“She should go to prison for what she has done to you.” Dane’s voice was raw with emotion. Anger and, I was horrified to recognize, pity. “You were just a child. A bright, talented child who could have accomplished anything.”
I frowned. I didn’t really want to think about things that way, and I certainly didn’t want to be pitied. It could drive a Mer insane to focus on the ‘could have beens.’ Besides, I didn’t like the implication that I hadn’t amounted to much.
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” I rose from the sand, deciding it was a good time to sneak back to my tent and lick my wounds. “I’ll see you around.”
“Katriana, wait.”
But I didn’t. I didn’t want him to see the tears that threatened to spill. Everyone in camp looked shell-shocked. It was no wonder. From what we had heard so far, the fear Trials had all been brutal. The first two official casualties had been announced, with at least one other Mer hovering near death’s door.
I expected that before the end of the day, there would be three.
*
“Don’t be too hard on him.”
“What? Who?”
Starla lay on her side, her long hair over one shoulder as she looked at me from her cot.
“Dane. He told me what happened.”
“Oh.”
I rolled to face the ceiling.
“He didn’t mean anything bad. He was upset about what your stepmother did.”
I groaned, laying an arm over my eyes. I was bone-weary down to my fins. Beazil was snoring contentedly across the tent, not at all minding the restrictions imposed on him. After all, the shark loved to nap.
And he certainly didn’t mind our bringing him food. Of course, he needed to eat a lot more than we could smuggle in to him, so I made sure he went out once a day, usually early in the morning. He grumbled about that but did as I asked.
The rest of the day and night, he spent lazing about. As my familiar, he needed to be here. For what reason, I had no idea. We hadn’t been instructed to bring our familiars to any of the Trials as of yet. I hoped to avoid it altogether.
I was actually afraid to find out if he would be included in the final battle. Beazil was so lazy and so good-natured that I prayed we didn’t need to go through a Trial together. That would be an unmitigated disaster. I’d end up protecting my familiar, not the other way around.
Honestly, I almost envied Starla her starfish. Dane’s familiar remained hidden most of the time. I realized I actually had no idea what it was.
“What is Dane’s familiar? Do you know?”
“Stingray, I think. A big one.”
“Like the Prince?”
“Yeah.”
I raised my brows, instantly impressed. The Crown Prince had a stingray. It was famous. I’d never seen it, though, but Thalia had.
“Is his stingray lazy?”
Starla giggled at the grumpy sound of my voice.
“I don’t think so.”
I sighed, finally opening my eyes.
“I’m not mad at him. He just has a habit of bringing things up that I’d rather not think about.”
“He cares about you.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Well, he does!”
“Of course he does. We are friends. Friends care about each other, right?”
Starla let out a loud sigh of annoyance. I cracked a smile. It took a lot to annoy Starla, so I must be getting somewhere.
“So quiet. Well, other than the snores,” I said pointedly, giving my sleeping shark the stink eye from across the tent.
“It is.”
“Bet you didn’t expect to make it this far, did you?”
“I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Right. We still don’t. Not really.”
“I wonder what tomorrow’s Trial will be.”
“Hopefully, something that won’t try to eat us.”
She giggled softly, the sound reminding me how young she was. I was silent for a moment.
“It might be the final. It seems like we’ve been here only a few days, but I can’t imagine what else they would put us through.”
“Don’t worry. You are good at this. You’ll make it.”
“If you say so.”
“Try and get some rest.”
“Okay.” I rolled to my side to face her. “Sleep well, Starla.”
“You too.”
*
The next morning, we found out what the day’s test would be. It wasn’t the final, though I suspected we were nearly there. Today, we would take part in a massive scavenger hunt. We could use teams of up to seven people. Of course, Starla and Dane were on my team.
“Should we ask anyone else?”
I looked around, sizing up the clusters of young Mers gathered outside the arena. I noticed them sizing us up as well.
“I don’t know.”
“A bigger group would help us win faster.”
I raised a brow at that.
“A bigger group would lose a lot of the glory.”
I saw Thalia waiting with a group of young, wealthy Mers from our region. There were seven of them. They were sneering at me, though a few of the females were giving Dane a far friendlier look. Not that he seemed to notice.
But Thalia’s bright gold eyes were less readable.
I exhaled, looking away.
“Plus, who could we trust?”
Dane tipped his head to the side with a meaningful look.
“We don’t have to trust them. We just have to win.”
I was pondering that when Rip approached us, with Juno and Jaynelle.
“Hey. You guys want to team up?”
I looked at Rip and his friends. They were all top competitors, even if Jaynelle and Juno gave me the creeps. I glanced at Starla and Dane, the question in my eyes.
To my surprise, Starla nodded first. Dane raised his eyebrows and nodded. I knew what he was saying.
Yes, let’s work together. But don’t take your eyes off them for a second.
Well, I didn’t have to be told that twice.
“Okay.”
I eyed the two large Mers behind Rip. Not that he wasn’t a big guy. But Jaynelle was unusually tall, and Juno was the size of an underwater mountain. His bottom half looked more like a whale fin than a regular Mer’s tail.
“You two related?”
Jaynelle narrowed her eyes at me, while Juno barely reacted at all. Rip, on the other hand, burst into laughter. Dane and Starla exchanged a worried glance.
This was off to a great start.
“We should work in teams of two,” Dane proposed. I nodded, about to claim Starla as my partner. At least that way, I could keep her safe from Spiky and the MountainMer.
“You’re with me, Tri,” Rip said.
I glanced at Dane. His jaw was tight but he nodded.
“Fine. I’m with Starla.”
We all looked at the remaining two Mers. As usual, we got almost no reaction. Wow. I wondered if they ever spoke or if they were just shy.
Yeah, right.
“Well, come on. It’s time for the first clue.”
Chapter 20
Seven tokens. That’s all we needed to win. There were eleven hidden throughout the terrain, clearly marked off by glowing spheres placed at regular intervals. If you squinted, you could just see the lights at the other end of the enclosure.
We were given three clues to start, and then each token we found would provide another clue. Of course, even if you followed each clue perfectly, there was a chance that the token would already be gone. There were still close to a thousand of us left.
I exhaled sharply. I was nervous. This was one of the first Trials where Mers interacted freely, other than the races. And everyone had been focused on speed during those competitions. Now, it was more than likely that if you found a token at the same time as another Mer, it could very well come to who was bigger or more comfortable with resorting to violence.
For that reason alone, I was glad that Starla was with Dane. I might not trust Juno and Jaynelle, though I did trust Rip for the most part. I had to admit that it wasn’t just because he was being nice to me. That could be anything, trickery or simple flirtation. I trusted him because our fathers had been friends. That had to mean something.
We paired up and waited in a long line that stretched for nearly five hundred meters. I was with Rip, next to Starla and Dane, with Jaynelle and Juno waiting on my other side. They were still as two statues. Everyone was silent as the first three clues were distributed, written into the surfaces of flat shells.