The Dragon Races- Part 28

"Fine." Everlys looked around. She met Therin's eyes, jumping to Eriene, Jen, and finally Alaric before glancing back at the Sinistrian.

"Fine, then. Raya doesn't love you. But I assume that you care at least a bit for the rest of us, considering that we're all stuck here and need each other to get out of whatever and wherever this place is." 

She gestured down the tunnel, back in the direction of the place where someone had fallen at her hand. "We can either go forward or back to the cave with three dead people. Choose."

Eriene ducked back to the cavern. Her footsteps were quick as she departed and returned, thrusting a lump of dark fabric into Alaric's hands before stepping back next to Jen. 

He tugged his jacket on, giving a small nod of gratitude in the Foranian's direction.

Everlys didn't know why a wave of jealousy spread over her. She didn't know why she wished she could have thought to do that, that the gesture might have given Alaric a reason to consider her an... ally. 

Therin didn't speak, and neither did the others. He turned and started down the tunnel, looking back at the rest with a silent command for them to follow. Eriene and the Shifter obeyed, walking protectively arm-in-arm.

"Nice speech." Alaric murmured with a laugh. The sound quieted as Everlys didn't return the expression.

She contemplated on what to say, unsure whether to make the moment lighthearted or one of confrontation. Was Alaric hiding something about his magic from her? From the others? And not from Eriene?

"Are you..." The words fumbled in her grip. "What aren't you telling me?" She shook her head as Alaric's brows furrowed and his lips parted to counter her words. "Never mind. We met what- four days ago?" Everlys exhaled a breath. "Whatever."

"I already told you what I know. I don't know how I'm shielding from you, I just am." He took a small step closer, studying her face. "I'm not an Empath, or a Telepath, but is this about Eriene?"

Her face freckled with red- ashamed that he had read through her so easily. She turned away from him, tucking a stray back into her bun and crossing her arms as she stepped further down the tunnel towards where everyone else had gone. "I said never mind." 

He smiled; it was an expression that highlighted his face, illuminating the youthfulness that hadn't yet fled. It curved into a smirk as Everlys's face reddened further- but this time with more of a blush. 

"Remember in the training bay when the Castors showed up?" Everlys nodded. And remember how Eriene and Luke fought? Sparred?" She nodded again. "Eriene chose her side."

Her eyes glittered with amusement at his official, solemn-sounding voice, nodding in agreement. "I...guess she did."

With a silent mutual agreement, they started down the tunnel. The footsteps of Therin, Jen, and Eriene echoed from ahead. Alaric looked over at the Sinistrian as she lagged behind. She nodded with her head for him to continue on, raising a brow as he opened his mouth to ask why.

"I... need to think."

*******************

She tightened her grip on the knife's wrapped hilt. Everlys sharply whispered to herself to stop sweating- her grip on the weapon wouldn't be as firm and steady as it needed to be.

A flash of hair- blonde. Like her's, hidden behind the shielding, drooping fabric of her hood. Like Althea's, glistening like white-gold and flecked with dirt. Smudges that she had tried to brush away but couldn't.

Everlys pushed the memories away- giggling, screaming, crying. A soft voice whispering false reassurances that they desperately tried to render as true. 

She pressed her back to the cobblestone wall as the footsteps drew nearer. They retreated as the person turned to the left. A rusty creak replaced them as they slipped inside of the crumbling building. But as Everlys grazed what lay inside, she could plainly see that the place was the opposite of the outside, the lavish interior well hidden from trespassing eyes. 

Why this person? Why them? She didn't know. Orders were orders. And orders were meant to be obeyed or otherwise be thrown into another place where to only was to survive was by the graces of her femininity. 

Interrogate, kill, and flee without getting caught. 

Orders as simple as anything, as automatic as every breath that passed between her reddened and chapped lips. 

As simple as every other time. 

*******************

"Everlys!"

Eriene grabbed her arm, yanking her back as a circular chasm opened up in the earth. The cavern the tunnel had led to was large- larger than the cave that had belonged to the two Riverdeenian cousins. 

The gap in the middle had a mouth shaped like a perfect circle, a spiraling row of teeth twirling down deeper than the mysterious light emanating from all around them. It wasn't dark- not like they would expect in a cave deep under layers of stone. It was like the same sunlight from the forests had been transferred into the cave without being derived form any specific source.

"What's... down there?" Jen asked. 

Everlys stared intently. Her expression flickered with exasperation. "Good question. Aren't you supposed to know?"

The Shifter cowered behind Eriene as four sets of eyes bore on to her. "It's important. I don't know why. How. But it is. And you need to go down there and figure it out. Any volunteers?" 

*******************

"Volunteers?"

Vertical rows of people filled the only immaculately clean place in their entire province. This was the one place where the floors were truly the color of skin bled white, where the people who visited that one day every year all had been educated in both their magic and what was taught in school.

Everlys looked around, then down at her hands. She clenched her fists tightly, refraining form wincing as her dirt-caked nails dug into her palms. Never before had she been so sure about anything.

She walked forward, silent among the other children and teens littering the central building. The building inside which they would all eventually be tested, the ones compatible moving to the next phase until two from the entire kingdom remained.

The year prior year, Althea Deverell had been one of them. The only thirteen-year-old to have been Chosen since Nevara Castor herself.

A man in white held his gaze on her as she walked up the steps, taking a small silver knife off a tray one of the other people handed him and pressing it to her palm as she held her hand out. Small drops of blood pooled on her palm from the red line, falling like drops of scarlet rain as she tapped them into a small vial

"It's a pity that you might be the one picked."

She looked up at him in confusion. She wanted to move back from him- or fight him- as he gave her a conniving smile.

"A girl with with the looks of yours shouldn't go to waste in the Races."

Everlys narrowed her eyes, yanking her hand away and hurrying between the semi-opaque set of open doors. She dared to glance back, whipping her head around to look forward as she met his cold eyes again.

At least her life wasn't filled with looks from men like that every day. Being trained as an assassin had one advantage- she would never have to live the life of indenture like the girls with no other options had. She killed, instead, just like she would have to do in the arena if she ever got there. 

But she wouldn't- if it meant seeing Althea again, she wouldn't kill. She would wait for her own death and gladly accept it. 

It was better that way. 

Wasn't it?