Warrior of the Wild(10)

“You’re staring at me,” Torrin says.

“You’re the only thing here worth looking at.” I’m surprised by the brazen words after they’ve left my mouth.

But Torrin doesn’t tease me for them.

“That’s not true,” he says, locking eyes with me.

For the first time today, a bit of nervous energy stirs in my belly. I laugh off his comment.

“Warriors, quiet yourselves!” Master Burkin calls, silencing our chatter. “There are various entrances to the maze, so I will be spreading you out. Follow me. Be ready when the doors open, but don’t enter until you hear the horn blow.

“The rules of the trial are simple. The hourglass will turn. By the end of the hour, you all must have killed at least one ziken and you must avoid being bitten. Anyone who fails to meet both requirements will face banishment and the mattugr.”

A spike of fear ripples down the assembled warriors.

Burkin turns. As one group, we follow. A foot blocks my path, but I jump over it before I can trip.

“The maze is a dangerous place for a rat,” Havard says. “There’s more than ziken to worry about in there.”

I narrow my eyes at Havard. It would be just like him to spoil this for me, to try to get me banished and left to die outside the village.

“Tell me, Havard, will you be able to see the ziken charging at you past your broken nose?”

It’s swollen to twice its usual size and bent horribly to the side. I hadn’t realized I’d kicked him so hard during training yesterday, and it must have been too dark last night for me to notice.

Havard scowls at me. “You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

He walks off. Torrin steps in front of me before I can get any ideas to follow.

“You four, enter here,” Master Burkin says. He starts divvying us up, putting three to four people at each entrance as we circle around the arena.

“Rasmira, Torrin, Siegert, and Kol, you stand at this door. Best of luck, Rasmira, though I know you don’t need it.”

“Thank you,” I say flatly, irritated that he hasn’t given anyone else the same good wishes.

A look of frustration crosses Torrin’s face at the words. Before I can say anything to try to make up for what I cannot control, the look disappears.

“It’s a lot different viewing the maze from this angle, isn’t it?” Torrin asks as he pulls his ax off his back.

The rest of us do the same. Siegert and Kol glance at me with cruel smiles on their lips, as if they know something I do not.

“The walls seem higher,” I say, avoiding their stares.

The metal door starts to lift, pulleys screeching as it heaves upward. While we wait for the horn to sound, I take another chance to survey the crowd. My father has joined the rest of my family. Their eyes are all on me. Now I really feel waves of tension. Mother is watching me. I can’t mess up. Even if it’s impossible, I have to try to make her proud. I cannot be hated by her my whole life. Once I pass my trial and become a woman, I have the option to live in my own home. She’ll have Father at the house without me. She’ll get the attention she craves from him. Goddess knows I receive too much of it.

Everything will be the way it should have been from the beginning.

The deep blare of the horn sounds above the chatter of hundreds of voices. My stomach plunges to my toes, and Torrin and I are off.

The ground is uneven. I lift my feet high above the rocks as I run to avoid tripping. Some grass cracks through in places, breaking up the ground further. Siegert and Kol race against us. At the first fork in the maze, they veer right while Torrin and I head left.

I relax a little once they’re gone. It’s easier to focus when it’s only me and Torrin. Now if I could just forget the fact that my mother is watching me from the seating above the arena …

Low shrieks sound throughout the maze. Someone has run into the ziken already.

“Come on,” I say, excitement pulsing through my veins. Torrin quickens his pace to keep up with me. We turn right, left, left, right, plunging as deep into the maze as possible, listening to the hungry calls of the ziken.

We take one more turn before a flash of black streaks across my vision.

“Finally,” I breathe.

The ziken halts and turns as soon as it hears us coming.

When standing on all fours, most ziken are between two and three feet tall. Instead of fur, they have a shiny black exoskeleton, as thick as any armor forged by man. Their eyes bulge outward, like an insect’s, and I can see my reflection multiplied a hundred times in the faceted eyes of the beast before me. Its legs end in sharp claws, and its mouth unhinges to let out an unsettling cackle. Bulbous red-orange eyes fix on me, and then it flies toward us at a gallop, tail whisking behind it.

“I’ve got this one!” I shout to Torrin.

I sprint headlong toward the ziken, holding my ax so it is parallel with the ground. The creature never wavers in its direct path to me. I hear my blood in my ears, see my breath pool out of me in the cool morning air.

I dare a glance up into the stands, unable to help searching for the look on my mother’s face. Will she seem anxious or eager? Will she be watching me at all?

But what I find is worse than all the options I’d considered.

Indifference.

If I win my trial, I will be a woman, finally able to leave her household and live on my own. She never has to see me again.