A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,225

shoulder. “You’re the new ribbon, Az.”

The obstacle course remained impossible.

The bastards changed it every night. Each new morning was a different, harder challenge. But one that had an overall pattern: it usually began with some array of footwork, whether doing a swift run of knee-to-chest steps through a ladder on the ground or balancing on a suspended beam. Then came mental testing—puzzles that required them to think together, and then rely on each other to get through. And when they were thoroughly exhausted, the feats of strength came in.

The three of them made it to the third stage only once in the next two weeks.

Roslin, Ananke, and Deirdre were close on their heels, propelling Gwyn to push her group harder. She wanted to be the first. Wanted Nesta and Emerie and her to be the ones who wiped the smirks from Azriel’s and Cassian’s faces. Especially Azriel’s.

Never mind that, after the first day, they only had an hour to get through the course. The other two hours were spent as a group, working on military training: marching in formation (harder and stupider than it looked), fighting side by side (more dangerous than it seemed), and learning how to move, think, breathe as a unit.

But they kept at it. Marched in Valkyrie phalanxes. Fought as one, with Cassian and Azriel playing their opponents. Learned to hold their shields in place against the onslaught of the Illyrians’ Siphons, their towering male forms. Every bit of Valkyrie endurance training paid off: every infernal squat or lunge now allowed them to brace their shields with little effort. To hold steady against an enemy attack.

They exercised as one, in precise lines as they did their abdominal curls to the same beat. Did push-ups together. If one collapsed, they all had to start over again.

But they kept going. Through sweat and breath and blood, they forged themselves together.

And sometimes, when the evening services were over, the three of them would gather in the library and read about military strategy. About Valkyrie lore. About the techniques of the ancients.

More of the priestesses cut the ribbon—Roslin. Deirdre. Ananke. Ilana. Lorelei.

Everything Azriel and Cassian threw at them, they took and threw right back.

And every night, Nesta ran the stairs of the House. Farther and farther and farther. She hadn’t been able to reach the bottom again since that fight with Amren, but she kept trying.

No longer did memories and words send her rushing down it. Now she was driven by pure, unrelenting purpose.

Nesta, Gwyn, and Emerie defeated the obstacle course two months to the day after it had been brought in. Of course, it was on a day when all the priestesses had been summoned away by Clotho for some special ceremony, so there was no one to witness it other than Cassian and Azriel. Only Gwyn had been exempted from the ceremony, apparently.

And when Gwyn reached the finish line, bloody and panting and grinning so wildly her teal eyes glowed like a sunlit sea, she only extended her battered hand to Azriel. “Well?”

“You already have your prize,” Azriel said simply. “You just passed the Blood Rite Qualifier. Congratulations.”

Gwyn gaped. Nesta and Emerie halted. But Gwyn said to him, “That was why you invited them?”

Nesta had no idea what the priestess was talking about, but followed her gaze upward, to the lip of the pit, where a stone-faced Lord Devlon and another male peered in, scowling.

No doubt this was the reason the other priestesses had been occupied today.

Cassian murmured to Nesta, “I had a feeling today might be the day.”

Devlon seemed ready to erupt, his face purple with rage, but he looked to Cassian and nodded tersely.

“You told the priestesses not to come?” Nesta asked Cassian and Azriel.

“We informed Clotho that we might have some observers today,” Azriel answered, eyes full of ice and death as he stared down Devlon. The male looked away from the shadowsinger before grunting to his crony and flying eastward toward Illyria. Azriel went on, watching them vanish, “Clotho explained it to the others—and they chose to find other ways to fulfill their day.”

Nesta asked Gwyn, “But it seemed like you didn’t know what we were doing.”

“Cassian and Azriel warned me that we’d be watched by males today, but didn’t specify why. I had no idea it was the Blood Rite Qualifier.” Her eyes shone bright above the dirt smudged on her face.

Emerie had blanched, though. She asked Cassian, “We’re not entering the Blood Rite, are we?”

“Only if you want to,” Cassian assured her.