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“You think you’re trained enough for the Nithe?” one man asked.

“I’ve raced through forests since childhood,” she said. “Tracked across rocks and logs, more than you louts. ”

“Place your bets, if you think you’re right,” Renwick Raz shouted. I glanced at him and he winked. “She might surprise you.”

“She gets to the end, I’ll take on her chores for a week,” one beefy man offered.

“Been a few years since you shoveled manure, Otar,” someone else shouted. “Unless it was stories you were telling in the tavern.”

“Hell, she gets through them pendulums in once piece, I’ll peel potatoes for a week,” another man said.

Resolve firmed Essabeth’s face as she readied herself.

Senaria’s attention was on her friend, and the way Senaria bit down on her lip, clasped her hands, had me silent and aware.

Essabeth’s sense of balance was on display.

She crossed the spinning log as if it wasn’t moving.

Her feet were always pointing into the upward rotation, always climbing instead of bracing against the slip.

Renwick smiled while his arms remained crossed.

His training became obvious, but Essabeth had a natural talent.

The padded canvas bags were the size of a man and suspended from ropes that creaked from the weight.

Essabeth rocked on her toes, as if memorizing the competing rhythms. Then she leapt onto the first pendulum instead of avoiding it.

Rode it through the swing, stretching, reaching toward the second canvas bag as it swung past.

She leapt and clung to the new rope while the men cheered and laughed, urging her on as she readjusted her body.

But with her added weight, the canvas bag spun, and she missed the passing third pendulum.

Had to sail through the entire wide swing again, throwing her weight against the rope, enhancing the momentum as the bag swung back.

When Essabeth hooked her fingers around the new rope, she stretched between the two moving bags for an instant, hanging on to both.

Senaria held her breath; her fingers twisted.

Then gravity won and Essabeth fell to the sand.

The men were there, pulling her to her feet, brushing the grit from her back, praising her creative effort.

“Until the end.” Otar chuckled. “How about I take on one little chore for the effort?”

“Never saw nothing like that, girl,” another man teased. “You planning on grabbing a dragon’s leg like a limpet, one of them clingy water things?”

“No one else solved the pendulums the way she did,” said Renwick, slapping a hand on Essabeth’s shoulder. “Dragons reward intelligence, not the foolishness in doing one thing over and over because it’s always been done that way.”

“How about Senaria?” Anneli threw out the challenge.

I turned my head; Senaria stood at the steps leading to the platform. She inhaled, her expression hard with determination, and I remembered her fighting men in the rocks to protect Bogo. How she’d hated what she did, but did it anyway.

I remembered her in a crowded tavern, spinning a story about mating customs. Sitting in a candlelit bathing chamber, telling me she was setting her prisoner free.

Remembered her in a flooding ship’s cabin, cutting me free with a knife she nearly dropped from the cold.

Telling me that no one deserved to drown while tied to a wall.

She’d turned toward me in the middle of the carnage, with the red light of fire glimmering in her hair.

And I remembered her stepping over the broken deck railing and disappearing.

Sinking beneath the ocean and knowing that I could either let her go. Or dive in after her. Breathe for her.

Save her, as she’d tried to save me.

A hell of a thing, isn’t it? Weighing duty and honor against what you’ve been missing?

Anneli murmured, “You smile when you watch her.”

“I’ve trained her. I smile at my own success.”

“So arrogant, Draakon. What do they say about too much pride?”

The high mage breathed in while Senaria hesitated.

My chest hurt, but I crossed my arms, stood with the men and waited to see what she would do.

If she would face this challenge, no matter if she ended on the sand.

It was a braver act than half the men in this castle would risk. Facing herself. The fear.

She climbed onto the landing stage and stared at the spinning log.

Started, then stopped. The men all held their breath.

Her fingers gripped the wooden railing, released.

Then she moved, crossing the log like a wild creature moving with grace and confidence, her arms out for balance and her momentum never slowing.

She stepped on the first platform, dodged back as the pendulum swung past. Stepped lightly, small, quick steps that put her at the far edge and across the next space as if she danced with the swinging pendulums, met them as partners and spun away .

My pulse was hard in my throat with something like pride. Her blonde hair glowed like a crown around her head. Light illuminated her fingertips. I wasn’t sure if Senaria used mage magic to control the swinging rhythm or reacted on instinct. Until she faltered.

Until a bird screamed in the air overhead and she flinched. Lost her concentration and then her balance. A pendulum knocked her to the sand. I took an automatic step forward, but Renwick was there, pulling Senaria to her feet, brushing sand from her cheek and speaking too quietly for me to hear.

My jaw tensed.

“I think the Draakon should show us how to challenge the Nithe!” Anneli shouted amid a roar of agreement from the men.

And why the fuck not? Anger drove me. I needed to work the frustration out, and there were no enemies to kill.

No demons to work through, spinning, slicing, destroying until the pain inside me, the emptiness and futility dissolved away into nothing.

The mindless purpose of the Draakon, the many penances at my feet.

Senaria met my gaze, held it as if something important filled every second. As if her challenge to me was more than showing these men how it was done. As if she demanded from me the same thing I’d wanted from her, facing the fear.

Not of who I was or what this challenge meant to the Draakon.

My reflexes were faster, my endurance heightened.

My strength was beyond that of normal men.

She wanted me to face what drove me, what made my chest hurt, my throat clench—the fucking fear that she was staring back at me with clarity.

Waiting to walk away. And it would hollow me out, a loss I should not be able to feel or care about.

I leapt to the platform, crossed the log with a speed that left it spinning loose from its moorings.

Wove through the swinging pendulums as if they weren’t there, never stopping, slowing, never doubting.

The sound of men cheering meant nothing; I chased demons others never saw.

Ran from what I refused to see. I jumped, ducked, reached the far side of the spinning blades.

The muscles in my forearms bunched with the effort.

The curse tablet burned at my throat. I leapt to the first upright log, worked my way from step to step, a spinning dance so much like combat that my muscles moved on instinct.

“Let’s make this interesting,” the sorceress said. Waves of her magic folded through the air and the ground trembled. Black roots shot up between the log poles; one tangled around my leg and dragged me from the log-top. More roots reached while I swung upside down, fighting back with mage energy.

The roots were immune; more swarmed, sprouting like a spreading weed with each one that I destroyed. They twisted like snakes around the upright posts, knotted across the ground. Wrapped around me like a shroud.

“Kion—my sword!” Fennor shouted as he tossed the blade. I snatched it from the air, swung wildly, severing the root that held me, slicing as I fell.

Twisting, I dodged roots that became tentacles when a bulbous creature emerged from the ground—a mage monstrosity of Anneli’s creation. Thick black coils of muscled flesh bound me, lifting my body upward, then slapping me to the ground.

The scent was of things imprisoned deep in the earth.

The screeching sounds held pain and awareness, with a mindless instinct.

A flailing attack. I carved through the leathery mass around my waist, fell again.

Relished every moment, every flex of muscle and pounding bolt of energy, blotting out whatever pain drove me.

My boots kicked up the sand. I tripped on a tentacle and fell. The creature loomed. Stabbing upward, I aimed for the underbelly, thrusting deep with the sword, wrenching the blade until the spill of rancid guts streamed in a stinking black rain.

I spit the vile taste from my mouth. The root creature floundered. Leaping to its squishy back, I sank the sword deep into what looked like its brain.

As the monster collapsed, I landed on the sand, covered in black ooze—my hair, my face, my clothes, as if I’d emerged from a swamp’s mire. Victorious—if I listened to the cheering men.

But when I looked for her, Senaria was gone.