Page 56 of Taste of Thorns (The Firestone Academy #3)

Chapter Fifty-Two

B riony

As my feet hit solid ground and the landscape comes into focus, I realize this is not what I was expecting. We’re up in the mountains, high peaks piercing the endless sky and steep slopes descending before us.

There’s not a lake in sight.

Did something happen? Has the Madame manipulated the trial again? Or has she been manipulating us from the start?

Linette Smyte stands a foot away from me, her arms folded across her chest and her lips curled in disgust.

“What do you think we’re meant to do?” I ask her.

She simply glares at me, pressing her lips more tightly together.

This is not what I need.

I lift my hand to shade my eyes against the glare of the sky and peer out. There are paths, actually more like goat networks, crisscrossing the slopes, but I don’t know if we’re meant to follow them or stay here and wait or–

My eyes land on a piece of rolled-up scroll several paces away. Quickly, I retrieve it and uncurl the paper.

“I assume this is for us,” I say to Linette, ignoring the fact she is giving me the silent treatment. It’s not like I asked to be her partner. In fact, there are about a hundred other people I would have picked before her.

I scan my eyes down the text written across the pages.

“We have to retrieve a silver egg from a cave in the mountains. There’s a rough map drawn here.” I sweep my gaze across the landscape once more, trying to find my bearings. “I think that way’s north, right?”

“If you think I’m going to help you …” Linette starts.

“You heard the Madame. We’re meant to be working together. That’s how we score points. If we don’t, we won’t be getting any.”

“I don’t need to worry about points.”

“Really?” I mutter, orienting myself in what I hope is the right direction.

Linette has more points than me, but she’s the bottom of the shadow weavers.

In theory that should put her at risk of being sent to Granite or Iron, especially if she does badly today.

“You don’t want to guarantee yourself a spot in Onyx? ”

“Oh, I’m going to Onyx.”

“Right,” I say, nodding in understanding, “I suppose you’re worried that if you help me, I’ll end up going to Onyx with you.”

She sniffs. “You’re not going to Onyx.”

“Sure about that?” I say, setting off at a swift pace. At first she just stands there, but when I’m a good few feet away, I hear her scrabble to catch up.

“Whatever the Princes have told you is lies.” Everybody always seems to assume that, and yet none of them have a clue what has actually passed between the men I’m dating and me. “Thralls don’t get a free pass into Onyx.”

“I’m not expecting to get a free pass. I’m expecting to earn it.”

“You?” She snorts.

“Uh huh,” I say with a knowing smile that clearly infuriates her.

“You’re deluded. They’ll send you back to Slate like all the other Slate kids.

” A couple of months ago I would have been in full agreement with her.

But I have powers and a dragon. There’s no way they can send me anywhere but Onyx.

And when I expose the Madame’s crimes, they’ll have even more reason to reward me.

“And once you’re gone,” Linny continues, “Henny and Beaufort will reunite. It’s what both their families want. ”

“But not what he wants,” I say.

“You should have seen them together,” she says, her eyes shining in a sycophantic manner, “both so powerful and so beautiful. They were perfect together, made for each other.”

“Unfortunately, Beaufort doesn’t see it that way. And neither do I. I think he was made for me.”

She scowls at me and I’m very surprised she doesn’t lash out at me with her shadow magic. It’s what her sister would do. She must be more concerned about her points total than she is letting on.

We walk in silence after that, concentrating on navigating down the treacherously steep hillside.

Twice Linny slips, landing on her backside and sliding down on the loose gravel.

Each time, I offer my hand to help her up; each time, she refuses.

The second time her arms are all scratched up and bleeding.

“You should heal that,” I say, as she continues marching on ahead, “if the dirt gets into the wound it could become infected and–”

“It’s fine!” she snaps, but I see her dabbing at the wound with a tissue a little later.

Finally, we reach the bottom of the hillside and, after some searching and some arguing, we find the entrance to the passageway leading into the hillside.

It’s pitch black – so dark I can’t see my own hand in front of my face.

It’s going to make it almost impossible to weave our way through the tunnel without getting lost or losing each other.

“Can you provide some light?” I ask Linny, who is peering into the tunnel with a look that suggests she’s being asked to climb into a sewer pipe. “It’ll make things a lot easier.”

She blinks, then lifts her chin defiantly into the air. “No!”

I have a strong desire to shake some sense into the girl.

“Linny, I know we don’t like each other, but that’s just ridiculous. You’re cutting off your nose to spite your own face. We can’t do this in the dark.”

“ You can’t do it,” she says.

“And if we lose each other. If only one of us completes the trial, we’ll both be penalized.”

She simply shrugs, making it clear that is her motive.

I blow out a lungful of frustrated air. This isn’t how things were meant to go. I wasn’t planning on revealing my powers until right at the end of the trial, something I hoped – that I’m certain would – provoke the Madame into showing up and attempt to take me out.

I certainly wasn’t planning on revealing my powers to Linny. But what choice do I have? If we don’t complete the trial, then this plan falls apart. I might not get another chance to expose the Madame with the Empress right here.

I lift my hand in front of me and summon the light into my palm. It’s easy now, becoming more and more like second nature.

Linny doesn’t notice what I’m doing at first, she’s turned her back on me. But then the illumination catches her attention, she spins around and gasps.

“That’s …, That’s not possible!” she gasps.

“And yet it is,” I say. “So eat shit!”

I set off again through the tunnel, the light in my hand revealing the way, Linny’s footsteps close behind me.

“Is that someone else’s magic?” Linny asks, sounding both petrified and horrified.

“Is it the Princes’? You know accepting someone else’s help in a trial can get you banished?

!” When I don’t answer, she lands her hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stop.

“Put it away. I won’t be implicated! I won’t be punished for your stupidity! ”

“Relax,” I say. “It’s my magic. It belongs to me.”

She shakes her head, unable to fathom that someone like me could do something like this.

“But why you, when …”

“When I come from Slate? No idea.”

“The Princes know, that’s why they chose you,” she says, astonished.

“Come on,” I tell her, “let’s just get this over with.”

I have no idea if our plan is ruined. If Linny’s presence means the Madame won’t show, whether she’ll wait for another time to strike me.

There’s only one way to find out.

Linny’s litany of questions continue uninterrupted as we weave through the tunnels but stop abruptly as we step into a huge grotto. I propel my light into the space, illuminating it completely and revealing what lurks in here with us.

Linny screams.

As five giant demons come swooping our way.