House of Shadows (Royal Houses 2)

Another understatement. Spirit magic continued to save her life.

“When do we begin?” Kerrigan asked eagerly.

“My dear, we’ve already begun.”

21

The Course

Alura’s obstacle course was a nightmare. She must have been working on it all month. The entire thing was set up inside the arena with various apparatuses along the course. They each had to run it together, working as one timed unit to make it to the end. Slowest time counted for everyone. So, there was no incentive to leave anyone behind. This wasn’t a competition, but a building block of the Society. In battle, they’d need to work together. Ingraining it in them now would help when it was necessary later. Waiting at the end of the brutal course was Lorian’s final. So, they’d have to walk into the sword fight, exhausted, just as they would in battle. Wonderful.

And worse, they had spectators. Kerrigan could see Lorian standing taut at the end of the line, but there were a dozen other people with him. Kerrigan recognized Bastian and Helly as well as a few other high-profile council members—Kress, Lockney, and Alsia. She gulped.

“Prepare yourselves,” Alura said.

The five of them lined up on the white chalk line. Kerrigan looked to Fordham on her right and Audria on her left. They both nodded. They were in this together.

Alura blew a whistle, and they all sprinted forward. Over the last month, they’d all gotten faster. The daily runs had sure helped with that, but now, they were running together as if their lives depended on it.

The flat-out sprint was the first quarter of the race, leading directly to some kind of pond, complete with plant life. Going around would take too long. All five of them dived into the craggy water. It was deeper than Kerrigan had expected, quickly coming up to her waist and then her neck. She swam forward, glad she’d had lessons in the House of Dragons. No one stumbled at this part despite the training program not having a swimming component. But as they all finally cleared the water, they came up to a deep well of mud and no way across but through.

“Gross,” Audria grumbled next to Kerrigan.

Kerrigan had to agree. She tramped through the mud, getting the goop up to her waist. When suddenly, she stepped down, and there was no ground. She screamed as she dropped under the mud.

“Kerrigan!”

She fought to reach the surface. Just as her oxygen was depleting, a hand clamped around her wrist. Fordham’s face came into view as he and Audria hauled her out of the mud pit. Noda was helping Roake out of similar circumstances. Fordham rushed to help her, towing the lot of them back to the land.

Kerrigan choked and spat up mud, trying to blink it out of her eyes. Fordham gave her a part of his shirt to wipe her eyes. Roake looked worse for wear as well but just as determined.

“That was disgusting,” she said as they hurtled forward. She was coated in slick mud from top to bottom. Even the vibrancy of her red hair didn’t peek through.

They reached a set of wooden pillars that were roughly fifteen feet high. A fence was placed between each of the poles to keep them from running straight through the pillars.

Fordham got it first. “Scales, we have to climb.”

“Ugh,” she groaned. There weren’t any handholds. They wouldn’t just climb; they would have to scale the pole and then jump from one to the other. “Gods.”

“Let me through,” Noda said. “I’m a good climber. I’ll go first.”

She shimmied up the pole as if it did have handholds. Kerrigan memorized the way she moved and watched as Noda easily jumped from one pole to the next. There were eight poles in total, and she vaulted from one to the other like a dancer twirling on a ballroom floor.

Fordham went next and then Audria, both making it look easy.

Roake nodded at her. A camaraderie had formed between them. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were teammates. “You first. I’ll boost you.”

“Thanks,” she said in relief.

He hoisted her up in his arms, and she was halfway up the pole in a matter of seconds. They weren’t allowed to use magic on the obstacle course, so she had to rely on sheer strength to claw her way up.

When she reached the top, she lay on her stomach, panting. How had they made that look so easy? Her vision was dizzy as she looked to the other seven poles. With a grunt, she unsteadily rose to her feet, praying to whichever gods would listen that she had the balance for this. As soon as she jumped to the second pole, Roake climbed up the first pole. Kerrigan jumped from one pole to the next. She was to the last pole when she landed wrong and she slipped on the mud still caked on her boot. She cried out as her foot fell out from under her. Her hands pinwheeled she threw out her hand, her fingernails digging into the wood, ripping and bleeding, but she held on. Barely.