The Gauntlet Read online

  Shit.

  I knew I wasn’t fooling anyone anymore, but after today I would be out of here, and away from my mom’s all-knowing glance. It was a skill of all mothers, but hers was a bit more real. She could literally see the future, and the past, as I was doomed to.

  Perhaps she would allow me to continue to pretend this wasn't happening.

  That I wasn’t becoming like her.

  "You're not a king, yet," Talon corrected as if it mattered.

  "I'm the third son of two Eternals, Talon. One of which has been in a ruling position since the Renaissance. I'll never be a king, and neither will you."

  He shrugged, "Fine with me, I don’t mind being ‘heir to the throne’. Ruling would be too much responsibility anyway."

  "Less time with the ladies?" I wagged my eyebrows at him as I shrugged on a pair of tight and slightly holey jeans. The style was one that was popular with the mortals, as well as most of the Eternals when we didn’t have to go to public functions. Very much not suited for today when we were supposed to appear before thousands of ‘our’ people leading up to the Gauntlet, and the start of school. But as I have already proved with the shirt, I very much did not give a damn. I had no intention of going anyway, and the clothes were the first step in reminding them all of that.

  "Yes, Atty..."

  "...Don't call me that..."

  "Once you get out of here and to the Academy you'll see what I mean, Rowan." He gave me a wink as I felt the twist of magic flare down the hall from my room. Just feeling them grow closer was gnawing at my stomach and popping a weird warmth up my spine, warmth that I pushed away the same as every other time.

  "It's a whole new world outside of these caves."

  "I doubt that."

  "You don't know what you are missing, Rowan, because you never leave. You hold yourself down here in Imdalind and think this is the world. Dark stone, magic water, and light from a hundred feet above us. But now you have no choice. They will love you. Promise.” He bounced off my bed, tousled my hair again and waved his hand in an attempt to fix the door before our parents got here.

  One of these days I was going to explain to Talon that love, lust, and resentment were three very different things. Not that he would care. Any attention was good attention in his mind, even if it came from throngs of squealing girls and newly awakened Chosen who would gladly do anything to even be close to one of the Eternals.

  I doubted I could do anything to keep them away, which meant I was heading for four years of hell.

  Of hiding who, and what, I am, and playing a role, and trying to ignore the fact that the dreams I have every night don’t mean something.

  That the girl I see every night doesn’t mean something.

  I had been trying to throw a few extra pairs of shirts in my trunk, but just thinking of her pulled at that warmth in my spine so strongly that my head spun. The magic I worked so hard to keep at bay flared in a flash of red fire, pink hair, and a toothy grin that I had seen far too many times.

  Cringing, I pushed the magic away before any prophecy decided to follow along. I really didn’t need to slip with Talon here.

  Damn Drak magic. I didn’t ask for this.

  Of all my parents’ children, I was the only one to inherit my mother’s power. The gift of sight. Of seeing future and past and all the scary powerful magic that came with it. I knew what my mother could do and while there had been a time I wanted it; that time had passed. She was the last Drak on earth. I wasn't interested in being the second.

  My eight-year-old sister, Angela, was. She hadn’t shown any signs of sight besides one prophetic dream when she was six, however. Besides, she was already struggling to control her power, she didn’t need to add this curse to that.

  No one did.

  I threw the last of shirts in my trunk, well aware that not one of them met the stringent dress code of Imdalind Academy.

  One could not live in black dress pants and a white button ups alone. Not for that long.

  “Row Row!” Angela’s shriek preceded a grunt from Talon and the clatter of what was clearly wood splintering against stone.

  So much for fixing the door. Angela had made quick work of Talon’s patch job.

  “Hey, Angie!” She launched herself at my back, nearly pulling me down on top of the partially packed trunk. I swung her around, holding her against me with ease. Wrestling two older brothers all my life was good for some things.

  And tickling the crap out of my baby sister was the biggest among them.

  “You gonna miss me?” I taunted, digging my fingertips into her ribs and the soft flesh under her arms, sending her squealing.

  “Hey! No! Let me go!” She gasped, her writhing picking up as the tickling did.

  “Not until you tell me how much you are going to miss me.” More tickling, more taunting, all of it highlighted by my mom’s laughter right behind me. “How much are you going to miss me?”

  “I’m… gonna… I’m… Stop!” She couldn’t even form the full sentence. Perfect. Which of course meant time for more tickling.

  “How much are you gonna miss me, Angie?” I asked, throwing her over my shoulder as I attacked the backs of her knees. Unfortunately, that also put her in prime position to pound her little fists against my back.

  “Mercy! I’ll miss you! Let me down, Row!” Her shrieks had reached an apex and while I didn’t drop her, I did stop the onslaught by holding her against me in one of my favorite Angie Bear hugs. The smell of magic in her hair was like spring and sandalwood.

  Assaulting. Perfect.

  My heart clenched. There was little I would miss in the dratted caves we called home. Angie was at the top of that list.

  “So, tell me why you aren’t joining us for the Gauntlet?” Mom was already giving me a look.

  This was how most conversations went with my powerfully confident mother, diving right in as though any discussion was half way through, mostly because she had already seen the first part.

  She stood, dressed in some weird pantsuit number that didn’t fit her personality at all. She always wore jeans with as many holes as I did, some weird graphic on her shirts. Dad, however, was always a King, always regal and kind and currently smiling down on me with his usual ‘I’m so proud of you I might explode’ expression.

  My parents were polar opposites in a lot of ways, appearance was one.

  My dad was tall, with blonde hair that fell half way down his back. My mother’s hair was just as long, but dark and wavy. All of their hair was braided as a sign of bonded mates, but my parents' braids were intertwined with the long golden ribbon that served as their crown. His eyes were the sky blue that at one point had denoted the royal family, which is why all my uncles had them. And most of my siblings.

  And by most, I really mean all of them but me. Because I needed another thing to add to the ‘ways I don’t fit into my family’ list. Their eyes were blue, mine were a deep mossy green. My mother swore that was the color of her eyes before she had received her bite from the Vilỳs and became a Chosen, but it wasn’t helping. Her silver eyes were almost as famous as her Drak abilities.

  Which I am pretty sure I already mentioned I was refusing to inherit.

  Mom gave me a look, making it clear she was going to pull the answer out of me if I didn’t start talking. This was really not how I had planned this conversation to go.

  “I’m not going to the Gauntlet because it’s a foolish tradition that has hindered an entire race of people for over a century.” Luckily, I didn’t even have to think about the answer. I did, however, turn away, running my fingers through my shaggy black hair. Maybe I could get her to switch subjects and start pressuring me to cut it again.

  “Geeze, Atty, you sound like Dad.” Thanks Talon. We clearly needed his snotty perspective on this.

  I turned, shooting him a look from where he was lounging on my bed again. Great. I had planned to take that pillow and now it had his greasy curls all over it.

  “Well then
, Dad and I sound like logic,” I snapped, pulling the pillow out from under him and throwing the thing in the top of my trunk, closing and locking the ancient case with a snap.

  “I agree with you, Rowan, and with your father. That’s why we have taken steps to reverse the damage that was done. Unity and equality has been our goal from the beginning, and it’s time we got back on track.” Mom didn’t need to say the next part in order for me to hear it. She had said it enough.

  ‘Which is why it is important that we all go and make a unified front.’

  It was the same argument she had been making for weeks.

  I agreed with her, and I agreed with what was happening, but I also knew that me showing my face on that raised platform with everyone else was going to create the worst start possible for the next four years.

  Rowan the Prince, at Imdalind Academy.

  I had kept myself out of the public eye for multiple reasons. First, my Drak blood kept me sleeping in weird cycles. Second, I didn’t need to go to the damn school. I already knew how to use my magic. Third, I was being forced to attend specifically as a show of faith for the royal family, as some regal representative. I wasn’t interested in the title or the job.

  This monarchy had caused enough problems.

  “You can do that without me being there, mom. I’ve agreed to go to the damn school, isn’t that enough for you?” I was working very hard to keep both tone and temper under control. I could already feel both pressing under the surface, prodding my magic into a boil.

  “Are we changing the name to ‘That Damn School’? I like it, not sure Cail will approve, but, I vote yes!” The new voice pulled into the room as my other older brother, Dramin stepped over the rubble of my former door to join us, his tall frame, blue eyes, and blonde hair a frightening replica of our father.

  I would gladly welcome Dramin and his wife, Patrice, into my room over my idiot eldest brother any day, but this was getting ridiculous.

  “Is everyone and their dog coming to see me off?” I tried not to sound too hysterical. Instead, I snapped, my magic flaring and causing the locks on my trunk to flick open and earning me a look from my dad, his eyes narrowing.

  Yeah, I know. I should watch my temper.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Row,” Dramin said calmly. “You aren’t that special. We are all here for the Gauntlet, but I’ll give you a hug anyway.”

  “The Gauntlet?” I scoffed, the nape of my neck prickling as I dodged Dramin’s open arms and wide grin and pushed the magic away. “Since when does that race need the full family present?”

  “More like the full guard,” Patrice answered, her voice as soft as her husbands.

  “It’s the anniversary race. We are changing everything…”

  “And not expecting the outcome to go over well.” My mother and father spoke in turns, a simple logical answer. I probably would have believed it too if they weren’t all shuffling their feet.

  I looked between them all, waiting for someone to answer, their dark looks weren’t giving me a lot of confidence.

  “Something happened didn’t it?” The powerful Drak magic was eating into the nerves at the base of my neck now, the wicked side eye everyone was passing around making it hard to ignore.

  “There was another attack last night. A grocery store down in the low district, near the water line, sometime after midnight. Only basics were taken and the building was destroyed. We are sure it is the Undermortals.”

  Undermortals. The poor people who had retreated to living underground rather than deal with the Chosen, the Tarns, and the Mortals who still play into this royal facade. There were more Undermortals than Mortals now. I understood why.

  I had seen why.

  Mothers eyes dug into mine, the tickling power in my neck swelling. I pushed it away, not that mattered. I knew what I would see.

  Her.

  I swallowed. It wasn’t the first time I had questioned if I should tell them what I had seen. Tell them about her. But telling them would be the end of denying what was happening. I wouldn’t be able to hide the magic anymore.

  Besides, something about her felt like it was only for me.

  “Are you sure it’s wise to continue with our plan if these attacks are coming from the Undermortals?” Dramin asked. “That’s what… ten in the last two months?”

  “That we know of. But the buses have already been dispatched to the communities we have been able to identify, and I don’t see anything coming. Our plan is still safe.” Mom turned to me again, giving me the same look. Digging into my soul, or into my sight.

  God, I hated when she did that. I quickly busied myself with straightening my already packed trunk.

  “Either someone came in contact with a loose Vilỳ and has un-centered magic, or they have figured out how to build a bomb that mimics it.”

  Even I didn’t have the answer to that, and I had been dreaming of her and her Undermortal community for years.

  The despair, the starvation. I saw more than a fair share of tears. I cried with her, even if she hadn’t known.

  I saw what we had done to them. Inviting a few hundred to run the Gauntlet, get magic and enroll in school wasn’t going to help anything.

  “I still think it’s a bomb,” Talon cut mom off, all business now. “The Vilỳ’s have been captured since before I was born, there is no way those Drains could have--”

  “Watch your language, Talon. We don’t use that word, as I have explained before,” my father roared, Talon wilting underneath his scorn before he turned back to me. I could have sworn the air turned to ice.

  Talon had sure frozen like it did.

  “Rowan, I understand you are upset about the situation, and I know that what is happening is not your ideal situation. But it is the ideal for the thousands under our command that need us right now. That all begins today, with the Gauntlet, and we need to show all of them that we are unified in this decision.”

  If you ever need to feel what it’s like to be properly scolded, try having a dad that is both immortal and king. I could feel his displeasure in my toes, his voice rumbling in the old Czech language that only our family really used anymore.

  Guess I wasn’t the only one fighting a temper today. If I had inherited one thing from my dad, it was that. A fiery temper worthy of a few legends and a dozen stories. He, however, never lost control of his magic. It wasn’t something anyone else in my family did. We were better than that, or supposed to be.

  “Bringing more of the mortals into the school isn’t going to help, though. It’s going to segregate lines further. We have to heal them before we can join them...” I didn’t get much further before he cut me off with one sharp stare.

  “This is the first step, Rowan. I fought for centuries for peace and equality. We won’t let some parading Chosen’s upset a culture and a power that should benefit all. We have not forgotten the Undermortals. We have been working for years to realign our society. You are a big part of that.”

  “I don’t need to be your poster boy, dad. If you need someone there, send Wyn… or Talon! Everyone loves them.”

  “Atty’s right,” Talon began, and I swear I almost punched him. “Everyone loves me.”

  Yep, totally going to punch him.

  “You should get on the train, Row,” he taunted, winking at me as I fumed. “Maybe people will love you too. Well, like, but even that would be a step up.”

  That time the lid to my trunk flew open, sending pillow, shirts, and a few pairs of underwear over everyone. Poor Angie’s eyes grew wider at the display, more for the underwear than the yelling. The yelling had become the norm.

  “Shut the fuck up, Tal.” Thankfully Dramin was on my side, didn’t derail me from my sudden need for violence.

  Too bad I didn’t get more than a few steps before the swimming sensation at the back of my neck fizzled down my spine and I was forced to a halt, snapping my eyes shut and doing everything I could to force the magic away.

  Great, now my mom
was looking at me too. She clearly felt the sight trying to pull its way into me. And now my parents were doing that thing where they talked into each other's mind, giving each other shifty side eyes that they were still convinced no one noticed.

  “Can you guys please not do that, just for today, just for right now?”

  I would seriously give anything to go live amongst the Undermortals right now, find that girl that keeps trying to take over my sights… I mean dreams, and figure out what her deal is. Not be magic. Not be royal. Not deal with this.

  “Why don’t you all give us a minute?” My mom cut in before anyone else could open their mouths. Everyone shuffled out, but not before putting me on the receiving end of every single guilty stare known to man.

  Well, all except Dramin. The guy was so easy going he was probably going to go find our Uncle Thom so they could stare at a wall together and make jokes that only they could understand.

  Mom didn’t waste a minute in repairing and securing the door after everyone had left, the lock snapping into place and flaring what little control I had.

  This was not going to end well.

  “You slept for two days that time.”

  Yes, mom, I know. I wasn’t going to answer her. Instead, I went back to repacking my trunk, going extra slow and doing it the mortal way.

  “And four days last week. Did you sleep at all between that?”

  No, no mom I didn’t. Good thing she couldn’t hear my thoughts like she could hear dads.

  “You know I can’t force you to do anything. I won’t force you to drink Black Water again, or see. But I don’t think you can ignore it any longer, Rowan. I couldn’t stop--”

  “I can stop it.” I was firm. I didn’t want to talk about it, that first time still haunted me. I still woke up in a cold sweat from those nightmares.

  It was ten years ago that I held that mug in my hands, but my choice hadn’t changed. I never wanted to see that again. I never wanted to see anything.

  Maybe it was desperation, panic, hope. I didn’t know. But I would squash that dangerous power down until it didn’t exist anymore.