Rakel finds me in the alley Jeremias left me in. She rushes to my side, feeling me up for wounds.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Help me up.”
“What happened to you?” she asks as she pulls me to my feet.
“What’s going on!” I blurt. “What is this competition nonsense? What have I gotten myself into?”
Rakel stares for a moment before lowering her head.
“Last time,” she says. “There were a hundred competitors. We were fresh out of Wettes. It was like a gauntlet. Several challenges stacked to see who was most fit to be championed.”
I lean against the wall, watching her.
“And that person was Olexandrya?”
Rakel nods.
“But Olexandrya didn’t want to lead the coalition. She gave up the spot to Aluerme.”
I groan, feeling my back where Jeremias’s claws dug in.
“Should we do it?” I ask, almost under my breath. “Is it really necessary?”
Rakel searches my eyes.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s get back to the others.”
She leads me out onto the street where the horses are waiting.
Olexandrya is thrown over the back of Yule like dead weight.
Pepper gives me a hand, pulling me up onto Conis with her while Rakel gets on Yule.
The area is quiet and the shimmer of the bricks is faint. The sun starts to cast a shadow over the nearest buildings.
“Are you alright?” Pepper asks as we head up the street.
“Of course not.”
Pepper says nothing else as we ride out of the capital.
We leave the towers, the crowds, and the glow of the Queen’s magic behind.
I think about Olexandrya and everything I’ve learned about her.
The image of this infallible hero; the woman I met in that courtyard, has been picked apart. All that’s left is this sad, hurt person. Abandoned by the people she’s so determined to protect.
I should’ve helped her fight Jeremias off. But that man has his claws in me. Just the sight of him paralyzes me.
But Olexandrya hadn’t been fighting right. It was like something was holding her back. Had the Queen done something to her? Or is she weaker now than I realized?
“I don’t fight women,” she’d said so long ago. Yet the entire coalition was made up of women. Were all of those women competitors? I wonder how she won that competition without fighting them.
Suella’s house looms ahead, shadowed by the sunset.
Someone is standing out front. It takes me a moment to recognize it as Aluerme. In her hands is the Soul Cleaver.
Rakel dismounts, and Yule vanishes into a figurine. She catches the figurine and Olexandrya slams down onto the sand.
“Hey!” Pepper dismounts, running to Olexandrya’s side.
“Put that away!” Rakel hisses, marching up to Aluerme.
“The offer stands,” Aluerme says simply. “All of this can be avoided if Olexandrya is returned to her full strength.”
Rakel grabs Aluerme by her collar and yanks her off her feet.
“You…” Rakel chokes the word out. “You told her, didn’t you? About Aerida? About Olexandrya’s soul?”
Aluerme looks past Rakel at me.
“I am loyal to the Queen,” she says. “You believe I would lie to her?”
I dismount, stumbling as I land.
“These are your only options,” Aluerme says, letting go of the Soul Cleaver. It lands blade-first in the sand. “I don’t believe you can win without her. You know the Queen runs these competitions. She gets carried away with this sort of thing.”
Rakel lets go of Aluerme.
Aluerme turns and starts to walk away.
I help Pepper lift Olexandrya off the sand, each of us taking an arm.
I glance at the house and find Lloyd staring out a window at us.
“Aluerme,” Rakel says. “Tell me something.”
Aluerme turns, her eyes pausing on me for a moment.
“If that man kills the Demon Lord, do you really think he’d be trying to make peace?”
“Of course not.” Aluerme folds her arms. “If it were up to me, I’d have lopped its head off.” She walks away.
We watch her disappear up the beach.
Rakel walks over, taking my place in carrying Olexandrya.
I look at the Soul Cleaver on the ground while they climb the front steps. I close my fingers carefully around the leather-bound handle and draw the blade from the sand.
The blade shimmers in the fading daylight.
In the corner of my eye, I register Rakel and Pepper watching me. I tilt my head towards them, amused by their worried expressions.
“I don’t plan on dying,” I say, making a point of aiming the blade away from myself. “Geez.” I get up and follow them into the house.
“What did I tell you?” Suella is waiting on a chair near the door. She sits up when she sees Olexandrya. “What happened?”
“A mess,” Pepper says. She and Rakel drag Olexandrya upstairs.
I linger as the door closes behind me.
“What happened?” Suella asks again.
I find a chair by the wall and drag it across the room, dropping it front of her. Then, I sit and drop the dagger on the floor.
“Competition,” I say. “They won’t let Olexandrya do it. So we’re gonna have to.”
Suella nods, eyeing the dagger.
“That’s a Soul Cleaver,” I say. “It cleaves souls.”
“Lovely.”
I’m not sure what this competition will entail. But there is something I’m sure of. We’re not ready. I tap my foot, watching Suella closely.
“Do you want something?” Suella asks, her nose turned up slightly.
“What is a witch, exactly?” I ask. “How are you any different from a mage?”
“I’m not,” she says. “I just like the sound of ‘witch.’”
“I see.”
“Lloyd wants to compete,” Rakel says, stomping down the stairs. “Can you believe that?”
“I’m pretty strong, you know!” Lloyd announces, grinning from the bottom step.
I share a glance with Suella.
Rakel just shakes her head and walks over to us.
“I am!” Lloyd insists.
“Rakel,” I start. But Rakel drops to her knees and plants both hands on the ground.
“Help me get stronger,” Rakel says into the floor. “Please.”
I blink.
“In Wettes,” she goes on. “You mentioned something about compressing mana to help you move. I don’t know how to do that. In fact, I hardly know how to manipulate mana at all. I just cast spells and hope for the best. I need to be at my best. I have to win.”
I’m at a loss.
“You may not think this is important,” Rakel says, her words coming out hoarsely. Her fingers drag across the wood. “But to us, this is everything we’ve spent five years fighting for. We can’t stop now. We won’t.”
“This is exactly what I warned Drya of,” Suella says.
But I ignore her. I stand and drop to my knees before Rakel.
“It isn’t meaningless to me.” I take her hand and try to lift her. “I have my own reasons for this. For wanting to go to Verteiga.”
Rakel raises her head.
“I can do what I can,” I say. “But you have to tell me what we’re walking into. I still don’t understand a lot of this.”
“You’ll die without Drya.” Suella’s words are knives.
I look at her in the corner of my eye.
“Last year, she won without touching any of her competitors. She walked through their attacks. She absorbed an unimaginable amount of pain and kept going.”
Rakel stares at the floor.
“The gap between you, Pepper, and her is insurmountable,” Suella says. “Or… it was.”
Lloyd shifts on the bottom step, watching. Pepper lingers a few steps up, silently leaning on the railing.
“What is the purpose?” Suella asks. “Why waste the effort chasing glory?”
“It isn’t glory,” Rakel says, pushing off the floor. “It’s finishing what we started.”
Suella stands and walks into the other room without another word.
“So,” Lloyd mumbles. “Does this mean I can compete?”
“Last time,” Pepper says, hopping past him. “There were five levels. It wasn’t just constant fights. It was tests.”
“Tests?” Lloyd echoes.
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like tests of intelligence and the like,” Pepper says. “First was a maze. Simple. Whoever got through moved up. Then came a dungeon that flooded over time. To proceed there, you needed to gather a certain amount of treasure and make it to an escape point.”
“I remember that one,” Rakel says. “I would’ve drowned if not for you.”
Pepper scoffs.
“Third were the individual fights. If I remember correctly…” Pepper taps her chin. “We both lost our fights, right?”
“I got a draw,” Rakel mumbles.
Lloyd shakes his head.
“A draw is a loss,” he says.
Rakel shoots him a look.
Lloyd just grins.
“Anyway,” Pepper goes on. “Drya won her fight by downright outlasting her opponent. She let Iris attack her until Iris couldn’t stand anymore.”
I can see it so easily. Olexandrya standing, beaten and bloodied; and an exhausted woman collapsing before her.
“She doesn’t fight women,” I mumble.
Pepper nods.
“It’s a bit disrespectful, I think,” Rakel says.
“Anyway.” Pepper starts walking, circling us slowly. “The Queen didn’t expect as many people as there were to make it to the third challenge. And a lot of people didn’t like how brutal the fights got.”
“The third challenge was supposed to be the end of it?” I ask.
“I think there were a dozen of them left,” Pepper says. “I only heard about the fourth challenge. I was… a bit out of it.” She chews on the ends of her fingers. “Something to do with a race. But again, people weren’t satisfied with it.”
Pepper pauses, staring at the stairs. None of us speak.
“So, the Queen chose a spot. All twelve people stood in a line. And that was it.”
“What was it?” Lloyd blurts.
“The last one standing won.”
I pick at my chin.
“How long did it last?” I ask.
“Few days. Drya won, obviously.”
I picture Drya standing alone. What face does she wear in that moment? What does she feel?
The competition doesn’t sound as brutal as I was expecting. A part of me thought it would be endless death matches.
But I don’t have a scale of power. I don’t know what our competition will look like. Jeremias will be the biggest problem. But will the others be at our level? Stronger?
“Tell me something,” I say, shifting in my chair. “Are you two strong?”
Rakel and Pepper share a look.
“Rakel is,” Pepper says. “I’m alright.”
“There are plenty of people who are stronger than me,” Rakel says.
I stare at them. Great answers. Perfect. Exactly what I needed to hear. All the confidence in the world.
“I’d say we’re above average,” Pepper adds. “We’re nothing to scoff at.”
“And we have experience,” Rakel says. “From last time.”
Pepper shrugs.
“Last time doesn’t mean anything,” she says. “This time it could just be a free for all for all I know.”
“Well,” I say. “Great.”
“All we can do is be as strong as we can be,” Rakel says. “And… that’s why I need you.” She holds a hand out to me.
“About that.” Pepper levels a finger at me. “What’s this about you manipulating mana?”
I spend the next five minutes explaining the way I use my mana. As physical propulsion. As a shield, as a platform.
By the time I’m done, Lloyd has joined us. He’s sitting on the floor paying close attention.
Pepper, somehow, recalls me using to clear debris off a floor in Wettes.
“I’d wondered how you did that,” she said. “I forgot to ask. Probably because I got impaled right after.”
“Right,” I say. I hardly remember doing that, I’m surprised she does.
“It comes so easily for me,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “I’m surprised people as capable as you haven’t figured out something so simple.”
Pepper nods.
Rakel furrows her brow.
“It sounds hard,” Lloyd says.
“That’s what I’m saying.” I fold my arms. “It’s as easy as…” I flex my fingers and a rush of mana washes over the boy. His curls dance in his face.
The boy laughs. I don’t know where he gets so much bubbliness.
“Sure,” Pepper says. “But consider this. Let’s say you were born with six fingers on each hand.”
I blink.
“I wasn’t.”
“Hypothetically.”
I shrug.
“If you were born with six fingers, you’d be able to use all six perfectly normal, right?”
I hold up a handle and wiggle all of my fingers. Rakel does the same.
“I guess.”
“Now. For us, let’s say we randomly gained a sixth finger when we learned magic. We wouldn’t be as proficient with that finger, would we?”
I lower my hand.
“How could I teach you how to use a new finger?” I mumble.
Pepper shrugs.
I flex my thumb, eyeing it as it moves. I imagine a second thumb wiggling next to it.
“Before any of that, though,” Pepper says. “We don’t have all the information. We don’t even know when this is happening.”
“And Drya’s gonna be pissed,” Lloyd says.
Pepper and Rakel stare at him.
“It’s true,” he says.
I’m still focused on my thumb. If there were another thumb, what would it look like? How would it move? How does my regular thumb move?
The second thumb moves a lot like the first one. But feels a bit awkward because it’s in that bit of skin between the joint of my thumb and my wrist.
Just thinking about it feels gross. That gross feeling reminds me of Pepper’s incorporeal magic.
“Aerida?” Pepper asks, leaning towards me. “You okay?”
I meet her eyes.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say.
Pepper’s eyes light up.
Then, something thuds upstairs.
“Damn it!” Olexandrya’s voice reverberates through the house.
Suella cackles in the other room.
“I told you,” Lloyd says. “She’s pissed.”