The Myran’s silhouette remains frozen at the door as the silence stretches, taut and agonizing. He shifts his weight. A cautious hand reaches for the hilt of his scimitar, and then… he’s inching toward the alcove,toward me.
Every one of my muscles is coiled, every nerve screaming as I wait. Even my breathing seems like a betrayal in the suffocating quiet.
He’s close now—so close that soon he’ll see me. I need to do something. With his next step, I know there’s no more time for thought or fear. My world shrinks to this single, terrifying moment.
With a courage I didn’t know I possessed, I hurl the stone in my hand—one of the pieces I’d picked up earlier—against thewall to my right. The crack of stone on stone shatters the silence, and the Myran reacts instantly with a trained reflex. His body whips toward the sound, away from me.
NOW!
Launching myself forward, I slam my foot into his ankle, just as Bahador had shown me to do. “Use their weight, their momentum, against them. Find the weak point.”
The Myran crashes to the ground with a grunt of pain and surprise. He’s down, disoriented, scrambling to make sense of the sudden attack, but I don’t give him a chance. My hand closes around another stone from my pocket, and I bring it down with a brutal, arcing blow onto his head.
He collapses onto the floor, limp and motionless.
My heart thunders wildly, and my entire body trembles with the shock of what I’ve just done. But I can’t stop yet. He could wake up at any moment. My fingers are clumsy with urgency as I frantically search his pockets.
There. My hand closes around a smooth, cool coin. It’s golden, more valuable than any jewel or any crown. I shove it into my own pocket alongside my own.
“Well, well, well. Look who finally decides to show herself. The rogue Ahira.”
My heart seizes in my chest as I look up.
Kortyz is standing at the entrance, blocking the only escape, and a cruel, predatory smirk twists his lips.
Rising to my feet, I slowly and deliberately raise my hands in a gesture of surrender, trying to project an air of calm. All the while, my mind is spinning, searching for a plan.
“I’m no threat to you,” I say, my voice shaking slightly despite my efforts to control it.
Kortyz stares at me, his eyes narrowed, assessing, and then… he laughs. A loud, booming, mocking laugh, as if I’ve just told him the most hilarious joke in the world.
“Threat?” he says as if it is the most outlandish thing he’s heard. “You? Even with your sorcery, you’re nothing to fear.”
I clench my teeth to suppress my anger. If I had my magic, I’d incineratehim, turn him to ash without a second thought. But I don’t. I’m powerless. And he knows it. I force myself to remain calm, to appear submissive.
“I may seem weak without my sorcery. But I’m a strong competitor. I’m agile. Fast. We’re both trapped here. Wouldn’t an alliance be mutually beneficial?”
He throws back his head and roars with laughter again, a sound so loud, so sinister, it echoes through the chamber, bouncing off the stone walls and making my skin crawl.
“An alliance?” he sneers, the word dripping with scorn. “With you? You’re delusional.”
Suddenly, his gaze hardens, and his eyes turn cold and predatory. There’s nothing but pure malice in his features when he says, “Instead, I think I’ll take my sweet time teaching you a little lesson about how you should respect your betters, you filthy Gajari savage!”
A chill of apprehension lifts the hair on my arms. He doesn’t just want my coins. He wants to hurt me, to humiliate me. I see it in his eyes, in the way he’s looking at me, relishing the thought of the pain and the kill.
And I realize, with a lurch of my stomach, that he can…
Here, during the trial, anything goes. He can do whatever he wants with me, and no one would stop him.
Think. Think.
I fumble in my pocket and take out one of the coins. I force myself to appear weak, to cower.
“Easy, easy,” I say, my voice trembling with a pathetic, fake plea. “Just… just take it. Please.”
With a shaking hand, I toss the coin across the chamber, letting it clatter loudly against the stone floor as a deliberate distraction. Kortyz hesitates, his eyes flicking between me and the coin. It’s obvious that his greed is warring with his desire for violence. I know he’s not fooled, not entirely.
“Please,” I whimper, forcing my voice to break. “Don’t hurt me. Please. Just… take it… and leave. Please. I beg you.”
