Lost in the concentration of preparation, she jumped when someone nudged her. Her number had been called, and she stepped forward to let the wizard’s assistant put a blindfold over her eyes. It didn’t appear or feel thick, but the fabric was clearly enchanted; it quickly molded to her face, leaving her in complete and total darkness.
The assistant led her forward and then set her hand on the basket of balls. She suddenly realized she didn’t even have any idea where the other competitors’ scores lay, or how many points she’d need to do well; she’d been so distracted by Ty and then studying the course. Perhaps it was better not to know. Better to concentrate only on the hoops, the balls, and the task at hand.
A bell rang. It was her time to begin, and behind the darkness of her blindfold she pictured the heights and sizes of each hoop and their locations on the field. She picked up a ball, felt its weight and rubbery soft surface in her fingers, and then lobbed it, underhanded, toward the closest of the hoops.
A horn sounded. She’d missed.
Come on, Cinderella, she admonished and then quickly encouraged herself. You can do this. Concentrate. Have confidence in your abilities. Believe in yourself.
She picked up another ball, stood very still, focused, and then tossed it higher and farther, aiming for one of the mid-field hoops blocking the path to the ones at the back.
A cheer rang out from the crowd; it was so loud she almost didn’t hear the bell signaling her success. She’d done it. If she had hit the hoop, she thought, she would have only scored four points, but that hoop would drop out of the way and clear her path to the ones yielding higher points downfield.
Four more chances and the time was ticking away. How much of it had passed? She wished she’d thought of some method to keep track of time. It wouldn’t do for the clock to run out before she’d thrown all six of her balls.
She picked up another and concentrated on one of the rings at the far end of the field. It alone was worth twenty points and was one that no contestant thus far had attempted. But she could feel the ring’s location, as if it were sending her vibrating messages. Here I am. Here I am.
Not confident she’d make the distance with an underhand throw, she wound up, stepped forward, and used her entire body’s force to hurl the rubber ball at its target.
The crowd gasped, realizing which hoop she’d aimed for, and she instantly remembered the rule that contestants were immediately out of this round as soon as they missed two targets. If she missed, she was done with this event.
The collective gasp became a cheer and the bell sounded. She’d made it.
She pushed aside her joy and pride, ignored the roar and chanting of the crowd, and picked up another ball. She was going to aim for another of the hoops blocking the path to higher-scoring ones.
She lined up and threw. The crowd went wild and she could almost swear she’d heard two bells ringing. Yes, given the angle she’d thrown, it was possible the ball had sailed through two hoops. If she remembered the rules correctly, she’d score double for each. Pride swelled in her chest, but she couldn’t rest on her laurels or get overconfident.
She threw the remaining balls, hitting her target each time, and then waited for someone to remove her blindfold. But it turned transparent and fell from her face on its own.
Blinking against the sunlight, she shielded her eyes and looked up to the scoreboard. Sixty-four points! Even some of her fellow contestants were clapping her on the back.
She scanned the sidelines for Ty, but couldn’t find him. All she wanted was to see him again.
If she won the competition, she would have to share a dance with the prince, but she could suffer through that if it meant she would see Ty at the ball.
By the time a wizard led her non-wand group to their final event, Cinderella was in second place.
Her jaw gaped.
In front of them were dozens of rows of narrow beams, and they were not only impossibly—dangerously—high off the ground, they had gaps and other obstacles between them to make transferring between each beam treacherous.
One of the wizards shed his robe to reveal a loose-fitting black jumpsuit, and the announcer explained the wizard would demonstrate the event to prove passage was possible.
The wizard leaped into the air and landed on the lowest beam, nearly seven feet off the ground. Cinderella’s stomach flipped over. She was an accomplished jumper, but to leap that high and land on the beam without losing her balance seemed impossible. She wondered whether it would be against the rules to land with her hands first.
She watched, amazed, as the wizard ran down beams with ease, jumped past swinging blades, and held his balance while the beams shook, spun, rose, and fell. He completed the entire course in two minutes and thirty-seven seconds—without even wobbling, never mind falling down. The contestants’ time limit was ten minutes.
The crowd cheered as the wizard leaped from the final platform, nearly thirty feet from the ground, slowing himself to a hover before landing on one foot.
So graceful. So accomplished.
“Fabulous job, Anders, fabulous.” The announcer turned toward them. “But the contestants should know that there’s no requirement to complete the course exactly as Anders did. To have reached this far in the competition, all of you have demonstrated some innate magic abilities as well as physical agility and strong powers of logic and concentration. This difficult event will require extremely high levels of those same skills.”
He stepped back and addressed the crowd. “The event ends if the contestant falls or if any part of his or her body other than the feet or hands touches the beam. Competitors will be judged based on the number of beams traversed in the least amount of time, and extra points will be assigned for style and danger.”
The crowd murmured their approval. Cinderella’s belly voiced its dissent. Points for danger? She didn’t like the sound of that. Her magic skills weren’t strong enough to pull this off. But there was a bright side: because of her Way of the Warrior book, her body and mind were well prepared to do their parts.
“Spotters will be provided on request.” The announcer gestured toward a group of wizards in robes of various colors who bowed toward them slightly. “The spotters will prevent any contestant who falls from hitting the ground.”
Cinderella heaved a sigh of relief, as did several others around her.
“However,” the announcer continued, “any contestant who forgoes the spotters will automatically score ten bonus points simply by landing successfully on the first beam, and another ten points for landing on each successive beam to the end of the course.”
Wow. She could feel the tension in her fellow competitors. If they completed even half of the seven-beam course without spotters, they’d score an automatic thirty or forty points. But the second they fell, unless they could roll through their landing, or possessed the skills to stop themselves midair, they’d end up smashed to pieces. Hard to believe even the best magic healer could fix that kind of damage.
“And now, we begin.” The announcer pulled a number from an upturned hat that appeared out of thin air, and one by one, the competitors took their turns, all opting for spotters, until number 22 was called. The tall, strong boy was ahead of Cinderella on the leaderboard.
Dressed in leather breeches and a shirt, 22 strode up to the starting line and flipped over the black panel hanging from the pole to indicate he was opting for no spotter. The audience hushed, electricity filled the air, and for a moment Cinderella couldn’t breathe. She’d been hoping no one would opt for the no-spotter route to make her choice easier.
She braced herself and bit her lip as the boy ran forward, leaped into the air, and waved his arms before landing on the first beam with a thud.
In spite of his heavy first landing, he nearly floated as he ran down the ten-foot length of the beam and leaped up to swing on the bar that, if he were lucky and had timed it correctly, would catapult him up to the level of the next beam. He made it.
She watched, impressed, as he continued along the course. Even if he looked somewhat awkward, bending his legs in the air and flapping his arms to maintain balance, she figured she was watching her main competition. She hoped. What if someone else was even better? She forced that thought out of her mind. No sense in imagining challenges. Reality was challenging enough.
When 22 reached the third beam, it started to shake. He was the first contestant to reach that height, more than twenty-five feet from the ground, and he’d done so without the comfort of spotters.
The next beam had been rising and falling, sometimes as much as ten feet above the third beam and sometimes as many feet below it. Number 22 raced down the shaking beam and leaped for the fourth. Risky move. If he didn’t time it right, he’d have problems. He aimed high. The crowd gasped as the beam plunged while he was in the air.
The boy’s arms windmilled frantically as he tried to regain control, but it was no use. Cinderella put her hands over her eyes and peeked through her fingers as he landed on the next beam—not on his feet but on his backside.
She gasped. Even if that was allowed—which it wasn’t—it had to have hurt.
A horn sounded. Two ropes appeared and wrapped around his body under his outstretched arms. The ropes lifted him off the beam and slowly lowered him to the ground, where a wizard rushed to his side. The boy limped forward, clearly in a lot of pain, but waved to the crowd, which went bananas.
No matter what his score was, he was clearly now the crowd favorite. Bravery obviously counted for something with this group. Either that or they were out for blood.
Instead of watching the next few contestants perform, Cinderella kept her eyes on the fourth beam—the one 22 had crashed onto—and tried to discern its pattern of movement. At first it all seemed random, but she soon figured out a sequence of thirteen positions, with a varying number of seconds between lurches up or down.
She was so focused on verifying that the pattern was in fact a pattern, she jumped when her number was called.
Walking to the starting line, she gathered every ounce of bravery inside her and flipped the card to show she’d decided against spotters.
The noise from the crowd swelled in response. Behind her, she heard a few snickers. Clearly, many didn’t think the tiny blonde girl was up to the task, but if she wanted to win, she didn’t have any choice after that boy had scored sixty-two points.
“Are you ready?” the announcer asked. Cinderella nodded, but knew by now that it was a rhetorical question. Several contestants had been left standing stunned when the horn sounded as they were busy answering no.
It was on. The horn sounded loud in her ear, but all she focused on was the image of landing on that first beam. Because she was so much shorter, she’d need a little magic right from the start. She had to believe she could do it. She ran forward, did a round-off and three back handsprings to gain speed, and then launched off the ground, her back high and arching. It was the highest she’d ever jumped. She watched her hands as they flew up and back, envisioning the beam between them until it appeared just six inches below her.
She clasped the beam as her body was upside down, and she easily stepped out of her backflip, legs solidly planted in a lunge.
A roar rose in her ears, but she forced out the sound. All she could think about was her task, keeping safe, living through this event so she could win the competition.
She turned to face the end of the beam and gripped it with her toes. The sharp edges dug into the soles of her feet, but she welcomed the pain as a clear signal of where the boundary of her safety zone lay. She inhaled deeply using her diaphragm, and then slowly exhaled, forcing all the air out.
After inhaling again, she ran along the beam and jumped up to grasp the bar at the end, arching her body to maximize the momentum she’d get as she swung forward. Not feeling confident she’d achieved the proper reach, she swung back again and heard the crowd groan. Clearly they’d assumed she’d given up, but the few extra seconds to execute another swing would be worth it if it assured a clean landing on the next beam, nearly six feet away and five feet higher.
On her second swing, she let go and somersaulted before landing on her feet on the second beam.
The crowd roared. She’d been the first to do a flip between the two beams, but she hadn’t just done it for style points. As she’d suspected, the extra propulsion from the flip had made it much easier to get that second beam.
The beam, starting at twelve feet from the ground, would rise an additional ten feet as she traversed it, but it would do so slowly, so she considered performing some other kind of trick while crossing, but that would be showing off. Even if it might earn her a few points, she didn’t want to be cocky. Confidence was one thing, overconfidence another, and she’d barely started this event.
Besides, this beam’s main challenge wasn’t its increasing height—reaching over twenty feet by the end—but the hoop at its end, which she’d have to jump through. A hoop that had just burst into flames. Although she knew the hottest part—the section that would cause her clothing or hair or skin to ignite—was only at the hoop’s edges, the action of diving straight through what amounted to a disk of flames would take all the courage, concentration, and careful calculation that she could summon.
Most competitors had stopped before reaching the flaming hoop. The few who’d dived through but failed had mistimed straightening their bodies for landing on the next beam, and had hit the top edge of the hoop with their backs or legs.
She had a different technique in mind.
After tightening the hair ribbon Ty had loaned her, she took a deep breath and ran, focusing on her flaming hoop target.
She dove through the hoop, her body straight as an arrow, not even trying to adjust to a vertical position for landing. Instead, after clearing the flames, she placed her hands on the next beam, pressed down to lift her body and control her momentum, and then swung her legs forward in a V shape, pointing her toes. Nothing but her hands had touched the beam, and hands were allowed.
Swinging her legs back, she pushed up to a handstand. The beam started to vibrate.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
She looked down.
How could she not look down? Her face was pointed to the ground, now twenty-two feet below her and impossibly far away. Taking the no-spotter option had been a huge mistake. Not only wouldn’t she win, she was going to die.
She wobbled, but split her legs in the handstand to regain her balance, and stepped down, fighting to keep the beam’s vibrations from stealing her balance. She had to keep her mind focused.
From the reading she’d done on ninja mind exercises, she figured the key was to be one with the beam—not to fight the vibrations, but to allow them to flow through her. Essentially, to give up control and vibrate, too, so that walking down the shaking beam would be as natural as walking along the floor in her cellar room.
Letting her body vibrate, she crossed the beam quickly, focusing instead on the swinging blade between this beam and the next.
And the sharp blade wasn’t the worst of it. Not only would she have to time her leap forward so the blade wouldn’t slice off any body parts, she also had to take into consideration that the next beam—the one 22 had failed to land on—kept dropping and rising. She only hoped she’d properly figured out the pattern from field level.
Remembering the thirteen-step pattern, she waited for the perfect time to transfer: that precise moment when the beam’s height would be up only two feet from this one, just before it shot up four more and then plunged.
Cinderella focused back on the blade. To avoid it and time the pattern correctly, she’d have to leap just a second before the beam shot up.
She strode forward and jumped, making sure she didn’t leave a foot dragging behind. The breeze from the passing blade licked her back, but she easily landed on the next beam. It shot up four feet, but she held her balance and paused in relief.
The noise of the crowd flooded in. They were going insane, acknowledging that by landing on this beam, she’d gotten farther than 22, who’d scored the most points so far. And the only contestants still to complete this task had scores way below the leaders.
Now she had to wait until the plank leading to the next beam would be level with this one. Since it was wide, she could leap down to it, but she was still puzzled by the fact that the demonstrating wizard had waited to step onto it, and had crossed the plank more slowly than he’d crossed any of the narrow beams. She decided to use his example and proceed with caution.
Each time her current beam was still for a few seconds, she stepped forward quickly and bent her knees to brace for the next jolting shift up or down. On the ten-foot drop, her stomach rose to her throat, but she didn’t falter. Instead, she took advantage of the five-second pause at the bottom to move to the end of the beam. From there, she could brace herself through the remaining shifts, up and down, until she was ready to step onto the plank.
Knees bent, torso tight, she endured a rise, a plunge, another plunge, and then saw why the wizard had moved so slowly on the comparatively wide surface of the plank leading to the next beam.
It was covered with broken glass. Hundreds, if not thousands, of glass shards and bits glinted in the sunlight, and Cinderella couldn’t imagine walking across the beam without numerous cuts and scrapes. Fear gripped her, and as the beam rose three feet, she wobbled, almost losing her balance.
She could not give up now. If she died, she might never see Ty again, and just thinking of his face, his encouragement, his soft kiss, she felt calm enough to fight her fear.
Broken glass. No problem.
She’d never tried walking over anything sharp or hot, but had read about techniques to do so in her book. The tricks were to stay calm, carry her weight evenly, walk flat-footed, let the glass settle as she took each step, and ensure no single part of her sole took all her weight at one time.
Mind over matter. Gathering her center and building her courage, she stepped onto the plank with one foot. The edges of the glass dug in, but didn’t cut, and she drew a deep breath.
Do not panic. Do not tremble. Do not allow the glass to win.
She focused on the end of the plank and, rather than looking down, she carefully stepped forward, imagining she was walking over the grass in her garden. Step after step, she moved forward until the glass underfoot felt almost soft against her skin.
Before stepping onto the next beam, which was quickly rotating, she focused on its far end. Timing it perfectly, she stepped onto the beam and it rotated away from the end of the plank. She took two careful steps and a block of wood shot up from the beam to a height of six inches, not far from her right foot.
Her heart shuddered and her breath caught in her chest. Apparently, the course held more than one secret not visible from the arena floor, now nearly thirty feet below. She slid her focus from the end of the beam toward the place from which the block had risen.
There had to be some kind of clue as to where and when the blocks would shoot up. If one rose beneath her foot, or worse, part of her foot, she’d be tossed off in an instant. And since she was now spinning on this rotating beam, she’d not only fall thirty feet, she’d be flung to the side, and who knew where she’d land.
She searched for clues on the beam to indicate where the other blocks might rise, but couldn’t see a thing—not a line or a seam, not a break in the grain of the wood.
Careful not to let her focus drift from the beam to the swirling scene below, she returned her gaze to the end of the beam and then lifted her foot to step over the block.
Midair, she had another thought: what if the next block was placed to shoot up right ahead of the first? Instead of stepping over the first one, she placed her foot directly onto it, and it glided down into place until her foot was level with the beam again. Simultaneously, another block shot up about three feet further along. Please let that be the next one. She stepped forward, feeling the beam for clues or seams, until she reached the next block. Once again, she stepped directly onto it. Again it lowered under her weight and another block, this time a mere four inches ahead, was revealed.
Her heart soared. She’d figured it out.
But Cinderella couldn’t celebrate yet, not this far from the ground. She forced herself to concentrate, to keep her focus on the beam to avoid getting dizzy as it spun. The next beam, the one she couldn’t look ahead to now, was like a seesaw, tipping back and forth and changing angles as well—at times slowly, at times abruptly—and she wished she’d had time to memorize its pattern, too.
Truth was, she hadn’t considered that she might get this far. But no sense worrying about crossing that beam until she reached it. She’d have to believe her magic would help.
One by one, she stepped onto each block that arose until she reached the end of the beam. She realized the speed of the beam’s rotations had slowed, and she closed her eyes for an instant. When she opened them, she searched for the tipping beam.
All she saw at first was a blurry flash of color and light from the multicolored clothes of the crowd. Nausea started to build, but she kept her eyes open and searched until the beam came into view. Keeping her eyes on it, she went through several more rotations, snapping her head around like a dancer to spot herself each time.
The wizards had made the next transition easier than she’d expected. With every second rotation of whichever beam she was on, the level of her current beam very nearly matched the height of the next. She counted a few more rotations to be sure. No sense in getting overeager now and falling.
When she was sure, she stepped onto the tipping beam, then leaned back to alter her center of gravity as the angle grew steeper. She pressed her toes down into the wood to keep from sliding forward. But as soon as the end of the beam reached its highest height, it dropped and Cinderella skittered forward, adjusting her body to the changing slope. Reaching the fulcrum before the tipping was reversed, she looked down while she had the chance. Nothing but the ground, thirty feet below.
Her throat tightened, but she forbade fear to invade. Not now. The next beam was the highest, and from the ground it had looked as if its only challenge was a set of six man-sized bags swinging across it. All she’d have to do was reach that final beam and cross it without being knocked off.
With one foot on each side of the middle point, she balanced while the beam tipped back and forth three more times, calculating the timing to make sure she’d get to the end of the beam at just the right moment. This had looked so much easier from down on the ground.
Her muscles tensed as she braced for the right moment, and then she started up the beam as it started to tip down. When it leveled out, she sprang forward as fast as she could run, knowing if she waited too long she wouldn’t reach the end of the beam before it dipped below the level of the next.
She leaped and landed squarely on the next beam, but a huge stuffed leather bag—at least twice her height and girth—swung quickly toward her. She jumped out of the way just in time, watched for the next oncoming bag, and then the next, carefully making her way down without getting hit.
Panting, heart pounding, she reached the end of the beam and braced herself for the next danger, but then joy surged through her. There were none. Unless you counted the fact that she was thirty-five feet above the ground, standing on a four-inch-wide piece of wood with nothing to hold on to. She was done.
The roar of the crowd was deafening. Ropes appeared out of thin air, held by nothing she could see, and she raised her arms as they wrapped snugly around her, then lifted her off the end of the beam and lowered her slowly to the ground.
The announcer put his arm over her shoulders, pulled her forward, and the other contestants gathered around, offering congratulations. “Well done,” the announcer said. “No one expected an inexperienced wizard to complete that course.”
“I’m not a wizard,” Cinderella corrected him.
“Yes you are, my dear. Yes, you are.”
The announcer pointed up to the leaderboard where her points for the event flashed. They had been added to her overall score. She was in first. Ahead of everyone else. Way ahead. The announcer bent down to whisper into her ear. “Brace yourself, dear.” He straightened and a hush fell over the crowd. “The judges have reached their final decision. No remaining competitor has a chance to pass number forty-eight. She is the winner!” He bent down. “What’s your name, dear?”
Cinderella opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly froze. If the beauty competition had ended early, her stepmother might be in the crowd. The longer she could keep her escape a secret, the longer this adventure would last and the greater the chance she’d be able to speak to the royal wizard and find out the details of her lessons.
“Cat’s got her tongue,” the announcer said, and the crowd laughed. The announcer raised Cinderella’s arm high, and the crowd cheered so loudly they seemed to have forgotten they didn’t know her name.
Out of curiosity, Cinderella looked up to the box where the royal family had been watching, and a young man she assumed to be the prince bowed toward her. He was too far away to make out his features, but he was dressed in shiny satin with a fur-lined velvet cape and a simple gold crown that at this distance disguised even the color of his hair.
None of this really mattered to her. Even though she was supposed to dance with him tonight, she couldn’t go to the ball without a gown, and none of that mattered as much as finding out when and where her lessons would start and making sure she got home in time to save Max from a mousy fate.
A tall wizard in a deep brown robe handed her a bundle of flowers, then so did a female wizard in dark gray. Others added to the pile and soon she could barely see.
“Do you need some assistance?”
She turned her face out of the flowers to see a group of the six most beautiful women she’d ever seen. The one who’d spoken smiled and started to take a few bouquets off the top, handing them to the others.
“Congratulations,” she said.
“Thank you.” Cinderella curtsied. It seemed the thing to do. Given their fine clothing, these women had to be members of the royal court.
“Oh, no need to be formal.” The woman set a soft hand on Cinderella’s forearm. “I’m Jenna, one of Queen Eleanor’s ladies-in-waiting.”
“Oh, my.” Cinderella curtsied again.
But shaking her head and smiling, Jenna guided her up. “After that performance today, we should be curtsying to you.” A friendly smile bloomed on her face.
“Curtsying to me?” Cinderella was sure that Jenna was joking. “I’m nobody.”
“Nonsense,” Jenna said. “The royal wizard is looking forward to teaching you.” She winked. “As for the more important prize . . .” The ladies all giggled. “Let’s find you something to wear to the ball.”
If you were Cinderella, what would you do?