Page 129 of A Thread of Breath and Bone

Chapter 46

Raea

Sweat burns my eyes as I swing, willing my fingers to hold on a minute longer. I’m determined to make it to the bridge today. I only have an hour left before rotation pulls me into the sparring rings.

We train on rotation—every two days, a new skill, then back again. Over and over until Riven decides that we’ve mastered the skill. That is, until our awakening and our bodies change. Then we’ll be tested all over again.

“Move,” Alex yells from below. “You’re taking too long.”

A scream tears from my throat as my fingers slip and I fall. I’m no longer terrified of falling, I’m just pissed. I stomp to the beginning, refusing to look at Alex’s smug face. Yesterday, she was encouraging. Today, she is hunting my mistakes.

“Go!” she barks.

I hop onto the first pillar, bouncing to the second, then third. The fourth one is tricky as it’s further away and smaller, but I’m able to land without falling off and immediately jump to the last pillar. My feet barely hit the stone before I sprint through the boulders, rebounding off the rock.

The tunnel of shadows is somehow tighter today, but I keep moving, inching my arms through the moss-covered ground one over the other until I reach the rope. I grunt with every pull up the thick cord, but ignore the burn in my arms. My focus is on the overhang. I will make it. I have to.

Alex said I needed to go faster, so when I reach the platform, I barely have time to wipe my hands before I’m launching into the swing, gripping the same holds that are now burned into my memory. I spent the night dreaming of this swing, these holds, this moment.

I don’t second-guess as I move, praying to the gods my grips hold as I swing through the air. With three to go, I don’t hesitate, ignoring the burn in my fingers. They’ll be healed later today. I swing my right arm, pinching the rock as I swing to an even smaller hold.

My hands are small, so I can’t imagine how a male warrior does this. The tips of my pointer and middle fingers land in the hole as I bite down on my lip and swing for the last. My right hand makes contact, another two-finger at an awkward angle, but I don’t pause too long to think about it. I throw my body through the gap with a fierce yell as my fingers release. The six-foot gap seems like nothing until you’re flying through it.

I sink lower. My feet won’t hit the platform, but I didn’t make it this far to fall again. I cry out when my fingers hit the ledge. I push through the scream of my right shoulder, shoving the agony into a temporary box I’ve been building for years. Every month, my cycle left me writhing, yet I still had to show up to class and pretend the world wasn't tearing me apart. Pain is another skill to master. A human burden I’m becoming increasingly desperate to shed.

My stomach scrapes along the rough edge as I pull myself further onto the bridge. My vision swims as I push myself up. I blink, convinced I’m hallucinating, because the bridge isn’t a bridge at all. It’s a branch. Thick enough to walk along, but it sways in an invisible wind. The boughs are interwoven, stretching the length of the largest bridge on the other side of the clearing.

I have to move. With my first step, I wobble when it shifts—deliberately. I tighten my core, holding out my left arm, but fail to move my right. I think I dislocated it.

I can do this.

Below me is a thick blanket of fog that wasn’t there before. As I move, I’m careful to watch out for shifting bark patterns and knobs. I nearly lose my footing when the bough splits into two, barely wide enough for my boot.

When I reach the other tree, my body sags against the trunk, but the tree quivers beneath me, as if to shake me off. To my right, there’s another bough, but instead of linking with another, it hovers over a deep ravine.

What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I can’t stay here. When I look back toward the obstacle course, terror seizes my lungs. It’s gone. There’s nothing other than a shroud of vines and fog.

Shit.

I move quickly over the bough, hovering near the tip, looking out over the ravine. Where the hell did Alex go? Am I expected to jump?

For a minute, I stand there, straining to listen. This has to be a test. It’s always a test. If I were being chased by a beast, what would I do? That’s when I hear it. Faint, but there. The sound of rushing water below.

I hold back the flood of tears. It’s not fear that brings them to my eyes, but the feeling of being too weak to make the jump. I will not be weak. With a long inhale and exhale, I close my eyes and jump. If nothing else, vines should reach out and grab me.

Except they don’t. I fall through a thick layer of fog, and for a moment, true fear grips me.

Was I supposed to jump?

Am I going to die?

Gods, this was so stupid.

Through the fog, a cliff face comes into view, and on that cliff face, there’s a creature. A large cat, similar to the ones I saw in The Drift, but more regal. It watches me fall. In a moment, it’s gone, and I spin in the air to see water below.

I hold my body tight, moving my feet under me to break the surface before I plunge into the icy cold. My whole body is shocked, but I’ve done this…on Sgya. I point my feet downstream as I exhale and see a thick cloud of mist in front of me. With only one arm, it takes longer than it should, but I manage to get myself to the shore.

I drag myself over the rocks, wincing and biting into my lip to hide a cry as my right arm snags on a branch, pulling it away from my body. My stomach churns as I fall to my knees. I have no idea where I am, and the layer of fog is so thick.