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Hope is tapping her foot on the stone, and she barks out, “Fine.” She holds out her hand. “For future reference, I will never trust you. If you push me, I’m taking you down with me.”
“Aw, you want us to die together. How sweet,” I sarcastically tease, taking her sweaty hand. We both step onto the pathway at the same time, and I don’t look down, knowing it will make my legs shake and make me freeze. Her hand tightens in mine, almost painfully, and the blood from my cut pools in our joined hands. I realise it’s not just my hands bleeding, but hers are too.
My heart is in my throat with every step we take across. The wind is blowing harshly against my body. Hope wobbles and I pause, waiting for her to straighten up. She nods at me when she is ready, and we move again. I focus on the dragon kings waiting, watching intently. Arden looks ready to jump through. Emrys is the closest. Grayson and Lysander are pacing behind them but watching. The rocky pathway gets smaller and smaller the further we get towards the end. So close. We are so close.
Suddenly the ground shakes, and I jump, landing on the ledge, but I crawl to the edge as Hope falls off, missing the landing. She screams, clinging onto my hand, and I throw my other arm to grab hers, pulling with everything I have. I dig my feet into the stone as I pull her up, crying in pain. She finally hooks her leg on the rock and makes it easier for us to get her up. I fall back with her on the ledge, the portal by our heads. I look over at her. “Why didn’t you let go?” she asks, panting.
“Because despite everything you think about me, I’m not a killer,” I bite out. She doesn’t say a word as I let go of her hand and stand up. I walk straight out through the portal and onto the grass on the other side, where it’s far warmer. Within seconds, Emrys picks me up and swings me about. I let myself relax in his grip, just for a moment, and he kisses my cheek. “Fuck, I was scared for you then. You’re alive.”
Cheering bursts out of the crowds, and for a second, I actually feel good about winning. Good, that I somehow survived the impossible. Then I remember that not everyone has survived, and I still have friends in there. Livia, Florence, and one other girl whose name I don’t know are behind the kings. But Arty isn’t with them. She’s still there. I climb out of Emrys’s arms and turn around, watching the portal.
Hope is already out and with Lysander, who is talking quietly to her. Arden comes to my side, Grayson following. All four of us stare at the portal, the seconds ticking by. “I should go back in and—”
“No, you won’t,” Arden coolly interrupts. “Your friend will make it if it is fated to be.”
“How is any of this fate?” I demand. “It’s just messed up. It’s insane!”
“Calm down, Elle,” Lysander commands. I narrow my eyes at him for a moment, but he is ripped from my glare by Hope, who kisses him, turning his head with her hands. I’m guessing she somehow thinks there’s something going on between us. There is definitely not. He’s my enemy. He may have healed me, but that doesn’t make things okay between us. He literally threatened to kill my grandmother and is blackmailing me into getting close to Arden and then killing him. He’s always going to be my enemy for that, and he can be nothing more. I watch the portal, every second feeling like years. Nobody else comes for such a long time that I almost give up and cry for my friend. I almost burst into tears, because at some point, I really started to care about Arty.
Then I see her. A flash of blonde hair in the wind right before she runs across the pathway. Why is she running? She is going to fall! Only when I move as close as I can get do I see the ledge and pathway is cracking, breaking away as she runs. My heart is beating a mile a minute as her wide, panicked eyes meet mine. She jumps at the last second, falling through the portal and slamming into me. We both tumble to the floor, and I laugh as she cries, hugging her tightly.
My wrist burns and I lift it up, seeing a white dragon appear under the red one on my wrist. As I stand up, Grayson walks over to me. He stands close, and for a moment it’s just us. Arty is talking nonstop, Emrys and Arden are cheering with the crowds, and the world seems hell-bent on being overwhelming. “Well done, brat, but that was easy compared to what I have planned.”
The earth dragon king walks away with a cruel smile, and I have a feeling the worst is yet to come.
CHAPTER 13
As I’m finishing mermaid-braiding my hair after my shower, a sound makes me pause. I look over my shoulder to see a new door in the bathroom open, creaking slowly enough to sound creepy and make me jump. I narrow my eyes, seeing the prison on the other side. At least the castle isn’t trying to hide where I’m going this time. I glare at the walls around me and reach for the door back to my shared room, only for it to disappear.
“For fuck’s sake, I don’t want to see her!” I say out loud. Thankfully, I’m already dressed, as it would be awkward as I’m left with no choice but to go visit the prisoner, who I wish I never met. The woman isn’t sitting on the floor, and this time, rainwater drips in from outside, thunder vibrating through the air above. This time, she’s not weeping; she’s happily twirling one strand of her black hair around her finger. Her massive dark eyes watch me like a hawk. “You smell like them. The new dragon kings. Now they have their claim on you. All but one, and the puzzle is done.” Her voice is sweet, sickly, almost as if she sings her words to me.
“I don’t ask to come here.”
“I’m aware,” she coos, with a look in her eyes that chills my bones. She looks familiar though. The more I come here, the more I can’t shake the feeling I’ve seen her somewhere before. I just can’t think where. “But did you know that you never needed to be claimed in this world?”
“You act like you know something more about me than I do. Which is impossible. I know everything about my life. I know my parents. I know my grandmother. I didn’t know I had some weird ancestor who came from this place, but now I do. Stop being cryptic,” I snap.
The door I came through angrily slams shut beside me, and I jump. The woman laughs. “Yet the castle keeps bringing you here again and again to see me. How interesting.” She intently watches me. “Do you know about the fifth court yet? Have you heard about it? Are you curious?”
I vaguely remember Arty saying something on my first day here that there was a fifth court, but I brushed it off as nothing, as something she must have misheard. “They haven’t told us about it, but I’ve heard here and there that there might have been a fifth court.”
“There are five elements,” she states, holding her head high. “So, of course, there were five courts in the beginning. The fifth element was the strongest.”
I might be stupid, but I find my feet moving closer. I find myself wanting to know more. Something about the fifth court…bothers me. I don’t know why. “What was it?”
“Spirit, young one,” she replies, her voice luring me in. “Spirit is all around you and can be found in the light, darkness, and shadows. The fifth court could control death. They could make and decide when someone died. They could bring shadows to life. Shadows would worship them, follow their every command like baby dragons’ kits following their mothers.” She rises to her feet, her tattered dress falling off her shoulders as she continues.
“They were deadly, far worse than anyone here. They didn’t shift into dragons. They didn’t need to. The shadows would make dragons for them to ride. They could fly into war, and no one could ever escape the fifth court. That was the fifth court’s famous saying. ‘Challenge us and everywhere you go, our shadows will follow until we claim your death.’ Every court in this world has shadows. Every corner. Every inch, and they could attack from anywhere. That’s what made them the most dangerous court. The court would not only attack you, but they could control your death. They could slow time towards the end, turn the last seconds that it would take to die into hours. They could kill you with one touch and also, for those they were bonded to, they could bring them back from the dead. The royals of the court were particularly dangerous. They had power like no one had ever seen.”
My jaw drops. To control death…that is an insane power. “What happened to them?”
She dramatically plops onto the ground. “Dead. All of them. The sorcerer killed them. He was smart,” she continues with a sigh. “To go after them first. He knew they were the most powerful threat in this world, and if he could get them out of the way, then the other courts would fall in time. And they all did. They all fell so hard that even now, the remains are weak. True power has been lost, and getting it back will take far stronger dragons than the ones ruling. Only when all five courts are one will the stars bestow their power.”
“I think they are pretty powerful,” I point out.
She smiles. “You’re so…foolish. They have an inch of the power they were born with. They are trapped in his curse that you’re living out now. Everything’s connected, Ellelin. Even you.”
It’s still creepy she knows my name, but this is the most I’ve heard of this world. I’m curious about this place, even if I do want to go home. “The dragon shifters will go extinct. They are being hunted even now. Every day is a ticking clock, with no one to wind it, and no one will be able to stop it from dying.”
