I pushed up, flying backward, and fell on my ass. Twenty laughed.
An arrow tore through his neck. It clattered against the ground where my chest had been, splattering blood across the stones. Twenty collapsed, grasping his throat with both hands and sucking in wet, drowning breaths. I twisted back to the spark of light.
Nothing.
Amethyst turned Twenty onto his back. His chest didn’t rise again.
She glanced around at all of us. “Anyone see who did it?”
No one answered. I’d options but only one good guess—either Five was doing his own work or Eight had taken his suggestion. Neither was comforting.
“Abel?” Amethyst waved her servant forward. “Have them clean this up. The rest of you shift to your left and keep going. Stay out of their way.”
We all crawled out of the servants’ way and back into position, gazes darting to the windows and roofs. I half-followed Amethyst’s directions after that, pushing myself as far as I could while listening to the people around me. Two was diagonal from me, and I made sure to watch her reaction whenever she looked my way. No one saw anything and no one else died.
I was one step closer to Opal but so was everyone else.
Well, except Twenty.
Ten
An eternity later, I rose on shaky legs. Two and Four looked for archers, and I slid into step behind them and in front of trembling Eleven. Four grabbed a waterskin from his servant, and Two accepted a mug of crunchy nuts from hers. Eleven pulled a canteen from a hidden pocket.
Knives, sure, but water had never been a weapon. Now it could kill me or save me. I’d not told Maud to—
“Auditioner?” Maud appeared at my other side, a leather canteen in one hand and half a sweet potato in her other. She leaned in closer. “I was the only one to handle these.”
I downed half the canteen in one go. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Maud looked away as my exhausted, shaky hands splattered water everywhere. “Would you like anything else?”
“No.” I plucked up the potato and sniffed. Smelled safe. I’d have to take her word for it now. I bit into it, flesh melting over my tongue, and groaned. Running all night hadn’t been this hard, hadn’t left my stomach clawing at my ribs like this. Hunger, sure, but this was need. How did anyone do this?
How would I do this again tomorrow?
“Can you bring me more water next break?” I glanced toward the group. “Or whenever you can.”
Maud pursed her lips. “Keep the canteen. I cannot interrupt your sessions, and you will have no more breaks.”
“Great.” I hooked the canteen to my belt and shoved the rest of the potato into my mouth.
She fell behind and vanished with the rest of the servants. She was useful.
So far.
This new courtyard was large and airy. Steep-roofed buildings overhung the path and towered behind us. Windows dotted the walls, dark and empty with plenty of notches for handholds, and a tall wall encircled the rest of the land in a long semicircle. Beyond the head-high bricks, evergreens and browning oaks blocked our view of the eastern spires. A decorative forest between us and the real palace.
A few trees between me and the Erlend lords.
“Wipe your hands before you touch my bows.” Emerald squeezed my arm and breezed past me to a rack of longbows and quivers.
“You’ll be shooting toward the wall.” Emerald handpicked a bow for each of us based on height and appearance. She pointed to the forest. “But first, I want to see how you stand.”
Emerald demonstrated how to hold the bow. Fingers weak, I nearly dropped mine. The open, shaded air chilled the sweat coating my skin, and I tightened my grip on the bow. Five stood next to me, back from wherever he’d been, and glanced at my hands. I forced myself to be steady till he looked away.
Emerald marched to the other end of the line so they could see what she was doing.
With her gone, I dropped my stance and rested the bow on my foot. Eleven hooked hers across a shoulder and doubled over her knees, still trying to catch her breath. I slid a hand along the bow. It was finer than anything I’d ever handled and certainly better than the ones Grell let us carry for dangerous runs.
“Absolutely not.” Emerald smacked my shoulder with an arrow. “Bow off the ground, or you’ll spend the night eating dirt.”
I jerked up, one hand gripping the bow and the other on the string. Emerald shook her head.
“Shoulders perpendicular to your target.” She glided past, nudging my feet wider and tapping my stomach. “You should think of your body in angles. Your angle to the target, the angle of your arm from the ground, your bow from your body.”
She raised her voice and walked to Five.
“Your eyes will not lead you to your target. Your body is in control, and you must be in control of your body.” She shoved his shoulders down from his ears and adjusted Eleven. Pleased—or as pleased as she ever was—with all of us, she picked up her bow. “Now don’t move.”
My shoulders ached. A slow, seeping pain dripped down my spine, tightening every muscle and burrowing under my shoulder blades. A needling pressure burned in my lower back. The ache trembled down my arms till my elbows locked.
“Your target,” said Emerald, arms not shaking at all, “will not always be in an easily accessible position. You will have to wait for them to move within range where you can kill them, harm no one else, and escape unnoticed. Or you will adjust accordingly.”
She drew back her right arm as though to shoot, and we all followed. My right hand tensed, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to uncurl my fingers if I tried. The ache was bone deep and gnawed at my joints. She held us there till sweat dripped down my forehead, nose, chin, and neck. The canteen was heavy on my hip.
“If you are Opal, the day will come when your duty will demand patience, and you must be ready for that day. Or else you have no business being Opal.”
Emerald moved to lower her bow. Eleven dropped her arms with a loud sigh, and I cracked my shoulders out of position. Finally.
Emerald froze again and clucked her tongue. “You cannot rush things—impatience courts failure.”
She lifted her bow back into place.
No one moved. My shadow grew longer with each agonizing shake of my arms, my fingers stretching into misshapen claws around the bow. I let out a raspy breath into my shoulder and bent my knees to ease the stone-jointed weight that had settled in my legs. Emerald lowered her stance and shook out her arms. I collapsed over my knees.
“Stand up straight.” Emerald collected my bow with the others. “You’re not done yet.”
I rose, holding back a groan at my pins-and-needles arms. Five crossed his arms over his head, hands dangling over his shoulders. His fingers were calloused.
Four did stretches down the way, hooking one arm behind his back. My shoulder popped when I tried it.
I downed the rest of my canteen instead of copying the rest.