The Elemental Trial Read online

  Orin stood in front of me; I could almost feel the tension in his stance. Just like me, he was ready for anything.

  Molly, on the other hand, seemed quite content to just open the door and see what happened. As it was, the room behind the door was a major let down. Mainly because it was completely empty. Some kind of artificial light, more than likely magical, illuminated it slightly, but beyond that, it was utterly unremarkable. No more than a small cave, really.

  I stashed my knife back in my backpack, feeling foolish.

  Molly made to step forward, but Orin grabbed her shoulder and held her back.

  “What?” she snapped, turning back to face him. “There’s nothing there. I’m just going in to check.”

  “Just because you can’t see anything doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I think one of us should go first. What say you, Ario?”

  “Huh?” Ario clearly hadn’t been listening.

  Orin repeated himself. “I think it might be better if you or I venture into the room first.”

  With any normal guy, I would have been offended that he thought Molly and I weren’t up to going into a room first because we were girls, but I understood Orin’s reasoning. It had nothing to do with our gender, but it had everything to do with our species. No matter how proficient a human was with magic, we would never be able to feel the subtle differences in the magical atmosphere like a faerie could.

  “My pleasure,” Ario drawled, strolling towards the door. His body brushed against mine as he moved past, eliciting an involuntary shiver from me. Once inside the cave, he stopped and stood still. It was as if he was trying to feel the magic. To taste it on the air. “All clear,” he called out. “You can come in, but I’m not sure there’s much point. There’s no magic here, and there doesn’t look to be much else either. I must have been wrong about the clue.”

  The three of us piled in after him. The cave was, as I had first thought, unremarkable and small to boot. If the other team came along now, we’d all be squashed in here. My mind took off at the thought of being squeezed in between Ario, Orin, and Tristam, and I had to take a couple of breaths and severely reprimand myself for not staying on task…again.

  A hint of red lit up the walls, and for a second, I wondered if I was blushing so much my cheeks were actually lighting up, but then I saw Ben with his camera following us into the cave. I turned away from him, not wanting my embarrassment on display for the world to see.

  “Actually, it’s not quite empty,” Molly said, picking up something small off the floor. It was a black box, barely any bigger than a matchbox, but made out of wood. It would have been easy to miss in the low light. There was another, exactly the same, still on the floor.

  “This must be another clue. One box for us, one for the other team,”

  “I’m sure the Faerie king’s son doesn’t need anything so trivial as a clue. Not when he has his daddy in charge.” Ario bent down to pick up the second box, but when his fingers touched it, he cried out, pulling his fingers back quickly. “They put a damn spell on it. Nearly took my fingers off,” he grumbled. “I suppose it makes sense. It would be too easy to cheat otherwise.”

  “I guess you were wrong about there being no magic in here after all,” Orin smirked. “That’s two for two if I’m counting correctly.”

  “Actually, if the boxes are indeed the second clue, I was right about the symbols and door.”

  I was acutely aware that Ben was filming everything. We looked like kids squabbling in a playground.

  “Why don’t you just open the box?” I said to Molly.

  She nodded. Inside was a long thin piece of gold. It was cylindrical in shape and had undulating grooves cut into it. Molly pulled it out of the box to give us a closer look.

  “Gold,” Ario commented. “See. I told you.”

  Orin just shrugged. Maybe he’d decided to be the bigger male after all.

  “What’s it for, though?” Molly wondered aloud. “It sure is pretty.”

  “I think I know.” I held out my hand for it.

  Molly handed me the piece of gold as Ben pushed the camera between us to get a closer look.

  “I’ll need the cryptex too.” If I was wrong, I was going to look like a monumental idiot…but if I was right…

  Orin passed over the cryptex, with the strange hollow in the middle. The gold cylinder fit the hole perfectly. I had to move it around a little as some internal mechanism fitted into the grooves of the gold. Once it was right in as far as it could go, the cryptex gave a faint click, and another symbol appeared. Next to the gold, another hole opened up. It looked like we had to find something else to fit in it.

  “Yes!” someone shouted, sending a deafening echo around the small cave.

  I’d have berated them, but I wasn’t altogether sure it wasn’t me. I passed the cryptex to Ario. He’d figured it out before so it stood to reason he could do it again. “Do you know what this new symbol means?”

  He looked intently at me in a way that made my toes curl. There was definitely magic in his stare, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to fall for it. I’d already forgotten the question I’d just asked him.

  “Ario?” Orin asked, breaking Ario’s stare and giving me some relief. He was watching us closely, in a way that made my skin feel too tight. Man, I needed some air.

  “Let’s go back into the big room to get a good look. It’s brighter out there.”

  I was sure he could see fine in the low light, but it was getting a bit stuffy with the five of us cramped in the little cave.

  I stepped out first and took a deep breath. The air was still musty, but at least, it wasn’t as stifling as the tiny cave. Nine other closed doors waited for us. There must be something else for us to find behind one of them. Like the way out of this joint.

  “I don’t recognize that one,” Ario admitted, peering down at the cryptex.

  Crap. If he didn’t get it, none of the rest of us would. If only they’d have taught this in eighth-grade chemistry class instead of doing stupid experiments with Bunsen burners that I’d never have to do again.

  “Let me see,” Molly said, peering over Ario’s large shoulder. “I know that one. It’s another alchemical symbol. For strength.”

  “Okay…” Ario said slowly. “We have gold, and we have strength.”

  “That’s really helpful,” Orin replied sarcastically, and Ario shot him a withering look.

  “Actually, it is!” I said, suddenly getting excited. Thinking about my eighth-grade science classes had brought something back to me. Maybe they weren’t useless after all. “Pure gold is soft. A lot of the time it’s alloyed with other metals to make it stronger. The piece I pushed into the cryptex almost certainly was.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to think back all those years. I’d sat with my mother in the kitchen going over and over facts about metals for a test. She’d made little cue cards for me so I could remember all the metals and their symbols. Gold was Au. I remembered that one. If only that was the symbol used on the cryptex, then I might have figured it out myself. I didn’t actually know what the difference was between chemistry and alchemy, but there clearly was one. I brought my mind back to the task at hand.

  “Maybe we need a metal that can be alloyed with gold to make it strong. What metals are alloyed with gold…” I said my eyes still closed. “Silver, copper, platinum, and…er.” I searched my mind for the last one, and then it came to me. “Palladium.”

  “Palladium isn’t any of the symbols on the doors,” Ario said, glancing around.

  “What about the others?”

  “That one is silver,” he said, pointing to another door. “I don’t see copper or platinum either.”

  I felt a rush of excitement. I might be onto something. I sure hoped my eighth-grade teacher was watching me now on TV. “So the only symbol on any of the doors that’s used as an alloy to gold is silver. I think we need to find a small silver rod like the gold one to fill this smaller hole in the cryptex.”
/>   Ario nodded. “I can’t come up with any alternatives. The door with the silver symbol is as good as any other. At least, if you’re wrong, we can always come back in here and try again.”

  “Why would she be wrong?” Orin snapped.

  It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, knowing that Orin was standing up for me. I had to remember that Orin was my partner in this and Ario and Molly were only along for this leg.

  “I guess we’ll soon find out,” Ario said, heading to the door, but something stopped him. It was a noise. I heard it too. It was the sound of footsteps echoing up the tunnel we’d originally come through.

  “Looks like the others have caught up,” Orin whispered. “Quick, through the door before they see what we are doing and copy us. I don’t like the idea of giving the prince any more help.”

  But it was too late. Before Ario’s hand was anywhere near the handle, someone barreled into the room, and it wasn’t Tristam and his team. I’d take ten of Tristam over what now surrounded us. Half a dozen twisted creatures with spindly arms and long noses that looked just like the statutes we’d passed. Except these were alive and baring their wickedly sharp teeth at us. Goblins.

  11

  Orin threw up a shield while the other three of us stood, stunned by the appearance of the goblin horde.

  The front goblin, with skin like burnt cracking paper, threw itself against Orin’s purple shield with a howl, clawing against it.

  “Holy shit,” Molly said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We threw ourselves through the silver door, piling into a tiny cave similar to the one we’d just left behind the door marked gold.

  Ario heaved the door shut and the two males worked some magic that seemed to seal the door. The inhuman screams on the other side suddenly quieted, as if they were moving through water.

  “It won’t hold for long,” Orin said, turning around. “Tell me we’re in the right place.”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said, desperate to be right. We’d come in here on my mad eighth-grade science hunch. If I was wrong, and we were trapped in here…

  “There’s something on the wall,” Molly exclaimed, and we crowded around to examine it.

  “It’s a silver rod, like the gold one,” Ario said. “But it’s attached to the wall. Poking out of it. I can't pull it out.”

  A thunk sounded behind us as if something huge was throwing itself against the other side of the door. Dust rained down above us.

  I took the cryptex and slid the new hole onto the silver bar that protruded from the wall. Now it looked like…an oblong door handle. I turned. And nothing happened.

  “It’s not moving,” I said, panic surging in me. I surveyed the wall around the rod, and I could see the faint outline of cracks in the stone. A door. This was definitely the way out. Or at least, a way out. So why wasn’t it opening?

  The thuds against the door were growing faster as if the goblins were working themselves into a frenzy throwing themselves against the other side.

  “This isn’t going to hold for long,” Orin said through gritted teeth. “They’re working some sort of magic. Eroding the shield.”

  Molly shoved me out of the way, kneeling down to try to twist the cryptex. “Nothing!” she said. “We must be in the wrong room.”

  “We can’t be,” I said, looking over my shoulder as the frame of the door splintered and groaned behind me. “Why would this be here? It fits!”

  “Damned if I know,” Molly stood, pulling out her knife and raising the other hand. “But it’s not working. And we’re out of time.”

  The door exploded inward off its hinges, and the goblins flooded the tiny space. A stray piece of wood struck the side of my quad, sending me to my knees with a gasp.

  Ario blasted one of the goblins with a jet of purple flame, and it shot back into the main room with a high-pitched keen.

  Suddenly, it was a melee of snarling beasts and magical explosions.

  I scrambled for my knife, knowing it was my only hope. I didn’t have the magical chops to summon in a moment like this. A goblin careened towards me on all fours, its black eyes fixed on me. I had less than a split second to think and then it was upon me, its razor sharp teeth coming for my throat. With a scream I stabbed it, catching it in the neck. Its claws bit into my shoulder as it thrashed, black blood spilling out over me.

  With a scream of agony, I shoved the thing off me, feeling its claws rend furrows in my flesh as it went.

  I surveyed the room just in time to see a goblin spring onto Orin’s back, its claws fixed around his throat. “Orin!” I screamed, but he sent a jet of magic into the creature, and it dropped to the ground, smoking. There were other goblins on the ground, leaking black blood, writhing in pain. Had we won?

  I pushed to my feet, my shoulder screaming out in protest, only to hear Orin’s voice from what felt like far away. “Look out!”

  I turned, and that’s when I saw the last goblin—it had shimmied up the wall and now launched itself at me like some sort of horrendous jumping spider.

  The breath was knocked out of me as something hit me, knocking me to the ground. But it wasn’t the goblin like I’d expected. It had come from the side; its weight was pressing me to the ground.

  Molly blasted the final goblin with a jet of flame, which illuminated the cave, throwing light on my rescuer. It had been Ario who had pushed me out of the way. Ario—who was now very much on top of me, his green eyes reflecting the light of Molly’s fire in a mesmerizing dance. Ario, who, with his crooked grin and his devastating features, was now examining my lips. And leaning down…

  His weight left me in a rush. Oxygen flooded back into me as I gasped in a breath.

  Orin had hauled Ario off me and now wore a look as black as those goblins’ eyes. He reared back and punched Ario in the face.

  “Orin!” I screeched, pushing up with a grimace of pain at the movement in my shoulder.

  Ario reared back with a shocked look, his hand to his bloody lip. And then his eyes narrowed. Black wings unfurled from his back with a snap, filling the cave with their presence. He went for Orin, barreling into Orin’s chest, throwing him back against the far wall.

  “Stop!” Molly and I screamed together. She sent a zap of magic at them, giving them both a brief electric shock.

  The sparring males fell apart with a gasp. “What the hell, Molls,” Ario glared at her, falling to one knee.

  “What the hell yourself! There could be more goblins where those came from. We need to get the hell out of here, not squabble like a bunch of babies. Over her?” She looked at me like a soggy sandwich, and I narrowed my eyes. This was between my partner and me.

  I stalked across the space and grabbed Orin’s arm, pulling him as far from the other two as I could in the little room, stepping over a grotesque dead goblin body. This was not the time or the place for a relationship talk, but we couldn’t go on if Orin and Ario were at each other’s throats. “Ario saved my life. Why would you hit him?”

  “He almost kissed you,” Orin snapped.

  “So?” I said, my feelings too mixed up for any other response.

  “He’s an incubus, Jacq. It’s what he does. He seduces women. He’s trying to come between us. Tear us apart.”

  I recoiled. “Is it so impossible to think someone could be attracted to me without some devious ulterior motive?”

  Orin hissed. “No. Of course not. But he’s fooling you. I can see him clearly. He doesn’t care about you. Not the way…” Orin swallowed whatever he was going to say next, his jaw working.

  “Not the way what, Orin?” I asked, my pulse skittering in my veins. Was Orin jealous of Ario? Did that mean…

  An inhuman howl sounded from the tunnel outside. We all froze.

  “Oh, hell no,” Molly said and stepped over a goblin carcass to return to the main circular room. She was a strange type of warrior, with her tiny figure and her blue hair in French braids and her cat eyeliner…but I had no doubt she would completely
destroy whatever was coming our way.

  She raised her hands, and the circular room started to shake beneath our feet. I stumbled into Orin, grabbing his arm for support. Rocks tumbled down from the cavern ceiling, a deafening landslide that covered the tunnel entrance where we’d come from, blocking it completely.

  I coughed, waving my hand to clear the dust before me.

  Molly turned on her heel and marched back, her head held high. “That should hold them.”

  “It’ll hold us too,” Ario said, his wings tucking back into his body. “Because unless we figure out how to work this little silver rod thing, we’re trapped.”

  12

  “Let’s try this again,” I said, perhaps a bit snippily, grabbing the cryptex from Molly’s hand without asking. I’d had enough. I’d thought the last trial was bad what with the Erl-King and the Red Caps, not to mention the dragon, but I’d have taken on a whole man-eating forest rather than spend another minute trapped in this room with this lot. Not to mention the fact that a goblin had made a scratching post of my shoulder, which was hurting like hell.

  The FFR producers knew what they were doing when they put us together. The tension in the room was stifling, even without the claustrophobia-inducing pile of rocks blocking our only exit. Add in the blinking red light of Ben’s camera, which had witnessed my mortifying almost kiss with Ario…and I was ready to be carried off by a goblin horde.

  I wanted to kick myself. What was I thinking? Getting involved with another faerie? My mess of a love life—or non-love life as the case may be—had been public enough, thanks to the embarrassment that was my connection with Tristam in the last trial.

  Ugh. Tristam. At least, he wasn’t nearby. With some luck, the goblins had eaten him. There had to be some justice in the world, right? Shaking my head to rid it of the image of Tristam’s smarmy face, I turned my attention back to the cryptex.