tusks. I peered over the edge. Four of the beasts paced around the base of the tower like sharks circling a life raft.
Still, there was no way they could possibly reach us. We were safe.
Revna leaned against the railing, next to Sune. “You made it,” she said to me, then narrowed her eyes at Ali. “You trailed blood all the way here, you know.”
My chest tightened as I saw the blood streaming from Ali’s leg. She desperately needed medical care.
Suddenly, a shadow passed over us—a High Elf riding a moth. One of the judges. “One hundred and fourteen remain. The Night Elves have lost badly!” she shouted down to us.
“One left,” said Revna, turning to look at me. “One more elf dies, and this is all over.” She refocused on Ali and drew a dagger. “The Night Elves are losing anyway. She dies no matter what. Those were the terms, right? If the Night Elves lose the Winnowing, they all die.”
“Looks like we can win this,” said Sune.
“Don’t you dare,” I growled.
“Skalei,” whispered Ali.
Revna lunged with a knife, but Ali parried the strike. Fast as lightning, Ali lunged, slashing Revna in the face with the tip of her blade. Blood sprayed across the white marble of the tower.
At first, I thought Ali had killed her, but then my sister moaned. Slowly, she sat up, clutching her face in her hands. Ali had carved a gash diagonally across her face.
With a snarl, Sune slammed his fist into the side of Ali’s head, so hard I heard the crack echoing out over Boston. Before she had a chance to recover, he was holding his own knife to her throat. “You dare come after my sister?”
Ali was out cold, limp in my brother’s arms.
I wasn’t going to stand by and watch them kill Ali, even if it meant I would give away the truth about the Helm, that I’d found a way around it.
Help me kill them, Ganglati.
Certainly, he whispered.
Sune brought his blade up, ready to bring it down into Ali’s throat.
Ice water filled my veins, and I lost control of my body. With an inhuman scream, I ripped him away from her.
I threw Sune over the side. For a final instant, I saw him suspended in midair, pale hair flying, eyes wide as saucers, before he disappeared out of sight.
Then came the jubilant squeals of the boars, and the shouts from the judges that the hunt was over.
Chapter 35
Ali
I paced the length of my room, back and forth, back and forth. Even after rewrapping the bandage, my leg ached. My thoughts whirled wildly between three things.
The first was the Winnowing. The final tallies had been thirty-nine High Elves, thirty-nine Vanir, and twelve Night Elves remaining. The Vanir and the High Elves had tied so far.
Worst of all, the Night Elves had lost. The addition of the Vanir to the Winnowing had disrupted our plans completely. I thought if they hadn’t turned up, we would have won. We could have freed ourselves from the caverns, lived in the sunlight, found a new source of food. We could have stopped the starvation.
Grief carved me open. The Vanir boar had trampled our plans into the dirt.
Now, we’d been eliminated from the Winnowing. Either the High Elves or the Vanir would have dominion over us. If the High Elves won, they would march their soldiers into the Shadow Caverns in the next few days. Then they would kill every last one of my brethren. I had to hope now that the Vanir would win, and that they would be merciful. But they didn’t exactly seem like the merciful type. I still didn’t understand why they’d entered the Winnowing to begin with.
Then, there was Galin.
He’d killed his own brother to save me, and I had no idea what sort of punishment he’d face. But it seemed our plans to find the wand were now in ruins.
After he’d thrown Sune off the tower, High Elves on moths descended on us. Revna immediately told them what happened. Galin had been marched out of the tower in manacles.
I turned Skalei over in my hand, then threw her at the door to my room.
Thunk.
She quivered in the wood. I was getting even better at the knife throwing, though I wasn’t sure what good it did me now.
I swallowed hard. With Sune’s death, the trial had ended. The High Elf moth-riders took the little princess to safety, leaving me up there. I had to find my way back to the Night Elves.