Empire of Flame and Thorns (Flame and Thorns #1)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

A ir saws through my throat as I suck in deep breaths. The next hedge corridor opens up into some kind of wider space up ahead, and I’m sure that something awful awaits me there.

By my best estimate, I’m about halfway through the maze.

Apart from the ice wall, the other clan leaders have also given us some nasty surprises. Gremar Fireclaw used his magic to create a field of lava a few corridors back, which forced us to climb along the hedge walls to get through it.

I drag in deep breaths and try to calm my pounding heart as I finally reach the end of the corridor.

Just as I expected, a larger space opens up before me.

To my surprise, it’s filled with people.

Frowning, I squint at the scene before me. Why are there so many people still here? I’m in the middle of the pack, so all of these people should already be far ahead of me. And why is it so dark?

I glance upwards.

Oh .

The area where the next hedge corridor should be located has been blocked off by a smooth rock wall rising straight up to the top of the hedges. No doubt courtesy of the leader of the Brown Dragon Clan, who has earth magic.

The rock wall then continues up over the entire space, making it impossible to climb over it. The only way forward is a narrow hole in the ground. And since only one person at a time can crawl through what is likely a tunnel that runs the entire length of the next corridor, it has created a bottleneck.

Behind me, leaves rustle.

I glance over my shoulder to find a woman trying to climb up the hedge wall behind me. It’s no doubt an effort to make it to the top of that wall, which would then allow her to run across the top of the stone roof instead. But three quarters of the way up, the leader of the Brown Dragon Clan, in his dragon form, suddenly sticks his head over the edge of the roof and snaps his jaws at her. She shrieks and falls back down to the ground.

With a sigh, I turn back to the hole in the ground. He must be guarding the stone roof to prevent anyone from getting past that way. Which means that the only way forward is through that tunnel.

Somewhere higher above the rock wall, other dragons roar impatiently.

I drift closer to the tunnel entrance.

A crowd is already gathered there. Thankfully, Alistair is nowhere to be seen. He has been at the front of the group this whole time, along with Isera, so he must already be through it.

Tension crackles through the air, and irritated voices follow it. It should be a simple case of first come first served, but instead, people are fighting over who gets to crawl through first. I study them for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do, before deciding to simply wait for my turn.

“Why?” a voice suddenly asks from beside me.

I start in surprise and whirl towards the sound of the voice. To my utter shock, I find Isera standing there. She has been at the very front this whole time. And she is strong enough to force people to let her use the tunnel first, if she wants to. There is absolutely no reason for her to still be here.

Because I’m so stunned to see her, I only manage to blink at her in surprise instead of actually replying.

She doesn’t seem bothered by it. As usual, her face is a mask of calm composure. She pushes her long black hair back behind her shoulder as she comes to a halt next to me. But her silver and blue eyes remain firmly on the tunnel entrance ahead of us.

“Why what?” I ask at last, when I’ve finally managed to gather my wits.

She casts a brief glance at me from the corner of her eye. “Why don’t you use your magic against everyone else?”

“Because I’m not Alistair.”

“I heard you made Tommen fall from the ice wall.”

“That was for revenge. He made me fall first.” I motion at the people around us. “These people haven’t done anything to me.”

“No, but you still need to win.” She twists her head, her eyes serious as they lock on mine. “You could make them claustrophobic enough that they won’t dare to go through the tunnel, couldn’t you?”

I hesitate before admitting, “Yes.”

She just continues holding my gaze. There is something dangerously intense about her eyes. She usually doesn’t say much, or bother to interact with people, but when she does speak, people listen. She has a sort of effortless power about her.

And because of that, I find myself starting to ramble.

“Yes, I could. But I won’t.” Pain squeezes my heart as I add, “People already distrust me enough as it is. This would only make them hate me and fear me more.”

“So?” Isera arches a dark brow at me. “Let them.”

I frown in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“If people fear you, use it as a shield. People will always seek to tear you down, because of one thing or another. Be it for how you look or how you behave or who your family is or what magic you have. There will always be people who will use any weakness against you so that they can feel better about their own pitiful lives.”

In all our time here, I have never heard Isera speak this many sentences consecutively, to the same person. And not only that, she’s being… comforting.

“The trick is to use your own weakness before they can.” She holds my gaze. “If you flaunt your insecurities, they can never be used to hurt you.”

Her words strike something deep in my heart, and I find myself rocking back slightly on my heels from the impact of it. Use my fears, my insecurities, so that no one else can use them against me. It’s a terrifying thought. A brilliant thought.

But why in the world would Isera ever share that with me?

Studying her face, I furrow my brows in genuine confusion. “Why are you helping me?”

She breaks eye contact and instead goes back to watching the scene before us. She says nothing.

Now feeling even more confused, I stare at the side of her face. Then I flick a glance at the area before us where people are one by one crawling into the narrow tunnel.

Isera swallows. And for the first time ever, a flicker of dread pulses across her face.

Realization crashes over me. “You’re claustrophobic, aren’t you?”

She works her jaw and swallows again, but she doesn’t answer. With her eyes still fixed on the hole in the ground, she instead says, “I know that you can increase people’s fear. Is blocking out someone’s fear also within your capabilities?”

“Yes.”

Silence falls over us again. Isera’s chest rises and falls as she draws in what looks like highly controlled breaths.

“I would owe you a favor,” she says at last.

A small smile threatens to spill across my lips. She’s too proud to ask the actual question. But I can still hear it clearly in the faint hint of desperation that laces her voice. Asking me this, even without actually asking, has been incredibly difficult for her. But she still did it.

“Alright,” I reply.

She snaps her gaze to me, blinking in shock. Apparently, she was certain that I was going to refuse.

After searching my face for a few seconds, she gives me a slow nod. I nod back.

Ice surges up from the ground. I start in surprise as Isera raises a massive block of ice and uses it to push everyone to the side so that the area in front of the hole is clear.

A few curses rise from some of the others.

“Step aside,” Isera growls.

Those who had been about to stalk back to the tunnel pause. After one look at Isera’s face, they take a step back and motion for her to go first. She, in turn, motions for me to crawl into the tunnel first.

“If I’m behind you, I can make sure that no one tries to mess with you while you crawl through,” she explains while we walk closer to the hole.

I raise an eyebrow at her. “And you trust me not to break my promise halfway through the tunnel and simply crawl away without you?”

“Yes.”

Her response is so immediate, and so confident, that it stuns me. No one has ever trusted me, with anything, before.

It takes a moment to compose myself after that, but once I’m ready, I drop down to my knees in front of the hole. Isera does the same behind me.

“I’ll start blocking it now,” I tell her.

She nods.

Channeling my magic, I push towards the bone white spark of fear in her chest. It’s massive, and we’re not even in the tunnel yet. I pour my magic into it, decreasing it into the tiniest of drops. Then I start into the tunnel.

The walls of packed dirt are so close that my shoulders almost brush against them when I move. And I have to crawl on my hands and knees, and keep my head lowered, to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling of the tunnel.

A scraping sound comes from behind me as Isera crawls in after me.

The moment she’s inside the tunnel, that spark of fear in her chest explodes into a wildfire.

It’s so intense, so all-consuming, that I actually gasp from the force of it.

Isera lets out a small noise, almost like a whimper, at the back of her throat.

I throw all the magic I have into smothering that flame of fear. Once it’s back to the tiniest of drops, I hear Isera release a deep breath behind me.

We start into the tunnel.

It took me almost a hundred years to learn how to completely separate other people’s feelings from my own. If I had tried to do this when I was thirty, I would have drowned underneath the intensity of Isera’s fear. I would have felt her claustrophobia as acutely as she herself felt it. But because I’ve had over one and a half century to practice, I can now fully block out other people’s emotions while still feeling them clearly enough that I can manipulate them.

Only the soft scraping sounds of our knees and hands break the silence as Isera and I make our way through the tunnel. But as we crawl, her words keep echoing in my skull.

Let them. If people fear you, use it as a shield.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s time to start being a little ruthless. What does it matter if the other contestants fear me or despise me or outright hate me? I will be leaving this city as soon as I win the trials anyway.

Glass clinks faintly from the box I still keep inside my clothes.

An idea flashes through my mind. A ruthless and wicked idea.

I know how to win this trial.

The glass egg in the box I received might be broken, but no one ever said that I needed to present the same box as the one I received.

So it doesn’t matter that my box is useless.

I’ll just steal someone else’s.