Shadows and Steel | ✓

chapter twenty-nine

-29-

Sleep seemed an impossibility that night. And the night after. The third round of elimination was soon approaching and Elle had never felt more put together yet shattered at the same time. Cerid didn't mention the Order again, nor did she. Elle hadn't heard from Tristan since the party. She didn't want to think of what she would do if he were caught. Mather had informed the remaining thirty that the small trial would be on endurance. Not her strongest area, up against larger men but good enough for her to remain.

Elle eyed her name on the board. Eleventh.

Cerid's tip which he had mentioned was to detach the mind and reach a position of mental numbness. Then? She had asked. He had smirked, handing her Ravaryn after it had been knocked from her hands. "Hold on." Rand had his hands backwards on the bottom bunk, doing pull ups shirtless. Elle averted her eyes, not wanting the eyesore of his chest in her vision. Tan had no such problem with it.

The walk to the third test was a silent one, each agent striding with confidence they might not possess, to a steep climbing wall. Instead of nooks and handholds there were silver bars, placed across the wall, about two metres apart. Craning her head up, Elle noted the wall had a slight overhang near the top. The actual stone was completely smooth and wouldn't do much good to try and hold on to.

Elle looked to Mather for an explanation, whose stoic expression didn't falter. "Recruits!" He boomed, "this is the third trial: endurance and strength. You will all climb up this wall. Two minutes after the last foot has left this floor, the trial will begin. You will find a bar and you will...endure." He landed on the last word, pronouncing it slowly with glorious satisfaction.

"Begin!" He barked. Some immediately jumped to the lowest bars, pulling themselves up and beginning the climb. Elle and Tan looked at each other, then simultaneously followed. The bars were more slippery than she thought, the metal cold on her hands. The one below her was just too far away for her feet to comfortably reach, so like many others, she scrabbled for any foot hold she could find, then resorted to hanging.

Halfway up the wall, she peered down to the agent below. If she fell she might just land on his head and take him with her. He met her gaze with baleful eyes. Seconds stretched by as she, like other agents, hung suspended from the bar. Rand swung on one of the highest bars, on the overhang. She hoped he fell.

Seconds stretched by. Finally Mather yelled that the two minutes were finished and that the official trial would begin. Elle released a deep breath, pushing all her swirling thoughts to the back of her mind. She envisioned a large casket or barrel where she stuffed her distractions and sealed the lid shut.

They couldn't have been more than ten minutes in before the first person began to shake. She looked on with a mixture of pity and triumph as one of the scrawnier men, who hung near the bottom of the wall, trembled. Elle counted down in her head, eyeing his shaking hands: 3, 2, 1. Sure enough, he released the bar and fell with a grunt. Rand hooted from his position. At the base of the wall he was physically unharmed, only his pride shattered.

As time lagged onwards Elle found herself thinking again. Was the challenge really to just...hang there to Mather's satisfaction? Her mind was still distracted when the first exclamations sounded beneath her. "What in the hells?" She murmured, head snapping down to those on the first few bars. All of them swearing and switching their weight to different hands, hissing and spitting almost as if—

Her eyes widened. Glaring closer, her suspicions were confirmed as the bars visibly turned red, the audible sound of sizzling flesh drifting up to her. Gods, the silver bars were burning! Recruits scrambled to reach a higher bar, where the heat hadn't reached. No one lost their grip although a few wavered like flag poles in the air.