Mantle of the Gods

“When did you…?” The hitter glared at her.

“Take me instead." Rix repeated, spitting the rest of the gag out of her mouth. “She has nothing to do with this and it’s me you’re mad at anyway.”

“No.” He shook his head. "They won’t try as hard for you.”

“She’s just a buffer without any skills.” Rix puffed out the chest she didn’t have. "You’ve seen what I can do. Taking me off the board makes it harder for them.”

He looked like he might consider the swap.

I didn’t want them to keep either of them, but I had to admit, I believed Rix had a lot better chance of surviving than Aelin if we failed.

“Making it harder for them, while taking away the urgency.” He shook his head. "Tell you what.” He smacked his knees. “You've convinced me.” He looked at me. "Midnight in four days, if you haven’t reached the second floor, then we throw her in to fight the boss by herself.”

“No!” I shook my head

“Deal.” Rix spoke over me.

“You cannot be serious.” I glared at her.

“We have a deal!” He stood up. "Let’s go!”

The others got up from their fire and started heading past us on the trail. The tank hoisted Rix over his shoulder.

“You can do this!” Rix shouted as she vanished into the darkness.

“Since this became a little more interesting.” The black-haired man dropped the broken sword and Rix’s knife in front of me. "Here’s a few pieces of information. The boss room is right there.” He pointed in the direction the rest of his party had walked. “Follow the trail that way and make a right at the T.” He pointed in the other direction. “You should get back to the bridge in about an hour. From there, you can figure out where your friends are.” He looked at Aelin, then back at me. "If you stay on the road, the monsters won’t attack you.” He grinned and followed after his team. "See you at the end of the week!”

I watched him vanish into the darkness, then started working on getting free. First, I tucked my legs and got my hands in front of me, then I grabbed the knife and cut my feet free. Once I was able to walk around, I moved over to Aelin and cut the ropes on her. Once she was free, I shook her until I was able to get her awake.

“Wha?” She exclaimed. "Where’s Rix? Where are we? What happened to you?”

I dropped the knife in front of her. "Cut me loose please.”

“Oh.” She grabbed the knife. "What is going on?”

“They took Rix and said they were going to throw her in the boss room in four days if we don’t make it to the second floor before then.”

“Why would they do that?” She exclaimed while she cut.

“Because they’re pissed that Trent got taken from them, so they want to hurt his new students for revenge?”

“No. I mean, yes, that. But why did they take Rix?”

“Because she almost killed two of them?” I didn’t think she needed to know that they were going to take her originally.

“That makes sense.” She got me free. "Can we even get strong enough to beat the boss by then?”

“It’s possible.” I said. "But it’s not going to be easy.” I slipped the knife into my pocket and realized that I was missing the level sixteen crystal. I wished I had left it in my desk. But it wouldn’t be too difficult to prove that it had belonged to me. It was from a monster on the fourteenth floor of Zeb, which would be easy to prove I had been on. I just had to survive the week to get it back.

I grabbed a stick from the fire and handed it to Aelin, then took one for myself. "Come on, let’s get back to the others.”