that the stands are filled with students and Centurions, generals and politicians. My mother watches from the front row, unreadable, as ever. Grandfather stands a few rows behind her, his hand tight on his scim. The faces of my platoon are a blur. Who survived? Who died?
Tristas, Demetrius, Leander: dead. Cyril, Darien, Fortis: dead.
I drop to the ground beside Helene. I say her name.
I’m sorry I tried to kill you. I’m sorry I gave the order to kill your platoon. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The words don’t come. Only her name, whispered over and over in the hopes that she will hear, that she will understand. She looks past my face into the roiling sky as if I’m not there.
“Aspirant Veturius,” Cain says. “Rise.”
Monster, murderer, devil. Dark, vile creature. I hate you. I hate you. Am I speaking to the Augur? To myself? I don’t know. But I do know that freedom isn’t worth this. Nothing is worth this.
I should have let Helene kill me.
Cain says nothing of the bedlam in my mind. Maybe, in a battlefield choked with the tormented thoughts of broken men, he cannot hear mine.
“Aspirant Veturius,” he says, “as Aquilla has forfeited, and you, of all Aspirants, have the most men left alive, we, the Augurs, name you victor in the Trial of Strength. Congratulations.”
Victor.
The word thuds to the ground like a scim falling from a dead hand.
***
Twelve men from my platoon survive. The other eighteen lie in the back room of the infirmary, cold beneath thin white sheets. Helene’s platoon fared worse, with only ten survivors. Earlier, Marcus and Zak fought each other, but no one seems to know much about that battle.
The men of the platoons knew who their enemy would be. Everyone knew what this Trial would be—everyone but the Aspirants. Faris tells me this. Or maybe Dex.
I don’t remember how I arrive at the infirmary. The place is chaos, the head physician and his apprentices overwhelmed as they try to save wounded men. They shouldn’t bother. The blows we dealt were killing blows.
The healers realize the truth soon enough. By the time night falls, the infirmary is quiet, occupied by bodies and ghosts.
Most of the survivors have left, half ghost themselves. Helene is spirited away to a private room. I wait outside her door, throwing black looks at the apprentices trying to get me to leave. I have to speak to her. I have to know if she’s all right.