Everything will be different.
I step onto a loose head and nearly lose my balance. I huff out a laugh before continuing onward, swiping at the nearest beast to me.
Torrin sidles up next to me, holding a ziken head with one hand below its mouth and the other at the apex of the head. “Rasmira,” he says in a childish voice, moving the ziken’s mouth so it looks like it’s speaking. “Torrin has killed eight beasts. How many have you killed?” His puppeteering act draws a laugh from me.
“Just because we have to kill them, it doesn’t mean—” I start.
A loud howl rises above everything else. The entire crowd leans out of their seats, straining to get a better look.
Over on the far edge of the maze’s center, Havard battles with his own ziken.
Did he get bitten? I wonder with equal parts eagerness and pity.
No. It is merely a battle cry. Undoubtedly an intentional one so everyone can see him swipe the head off the largest ziken in the maze, the brute I faced earlier. It must have found its own way to the center. The crowd’s quiet anticipation allows us all to hear the ziken’s head bounce onto the stone floor.
A sharp pain takes hold in my left forearm. I suck in a breath and look down only to find nothing there. I look around me. There are no ziken nearby. Yet, as I squint at my arm, I can see—
No.
How can it be?
My first instinct is to look up into the stands to check if anyone saw. But everyone is still awing and clapping over Havard’s kill.
Everyone except my mother, who watches me as if I’m the only person out here.
I start to panic. I don’t understand. What happened? Where did the teeth marks on my skin come from? The leather is torn there, right in the gap between the two sheets of armor. How—
I finally catch sight of the head still grasped in Torrin’s hand. Only now it has red coating its teeth.
My blood.
Stupidly, I think Torrin must have accidentally hit me with it. But once I find the courage to drag my eyes up to his face, my world shatters.
He’s shaking with laughter. Cold. Fierce. Laughter.
When he catches his breath, he says to me, “Your life is over, Rat.”
CHAPTER
4
The horn blows, signaling the end of the trial. Pulleys yank up sections of the maze, and older warriors enter to deal with the rest of the ziken. Cheers ring through the amphitheater as families congratulate the victors. My father and sisters part the crowds, racing down to me.
Foolishly, I hide my left arm behind my back, as if that will stop the venom coursing through my veins.
Torrin walks over to Havard and claps him on the back. He whispers something to him, and the two laugh and turn in my direction.
There are words I should say. Things I should do. Emotions I should feel. My body wants to fight. My mind wants to run. I’m frozen like that. Just staring at Torrin with Havard, trying to understand what it means. Trying to understand what is going to happen to me.
Then the venom hits.
I collapse.
My muscles flare with pain, pinching and tightening, roiling. My arms and legs spasm as the venom works its way through my bloodstream. Uncomfortable screeching fills my ears as the armor at my back rubs against the rocky ground. My head darts every which way as my neck twitches.
A flash of blue sky.
Rocky soil in my mouth.
Torrin’s brown eyes.
“Rasmira’s been bitten!” he shouts for all to hear.
The cheers and stomps go quiet as I become a spectacle for all to see.
A sickening sensation spreads through me. Something that has nothing to do with the venom.
Humiliation.
I’ve been such a fool.
Torrin is an excellent actor. My aggressors have always openly hated me. It never once occurred to me that someone could hate me under a facade of friendship.
As I lie here, helpless to control my own body, a series of unseen moments flashes before my eyes: Torrin and Havard planning this move from the beginning, Torrin inwardly blanching every time he had to touch me, Havard’s secret smiles every time he saw me under Torrin’s spell, Torrin and Havard laughing over my gullibility.
The truth is so clear now.
Torrin put up with me for six whole weeks, pretending to be my friend, pretending to want to be more than my friend, all so that on this day I would let him get close enough to me to sabotage my test.
And to think, I thought I would finally have my first kiss today.
Bile heats the back of my throat. I vomit all over myself, start to choke on it as I’m still facing toward the sky, unable to roll on my side because the venom still controls my limbs.
Until someone is there, turning me.
“Get back!” Irrenia yells. “What’s wrong with all of you?”
She helps me to my side, places my head in her lap so I can’t injure myself as we wait the venom out.
Where is my father?
“It’s all right,” Irrenia says, stroking my hair. “It’ll be over in just a few seconds.”
She sees to the wounds of our warriors all the time. Of course she knows the effects of a ziken bite. But why is she lying to me? My shaking might stop soon.
But everything will not be all right.
* * *
FINALLY, MY BODY CALMS. My muscles are enflamed. I feel sluggish, tired, but I stand anyway, try to regain what dignity I have left as I wipe my face on the hides covering my forearm.
Then my eyes land on Torrin.
I want to curl into myself, hide my face from the world, from the shame, from the knowledge of what he did to me. From what will happen to me.
But then rage strikes like a bolt of lightning, infusing my limbs, making me forget all else.
Before I realize I’ve even moved, he’s flat on his back. I must have kicked him in the stomach.
“You bastard. You disgusting, pathetic, lying worm—” I hurt every inch of him I can get my hands on. It’s a good thing I dropped my ax when the venom took over, otherwise he might no longer have a head. As it is, I’ve knocked the wind out of him, so he’s unable to defend himself from my blows. His so-called friends just laugh at the display, but I don’t spare them a glance. I’m determined to have at Torrin until his own mother won’t be able to recognize him.
A strong set of arms yanks me back. “Rasmira!” my father shouts.
I try to pull against him. Torrin needs to suffer. He needs to be the one twitching on the ground while everyone watches.
“You will calm yourself, now!”
“He set me up,” I yell back. “I didn’t get bitten. It was him. All of them. They—”
He slaps me.
The shock is enough to distract me from my need to disfigure Torrin. My father has never struck me. He’s never needed to. I have always been his perfect child. His favorite. But as I look into his eyes now, I can see nothing but disappointment. Anger. Even hate. As though he is the one about to be sentenced to death in the wild.
I collect myself, breathing in and out slowly. This time, with no mania, I try to explain again, loudly for all to hear. “I was not bitten by one of the creatures. He clamped one of the severed head’s teeth onto my arm. They’re trying to get me banished. I swear it, Father.”
A group of the village elders stand behind my father. Edelmar, the oldest and wisest of them all, speaks up. “Can anyone confirm Rasmira’s story? Did anyone see?”
I look around, but I now realize the reason for Havard’s battle cry. He drew everyone’s attention to him, and Torrin was so close to me, he could have easily ruined me without anyone noticing.
My eyes land on my mother.
She saw.
I’d looked up and seen her watching me. I remember. She saw the whole thing. She can save my life.
“Mother?” I plead.
Uncertainty crosses her face for a moment. She has an important choice to make. One that could change her life and mine.
Finally, she says, “I cannot lie. The goddess forbids it. I won’t do it, not even for my own daughter. I saw nothing.”