Mantle of the Gods

Justia met us at the fence

“Where’s Rix?”

Aelin jumped over the fence that had been finished and ran over to the Healer and wrapped her arms around her.

Justia looked at the crying blonde attached to her and then up at me, “What happened?”

It was around five in the morning and it was shifting from moonlight to the first blush of morning. We had lost almost our entire buffer for the day because we’d had to hike up here from what felt like the other side of the floor. On top of that, finding our way through the woods without Rix was hard enough, but at night, it had taken a lot longer. On top of that, my arms and legs were burning and I was wanting to fall asleep, but we had to move our camp. There was too much to do for me to stop.

“We ran into Trent’s old team.” I leaned up against a tree as I composed myself, “They came to haze us and took it too far. We tried to fight back, which only pissed them off.”

Justia slowly bent down and laid Aelin on the ground. I realized the blonde had fallen asleep. The brown haired Healer touched our Buffer’s cheek and motioned for me to move away from the group.

There was a low fire smoldering in the middle of the fenced area. Ether and Edward were sleeping on either side of the fire.

“How bad is it?” Justia demanded

“Bad.” I nodded at the fire pit, “You got a fire started.”

“Don’t change the subject.” She glared at me, “How bad is it?”

“Really bad. They want us to drop out so they can have Trent back. They wanted to kill us, but they know they can’t get away with that, so instead they want us to fight the floor boss. If we don’t beat it before Trent shows up, then they are going to throw Rix in the boss room by herself.”

She bristled, “They think we’d risk dying to save her?”

I hadn’t expected her to not be gung-ho for saving our team member, “This is a member of our party.” I tried to emphasize the situation, “They are torturing, healing, and then torturing her all over again.”

“My job is to keep you safe.” Justia shook her head, “It doesn’t matter who the other person is, even if it was me, you shouldn’t be risking your life.”

She had a point and not just about risking my life, but I was going to be risking everyone’s lives. I could call their bluff and hope that they weren’t killers, but I had a nagging feeling that the only reason they hadn’t killed us on sight was because they hadn’t thought that they could get away with it. And I had a feeling that this ‘game’ of theirs was just a facade and that they were going to try to find a way to kill us anyway.

I shook my head, “There isn’t any risk because the one thing this game of theirs gives us is time. We’ll have time to get stronger and prepare for our next encounter. With them.” My mind was swirling with options of how to deal with the other group. “What I need from you is for you to get the others on board.”

We both looked at our sleeping team members. I felt my eyes start to droop, but forced them open. Once the sun came up, it’d be easier to stay awake. I had less than an hour, but I wasn’t going to waste that time.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Justia shook her head, “There has to be something we can do to signal our teacher.”

“Do you think he’s going to intervene?”

“He’s bound to protect you!” My Priestess exclaimed, “If he knows about this, he can’t sit back and watch!”

“He’s bound to keep me alive and train me.” I walked over to the stacked fruit. Ether had put her jumpsuit back on and laid mine out next to the food. I started knotting the arms and legs, “If the two of us make it out of this alive and level two, what will it matter if we ‘almost’ died?”

“He wouldn’t.”

“We’ve known the man for less than a week.” I started stuffing the jumpsuit with fruit, “He has to be one of the highest level Adventurers.” I stopped as a wave of exhaustion washed over me. I used my palms to force my eyes to stay open until it passed, “How many times do you think he’s seen people ‘almost’ die or even really die?” I made air quotes, “He’s locked us in the dungeon with barely any gear for practical training...” I pointed at her axe. “Instead of giving us the basics in a lecture. This whole thing sounds to me like something he may have even orchestrated as a way to toughen us up faster.”

We stared at each other in silence as I realized that my rant made sense in a way.

“What do we do?” Justia’s voice wavered.

I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be alright, but I knew it wasn’t. We had surprised the other team once and they weren’t going to drop their guard around us again. And whatever they were going to do, they had four days to plan it while we had to focus on leveling up.

I had to give her hope, because if she didn’t have hope, I wasn’t going to be able to keep the others moving.

“It’s going to be okay.” I got up and walked over to her. I picked up her chin so that I could look her in the eyes.

“We’ve got four days. I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be hard, but we can do it.” I nodded at the others, “And I’m going to make sure we all make it out of this.”

She nodded numbly, “What do you need me to do?”

“Start waking the others up.” I caught her shoulder as she moved towards the smoldering fire, “There’s um… one other thing.”

“What else is wrong?”

“It’s not exactly wrong…” I swallowed and backed away from her a step, “Uh…Aelin may know you like her.”

Justia looked like I had just slapped her, “WHAT!?!?”