Page 42 of Spirit Trials

Harper elbows her. “She doesn’t need you to remind her.” She reaches down and pulls a long strip off her trousers. “We can use this to immobilize it against your body. Ready?” I nod and then try not to scream as she moves my broken wrist and places it gently next to my stomach and then ties the wrap around my stomach to hold my arm in place.

I glance down at the big guy. “What’d you do to him?”

“I used a rock,” Harper says. “We better keep moving. We don’t want to be here when he wakes up.”

“Thank you. He was....”

“Crazy?” Kinsley fills in.

“Out of his mind,” Harper adds.

“Yeah. I don’t have any clue what he was talking about. Do you?” I ask and try to move a few steps.

“Nope, but it’s not like he was bright to begin with,” Harper points out.

“Yeah, but why did he think I had anything to do with whoever he was missing?”

They both shrug. “Maybe he lost that guy that was with him the first day,” Kinsley says. She faces me. “What are you going to do?” Her voice is worried.

“About what?” I focus on just taking another step.

“Your dominant hand is broken. You can’t shoot your bow or use your knife and... What?” She asks suddenly.

I look over at the two of them. Harper is shaking her head. “You have the gift of inspiration. Really, Kinsley.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make it worse. I just—”

I interrupt before it gets out of hand. “I know. Things aren’t looking too great for me right now, but I’m not giving up,” I say with determination, though my words are a little breathless and I’m pretty sure I’m about to pass out.

“Of course, you’re not. That wasn’t what I meant,” Kinsley adds, sounding distraught.

Desperate to think about anything other than the pain I’m in, I ask, “Any ideas where to look for coins?”

“Yes!” Harper says brightly, and I turn to her hopefully. She scowls. “If I knew where they were, we would have grabbed them already.”

“Harper!” Kinsley elbows her.

“It’s fine. It was a stupid question; I was just trying to get my mind off my hand,” I tell them as we keep walking. It gets quiet after that, and I try to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and not on the pain of my wrist.

“Do you think a lot of competitors have already found their spirit animal?” Kingsley asks after we’ve walked in silence for a while. Before I can answer, the forest seems to come alive with the sound of an echoing horn. It goes for an eternally long time. We all stand stock still. When it finally ends, I turn to the girls.

“What was that?”

“I have no idea,” Kinsley says, turning in a slow circle. I look to Harper, but she just shakes her head.

“There’s a spirit wolf,” Harper mumbles. I look up and see a spirit wolf running through the forest to our left. I can’t help but stop and stare. The animal is pure fluid motion. It’s like he runs on air; his feet barely touch the ground. A girl runs beside him, having no problem keeping up with him. She glances over at us, and I tense; but she leaves us in peace and keeps running. When they’re out of sight, we start forward once again. Only a few minutes later, we see a second spirit wolf. This time, we get out of the way, because he’s charging right at us. A tall guy runs behind it, keeping pace. We stand and watch until they disappear and then start forward again. The sun glints off something, and I walk over to a plant. Carefully checking it first, I bend over and use my good hand to reach out. I smile wearily when I feel a gold coin.

“Well, this just made our day better,” I say as I walk back to Kinsley and Harper.

“You found another one!” Kinsley yells. “Good job.”

We start walking again, and I do everything in my power to keep my mind off my pain. My entire body is shaking now, and black dots line my vision. But I force myself forward, keeping watch for both gold coins and heartshade that could help take away my pain. We haven’t gone all that far when a spirit jaguar lunges through the air over our heads. I don’t even have a chance to duck. “Whoa,” Kinsley whispers. “He’s beautiful.”

“She,” a girl corrects, appearing out of nowhere and running after her jaguar. I stare after her.

“I feel like we’re missing something,” I say out loud.

“We’re definitely missing something,” Kinsley echoes.