Rosalind’s POV
The marsh sucked at my feet with every step and it took all my strength to even pull out one foot and step forward with another.
I made the mistake of looking back and I saw Adelyn enter the marsh with what seemed like the fury of the world on her face. She moved fast and before I could blink, she skidded and landed on her back splattering mud everywhere.
I laughed and my belly tender from her kneeing protested and I almost lost my balance falling forward until I caught myself.
The person farther ahead was the girl that had picked a fight with the other girl. She seemed to have gotten a hang of this moving-in-the-mud thing.
I looked back at her opponent that lay unconscious and unmoving. A shiver ran up my spine. I hoped she was still alive. Seeing the nobles dolled up it was easy to forget how dangerous they were.
They had enough gold and silver to have their children trained immediately after they were weaned. Even the ladies that would be little more than ornaments for their mates were not left out of this rigorous regimen.
I noticed something strange, Adelyn didn’t move toward me as I had expected after her vow to kill me in the trials.
Instead, the moment she got her feet back under her, she stood and began to move towards the girl that was at most two feet away from one of the flags.
As I moved at my snail’s pace unhurriedly, I reflected on the fact that there was no way Adelyn would catch her on time. The girl would get the flag and then the both of us would compete for the last one.
My vision blurred and I tasted good in the back of my throat. Okay maybe not compete. I would just roll into a ball and wait for her to do her thing.
I would even pleasantly I heard a whistling sound and a choked pained scream.
I turned to see Adelyn had thrown her silver dagger at the girl and it had hit bullseye in the centre of her back. The girl fell and Adelyn smirked.
Shit. I began to move faster.
Adelyn had lost her mind. That Mirror of Reflection thing must have twisted something inside her that she no longer realized the consequences of hurting a fellow noble like herself whose father was probably on the council as well.
I prayed she didn’t have any more silver daggers because if she did, I would die a very short and straight-to-the-point death.
Adelyn turned to look at me and I could read my death in her gaze. “Wait your turn.” It seemed to say before she moved forward to claim the flag closest to her.
I began to move faster than was advisable. If I slipped I might not be able to stand up again but it would be better than getting stabbed to death by Adelyn.
I was a few steps from the flag when I tripped but I fell forward and I clutched the flag as I went down. The world swam in a kaleidoscope of colours as I turned onto my back winded and sinking in the surprisingly cool mud and sparse grass.
There wasn’t anything like bugs and millipedes, to say the least moving in it like there would have been in a natural marsh.
I felt myself begin to drift away when my senses suddenly came alive as I heard and felt movement in the marsh close to me. I turned my head almost getting mud in my eyes to see Adelyn moving steadily towards me with a flag in her hand.
“Don’t worry little whore. I didn’t forget you.” She singsonged and though my dread built up, my boy was too weak to pull myself out of the mud and shuffle away.
“Please. Please.” The sobs escaped my lips against my volition. I didn’t want to beg her for anything but I wanted to die even less.
At this point, it wasn’t even about the competition. It was about the fact that someone as low rank as me had according to her, stood against and disrespected her. That was what I had to pay for.
Adelyn reached me then she went on her knees beside me and took the flag out of my weak hands. She dropped it alongside hers next to her then slipped her hand around my neck and she began to squeeze.
“You will never be my queen.” Adelyn said almost haunted, her hands squeezing tighter and tighter despite my feeble smacks against her hands trying to struggle.
“I was born for the throne. I will rule. It is my destiny.” She tilted her head curiously like a bird. “Just as it is yours to die here.”
I gave up trying to smack her hand away and instead I spread my hands out and touched… soil. It came apart, wet and sticky then I flung it in her face.
As I expected she flinched from it and I managed to pry her fingers from my throat in her moment of distraction.
I rolled in the mud away from her and got up with the last reserves of my strength.
Adelyn growled and picked up my flag. I knew mine was way dirtier than hers because I had fallen with mine as soon as it was in my hands.
I noticed hers was stuck to my pants before she came at me again. Just as she was about to touch me the bell went off signalling the end of the competition and I almost tried in relief.
Adelyn’s face contorted with annoyance. Then even though the trials were over and the paramedics were approaching, she gave me a roundhouse kick to the temple and I crumbled and fell to the ground.
My fingers were now tight around my thigh, the flag as my vision faded in and out until the darkness finally came for me.
*******
Cillian’s POV
I wanted to hurt Arthur. I was trying to understand that tension was high and the trials had taken so many turns that none of us could have expected.
Like the way, Adelyn had lost it at the final trials. And the way, the officials and paramedics had gone off to treat them and subdue Adelyn.
The flags were unrolled and Rosalind’s flag was black, not blue.
Black.
I brought myself forcefully back to the matter. As I glared at Arthur.
“What do you mean she cheated?!”
Arthur’s eyes were shuttered and the other council members looked equally if not more so disturbed.
“An omega cannot win the trials. She must have cheated.”
The way he said cheated as though we hadn’t watched the public trials; the maze and the flags.
The other two were individual quests that ran under the close supervision of the High Priestess because that was how things worked here…
I growled, my wolf a partial shift away as they mentioned Rosalind. “She nearly died!”
Darian didn’t seem apologetic. It was the way he shrugged that belied it. It seemed like he was still holding a grudge over the small shove that Rosalind had given his daughter to save herself.
“But she is alive and now a crown princess. Her involvement must be investigated.”
I wanted to argue more but Killian caught my gaze from across the table and shook his head. I swallowed my words reluctantly. He was right. There would be a time for reckoning but for now, we needed to see what sort of investigation they wished to undergo.
It turned out that by investigation, they meant calling down the High Priestess to ask exactly what had gone down at her side of the trial and if Rosalind had cheated there as well.
Close to an hour later, the High Priestess arrived.
She seemed to know what we wanted to talk about before we even asked her anything.
“The trials work with the ordainment of the Goddess. The omega was destined to be the crown princess.”
The entire council went silent. But all I could fixate on was the fact that she didn’t mention Adelyn. This meant there was hope. Right?
*****
Rosalind’s POV
When I opened my eyes, I was in an infirmary and Adelyn was standing by my bedside.
What the fuck?
Was I still dreaming? No. I shouldn’t feel this much pain if this were a dream.
She didn’t try to strangle me although her eyes told me that it was because people were about.
“I don’t care what the council thinks,” Her voice was low and throaty as she leaned in entering my personal space. “You cheated and I’m going to prove it.”
I felt a surge of anger. So after attempting to kill me numerous times, she had the guts to suggest that I had cheated.
I sat up carefully and although she moved back a bit she was still too close for comfort and I shoved her to the ground.
Adelyn gawped at me as if she couldn’t believe that I would stand up for myself. Maybe she thought that I would just sit and take it. That time was gone. I would fight and walk into any hostile situation with wide open arms. Life was too short to allow anyone to intimidate me.
So I spoke with far more confidence than I felt in a very long time.
“Listen, Adelyn. I am now a crown princess just as you are. If you try to threaten me again, I will show no mercy. I will kill you. It is time you also knew your place and learnt to respect mine.”