The Necklace: The Trial Realm

Chapter Twenty Nine: Shit And Fans

The others look nervous too, watching me carefully.

"How much have you told her?" Yael asks Raven and Raven slides out of the bed to stand too.

"I told her she's got a trial." He tells him. "That's as far as I got though."

Brynlynn puts her hand on my shoulder and frowns. "They're going to decide if you can even stay here." She says, confirming my fears. Of course I'd assumed something like that would be happening, but it becomes all the more real when you hear it out loud. "You broke a lot of rules, Mal."

"I know." I sigh, looking down at my bare feet. Maybe soon they will always be bare again, covered in so much mud and dirt I won't recognize them again.

"They're bringing together a whole higher council to decide whether you deserve to stay and finish your training or if your actions forfeited your right to your stone and place here." On instinct my hand flies to my stone, trying to think how I'll ever feel whole without it. It's what got me here and made me something more than a dirty Ring fighter. I need it. "If they choose to make you leave...you'll get the memory swipe."

"What?" I gasp. I'd thought I was pretty prepared for everything but looking around the small room at these faces of people I've grown to lean on and love, I don't want to forget them. I don't want to have never known them.

"I know it's scary, Mal." Bryn runs a hand through my hair. "We don't want that to happen either. We've got to make sure you don't leave. Not only do we freaking love you and want to keep you, but we need you. With Ol-..." She drops off and I know what she wanted to say.

"It's ok, you can say his name." I sigh.

She bites her bottom lip and nods remorsefully. "With Oliver gone, we really can't stand to lose another member to our team."

Yael moves out of the doorway as Maxum arrives, giving me a quick fist bump.

"I never liked him anyway." Yael says under his breath.

Maxum looks over at him and half smiles. "The guy was a prick most the time."

"Max," Bryn narrows her eyes at him. "You know that isn't true."

"Right, whatever." He shrugs. "He wasn't always like that."

Raven shifts closer to me and I smile faintly at him, letting him know I'm fine. I can't avoid hearing about Oliver for the rest of my life and I'm probably about to start having to hear a lot about him and talk about him in my hearing. I can't let the hurt control me.

"Anyway," Yael singsongs. "We've got other, possibly more pressing issues."

"More pressing?" I snort. "What could be worse?"

Yael rolls his head from side to side. "I said possibly more pressing."

I roll my eyes. "Spill it."

"Ok, well, so I was looking for you-."

"-Oh boy." I shake my head, already knowing where this is going.

"-and of course, as I'm sure you guessed, I apparently ended up somewhere I really shouldn't have been." He widens those shiny purple eyes and makes a face. "I kind of sort of ended up in this restricted area and found my way to these meeting rooms, where there was a meeting going on."

"Naturally." I nod.

"There were a lot of apparently important people in there, and they were discussing a bunch of problems. Apparently the whole world is going to shit."