House of Shadows (Royal Houses 2)

Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to haul herself up. But she was so slippery; she couldn’t make it work.

“I got you,” Roake called. “Just hold on!”

He jumped, landing on her pole. She gritted her teeth and dug her fingers in deeper to keep from slipping. Roake grabbed her wrist and hauled her up onto the pole. It wasn’t quite big enough for two.

“Thanks,” she muttered, holding her bleeding left hand. She didn’t dare look at it and wonder if it would be a hindrance.

They jumped to the next pole and out of that obstacle, before racing toward the rest of their team. A set of swinging monkey bars was over another mud pit, leading to a separate platform that had steep metal sheeting to slide down on the other side. Audria had already landed after completing the swings and was waiting for the rest of them.

“Go,” Kerrigan yelled.

And they went.

Noda dropped into the mud with a scream when her hand slipped on one of the swings. She half-swam, half-flopped out of the mud as it tried to suck her back into the pit. Audria rushed over and dragged her out of the mess. Meanwhile, Fordham was already rushing across the swings, and Kerrigan was next. She ignored the pain in her left hand and swung across the mud pit. Thankfully she made it across with no difficulty.

The metal slide burned straight through her black uniform as she jumped down onto it. She hissed as she landed into loose rocks at the bottom. Roake landed next to her, and they hustled around the bend to a series of climbing walls. The first two had ropes that they scaled, which Kerrigan managed just fine until she reached the third one. A rope was suspended in front of her but far enough away from the wall that she couldn’t brace her feet for support.

“I’ll go first and grab you,” Fordham said.

He moved up the rope as if he’d been made for it. Kerrigan had been working out, but her upper body strength would never be his. She’d let him have this one. As soon as he was off the rope, she hefted herself up one armful at a time.

“Swing to me,” Fordham called.

She breathed out once and then swung the rope toward him. Back and forth. Back and forth. There was a moment of weightlessness, and in that moment, she released her hand. Fordham was there, latching onto her and towing her onto the wall. She stumbled into his body, wrapping her arms around him. Their eyes met for a brief moment. Then, she gulped and stepped back.

“Thanks.”

He grinned at her, forgetting where they were for a minute.

Then, they both looked down and froze. Between this wall and the next were a series of pikes, facing up toward them and no rope or swing or pole to jump from one to the other. Just open air.

“What in the gods’ names?” she breathed.

Audria landed next to them. Gratefully grabbing Fordham’s arm. “What are you …” She broke off as she saw the pit of death between them and the finish. “How are we supposed to do that?”

Roake and Noda landed safely on the wall beside them. All of them stared down at their failure. There was no way to finish this without impaling themselves.

Kerrigan shook out her arms. There had to be a solution to this problem. Alura couldn’t get away with giving them an impossible feat. She didn’t want to fail all of them. She just wanted to test them. Which meant there was a way to get across this. She just had to find it.

She ran back through everything that Alura had ingrained in them the last month. She was a vicious and unforgiving teacher, but she got it done. They were better because she’d been a hard-ass. And she always said that there were no impossible problems. Anything could be achieved together. The program had been designed to test them together. Not apart.

Kerrigan turned away from the pit as her friends tried to reason this out. Her eyes slid to the rope they’d used to get here. Then, she jumped back out onto it.

“What are you doing?” Audria asked.

“Trust me,” Kerrigan said. Her arms ached, and she was still mostly covered in mud, but she managed to reach the top of the platform that knotted the rope. She swung upward, wrapping her legs around the platform and working the rope knot loose.

“You’re a genius!” Audria cried.

They couldn’t cross the divide without rope, and they weren’t provided rope. But she could make do with what she had. She finally got it loose from the mooring and then swung it over to her friends. Still dangling upside from the rigging, she wriggled across the platform. For a second, her visions shifted. Suddenly, she realized that she was right side up. Her stomach hit the beam holding the platform up, and instead of inching, she crawled toward her teammates. She was so disoriented, wondering why her friends were hanging from the ceiling. She had to close her eyes and right herself again. Zina’s teachings had worked a little too well.