Page 5 of Under Restless Skies

Mayara, you trained for this. You’re ready. This is my wise voice, but it told me the same thing last year, and I don’t trust it anymore.

But you weren’t ready like you are now, it says, all calm and confident, as if it believed the nonsense it was saying.

Yes, but I didn’t predict any rain, I reply.

“Next!”

It’s me. It’s me, and I run to the hourglass table.

The instructor stares at a paper, barely raising his eyes. “May Foros bless you.”

I force a smile, then put my hand in the opening. Time is limited, but I can feel the differences between the wooden frames, even if they are minimal. Larger frames mean more sand, more time. My fingers brush past several smaller ones, searching, until they close around the largest one I can find, and I pull it out.

My heart freezes. It can’t be.

While the wooden frame is indeed huge, inside, the glass vial is impossibly small, a tiny channel for a trickle of sand. Twenty seconds at most, but my bet is on fifteen.

I’ve watched this Trial many times, and one thing I know: climbing up and down the tower in thirty seconds is extremely hard.

In fifteen, it’s impossible.

2

Fifteen seconds to climb up and down the tower. Fifteen seconds.

I don’t even watch the officer click open the hourglass. They don’t care if you wait for them to say go or not, and that can give me an extra two seconds or so.

My feet are climbing the steps five at a time before I can even think if I’ll make it. Before I wonder why that hourglass was so small. Before the whirlwind of panic in my chest pulls me to its depths.

I don’t even know what my legs are doing, don’t know if I’m still breathing, if my heart’s still beating. All that’s left in my mind is the need to get to the top of this tower at an inhuman speed. No sounds come to me but silence. Emptiness. I don’t even count the seconds lest I lose my focus.

The top floor comes into view. A tight space with a ballista pointed out the window and a guard holding some flags. I rip one of them from his hand before he reaches out too slowly.

If I blink, if I falter, if I pause to think, I won’t make it. But if I go down the same way I came, I’ll also fail. Before I have time to understand what I’m doing, I’m biting the flag and heading to the window, where I lower myself while hanging from the sill. A fall from this height could break me. And yet I spread my legs, feeling the outer stone of the tower—and let go.

My thighs and hands grip the outer wall to break my fall, only the skirt of my dress between my skin and the stones. The ground greets me with a thud, as pain radiates from my knees to my entire body. My skirt is destroyed, blood’s oozing from my scraped thighs and hands, and yet I run back to the table and toss the flag on it.

My chest moves up and down in desperation, grabbing for air and more air, and I finally look at my tiny hourglass. The top is empty, but I don’t know when the last grain of sand fell. I might have barely made it, or maybe I got here much later than I should. I still can’t believe I jumped out of the tower, even if I latched onto the wall. And despite everything, I might fail. Thunder cracks in the distance as two drops of water fall on the table.

The instructors look at me with calm, uncaring expressions. For them, it’s easy; they’ve been doing this for three days. For them, I’m just a number. It’s not their dream. Telling me I’ve been rejected won’t even disturb their night’s sleep in their comfortable beds.

But I jumped out of the tower. I’m bleeding and hurt. Shouldn’t that count?

My heart beats fast, fast, fast. So loud.

The male instructor points.

To the Foros table.

The last two years, I hated when it happened. This time, I want to cry with joy. I passed the tower. I still have a chance.

I nod, then head toward the pretty instructor, my legs trembling and my body still in pain from the fall. I’m so rattled that all the inappropriate thoughts about him have left my mind.

He opens a large tome as I focus on the cloth covering the cups, the wind blowing my hair and my ripped dress.

“Number?” His voice has none of the harshness I’d associate with a Trial instructor. It’s friendly, even. Sweet, almost.

The cups are made of copper, an overpowering scent that’s going to make my job hard, and yet I concentrate, sensing them under the cloth.