Nothing.

Rosalind’s POV
I was going to die.
And for the first time, I swear I was not exaggerating anything.
The day had started out on a high note with the third trial of Honesty being an individual trial giving me enough space from Adelyn and whatever she had planned for me.
The Honesty trial was one where we were brought in one after the other into a room blindfolded and then taken out the other way so that no one met with anyone else both in entering and exiting the testing chamber.
When I pulled off my blindfold, I was in a white room with a large veiled object that might have been a mirror but it was larger than any mirror I had ever seen, at least a head or two taller than me and as wide as if I outstretched my hands and then some.
The room was so white and pristine that I felt dirty in the clothes I had been in for over a day now and my arm still throbbed periodically from the wound that still bled albeit slowly due to the tie I had placed on it.
The disembodied voice sounded chilling or maybe it was my imagination.
“Welcome candidate to the third round. The third trial here is Honesty. Prove you are pure enough at heart enough to wear the crown. In this category to win, you must be without deception, your true self. You will look into the Mirror of Reflection in the centre of the room and face your true self. The only rule here is to be true.”
The Mirror of Reflection. Chills broke across my skin. It was a cursed mirror. A mirror that was rumoured to have been enchanted by the witch queen in her bid to kill our King that had liberated us.
I was supposed to look into it and find myself when it had been made to destroy the minds of wolves far greater than me?
Maybe I should quit now and let Adelyn win. It wouldn’t be cowardly of me to do so. It had to be better than living with a broken mind.
Right?
Yet as I turned to leave I realized that I hadn’t been given an option to leave like press the button to disqualify or something.
As I tried to puzzle this over, I heard whispers. Whisperings in a language I couldn’t understand but desperately wanted to.
I stepped forward almost against my will, unable to stop myself as the hypnotic feeling grew the closer I got to the mirror I pulled down the sheet of velvet covering it and for a moment I saw myself.
My brown hair looked like a rag on, had made a nest in it and had babies. My skin looks a little bit too pale under the light and my blue eyes looked almost too blue.
I leaned closer amazed at how blue it looked. Was that how I looked normally? My image suddenly morphed into that of a skinny kid with dirty stringy hair darting out of a shop with stolen food in her hands and the screams of the owner as they pursued.
My past. The trial had begun.
This wasn’t so bad. I knew I was poor and came from nothing. So what?
The child morphed into an older version but not quite who I was yet. This version was walking fast. Too fast. There was someone dying at the side of the road asking for help but this version of me acted like she couldn’t see them as she walked faster.
My cheeks felt wet. I brought my hands to them to realize I had started crying without my knowledge.
I had ignored that person scared it had been a ploy to get me close to rob me or worse kill me. It wasn’t uncommon in the districts for people to make attempts like that. Everyone was hungry and desperate or greedy and cruel.
I thought nothing of it until I passed the same street the next day smelling the rot meters away. The man’s organs had been harvested and his carcass laid open with what looked like a million flies feasting.
I was sick for days. I cried, cursed and starved myself. I should have helped. I should have done something. Anything regardless of the risk. If I could return to that moment I would choose differently. I would.
But it was too late. The image changed to Cillian saving me from Ronny and somehow he looked even more handsome. Goddess, I missed him. I missed him so much.
The image flipped to me letting Killian finger me when I came to his room to make his bed then it was back to Cillian teaching me to read but I was stealing glances at a brooding Killian.
I was unable to stop staring at the ever-changing reflection that now moved to Killian wiping my tears and our almost kiss then me touching myself thinking of Cillian.
My cheeks burned as I realized what the mirror was implying, no not implying, I had done all of those things. No one had forced me. No one made me do it. I’d played two brothers. I had betrayed Cillian’s trust by doing what I had with Killian.
And Killian in his own thorny way showed how he cared for me. How unfair was I to love Cillian and still want Killian? How?
Then the image morphed into one that had never happened, at least not one that I knew of Killian and Cillian fighting each other while I stood crying to the side begging them to stop. Then Killian stabbed Cillian in the chest and I screamed.
Killian twisted the sword before pulling it out and Cillian fell to the ground, his eyes wide open and empty. Killian stood over Cillian’s dead body then he suddenly clutched his chest and the tip of a silver danger protruded out of his chest from his back.
He turned to see his murderer.
“Rosalind?”
Then Killian dropped dead as well.
“No, no, no!” I screamed in the mirror and I screamed in reality as well.
The mirror naturally didn’t switch up memories this time letting me dwell on my failure. I killed them. I killed them.
I buried my head in my hands feeling sundered and broken.
The sound of pure rage and guilt and pain that escaped me was a combination of a scream, a growl and a keen.
“No!” My scream reverberated in the entire room and I heard a loud cracking sound. My eyes opened and the mirror had a single crack down the middle and the images of my princes dead faded away leaving the mirror as normal as it could look.
I turned away from it feeling raw and bleeding from the things I had seen, tears flowing unendingly down my cheeks. There was no disembodied voice to tell me if I had passed the third trial but the exit door was open and I ran out.
And yes. The fourth trial was still worse than the third.
I wrestled with Adelyn or more accurately, I was trying to avoid the silver headed straight for my belly.
In the last trial, Wrath had the most deceptively easiest rules. Take and keep the rolled-up flag at the end of the field before the time was up. When it was, the flag would be unrolled and you would know the prince you had chosen. Blue for Cillian. Black for Killian.
We were four left now. I didn’t know what had happened to the other two. If they had withdrawn from the third trial or had lost their minds.
The four of us seemed out of it as we stood in new clothes we had finally been given after a generous shower.
It was barely two hours after that Mirror episode for me. I was the last person to have gone in there so I had the shortest recovery time. When I closed my eyes, I could still see myself stabbing Killian, watching Killian murder Cillian. To say I was fucked up before the trial even began was an understatement.
To make things even more interesting, the field leading to the flag was a marshy field. Basically, move too quickly and you found yourself on your back, the sticky mud seeming to hold you down even when you tried to stand.
Move too slow and the mud would suck you in with each step making your progress excruciatingly slow.
The moment the commencement of the game had been announced, Adelyn came at me, her eyes bloodshot.
“You won’t run my future, bitch!” And the silver came straight at me. From the glance from my side eye, I could see the other two girls were fighting as well instead of attempting the field.
Stupid.
They should have taken advantage of our fight to help each other to get to the flag but not for these nobles competition was everything even in situations they could help themselves out.
Adelyn kneed me in my belly and kicked my feet out from under me as I wheezed, my body aching, she twirled the silver in her hands.
“You are nothing. You will be nothing.” She said gleefully. Then she kicked the back of my head with the special no it’s that were a part of our ensemble because of the mud.
My head swam and my vision swam. I saw her boot move again and I knew if it landed, I would not only be out for the rest of the game but the end of the week – if she stopped with two kicks, a third and I was sure I would have amnesia and the four would definitely kill me.
Adelyn grinned widely as she moved to kick me again. I caught her leg by wrapping myself around it like a constricting snake. Off balance, she fell.
I detangled myself from her as quickly as I could with my head aching like a bastard then I entered the marsh.