Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
"They're all delusional," Nolan mutters beside me. "At best, one in six of us survives this."
"Then why do you sound so confident?" I ask.
He gives me a thin smile. "It’s like I said. My cousin said I have fire affinity markers. Strong ones."
"I hope you're right." I mean it. Despite barely knowing him, I don't want any of these people to die. But I also don't want to die myself, and the realization sits like a stone in my gut—a selfish, heavy thing I can't quite dislodge.
A guard's voice suddenly cuts through the chamber, silencing all the voices. "Eris Moraven."
A girl near the front straightens her shoulders, looks around nervously, and then walks forward. "Wish me luck," she says.
A few nearby offerings mutter encouraging words.
The doors swing open just enough to admit her, then close with a heavy thud that reverberates through the stone floor.
The room falls silent. We all wait, barely breathing.
Ten seconds pass. Twenty.
Then we hear it—a scream so filled with terror and pain it doesn't sound human, cut short by a wet, tearing sound that turns my stomach. Blue light flashes beneath the doors, and the smell of ozone fills the air along with the coppery tang of blood.
Someone near me retches. A girl begins to sob quietly, the sound muffled by her hands pressed desperately against her mouth.
The playful whispers and hopeful chatter doesn't return. Silence reigns, because now we all understand what we're really waiting for.
Our turns to die.
2
"Nessa Thorne."
My name echoes through the antechamber, and my stomach drops like it's been cut loose from its moorings. The stench of burnt flesh still lingers from when Nolan entered that room thirty minutes ago. His screams had been mercifully brief.
The fire affinity markers he was so confident about hadn’t saved him.
And now it's my turn.
Mireen's hand finds my arm, her copper-red braid coiled like a crown around her head catching the dim, flickering torchlight. "Good luck, Nessa." She gives me a small, encouraging smile that crinkles the crescent-shaped scar at the corner of one eye. "Remember, if you die in there I win the bet.”
I grin. “I’ll see you on the other side, Mireen.”
Just a few short days ago, I thought I already gave up my life when I volunteered. But now I feel soul shaking terror, like I want nothing more than to run from this room and this claustrophobic place. It’s as if some stubborn shred of hope has shone through thick clouds—a beam of yellow cutting across a gray landscape— and now it’s the only thing I can see.
My legs feel weighted with lead as I force them forward, one reluctant step after another. My heart hammers against my ribs. I imagine the other offerings feel the same thing I felt as I watched others enter these doors. Relief it wasn't my turn yet. Guilt for feeling relief.
I take a deep breath and step through the doorway. The doors slam shut behind me with a sound like judgment, locking me inside with whatever horrors wait in this chamber.
The metallic taste of fear floods my mouth as I take in the circular room, far larger than I'd expected. The air crackles with power and smells of storms, burnt flesh, and the unmistakable tang of blood—so potent it makes my stomach heave. My heart thunders in my ears, drowning out everything but the screaming of my instincts to run, to hide, to escape. I force down the bile rising in my throat and scan the room, trying to steady my breathing.
That's when I see them. Bodies. Dozens—maybe hundreds—scattered across the floor in grotesque positions. People who stood where I'm standing not long ago, people who failed whatever test awaits me.
I swallow a scream of terror when I spot Nolan's wide, unblinking eyes staring from his charred corpse. His fingers are curled like claws, as if he'd tried to fight the fire that consumed him. A fire that couldn't have been natural—his clothes are barely singed while his flesh is blackened, like he burned from the inside out.
The scream building in my chest gets trapped behind clenched teeth, transforming into a strangled whimper that sounds pathetic even to my own ears. I force my eyes away from the carnage and look up at the chamber's vaulted ceiling, which disappears into shadow. With a shaky breath, I find some semblance of calm. I'm either going to die here, or I'm going to survive. Either way, I'd rather do it with my chin held high.
I walk up a series of steps, gradually bringing the "test" into view, along with my first glimpse of… them. I avert my eyes at first, almost like looking away from the sun on a bright and clear day, focusing instead on the mundane.
I look at the four decorative stone pedestals, each supporting a vessel.