Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
By the time he reaches the fourth ascent, the spinning logs Aurelie’s brother warned us about, Sawyer’s made it all look like child’s play, and I start to feel a bubble of hope that maybe the course isn’t as difficult as it looks from the ground.
But then he faces a giant chimney formation rising high above him at a twenty-degree angle and pauses.
“You got this!” Rhiannon yells from my side.
As though he heard, he sprints toward the leaning chimney and flings himself upward, grabbing onto the sides by forming an X with his body, then starts hopping up the conduit until he reaches the end and drops down in front of the final obstacle, a massive ramp that reaches up to the top of the cliff’s edge at a nearly vertical climb.
My breath catches in my throat as Sawyer sprints toward the ramp, using his speed and momentum to carry him two-thirds of the way up the ramp. Just before he starts to fall, he reaches up with one arm and grasps the lip of the ramp and hauls himself over the edge.
Rhiannon and I scream and cheer for him. He made it. In an almost flawless approach.
“Perfect technique!” Professor Emetterio calls out. “That’s exactly what you should all be doing.”
“Perfect, and yet he was still passed over at Threshing,” Luca snarks. “Guess the dragons have some sense of taste.”
“Give it a rest, Luca,” Rhi says.
How could someone as smart and athletic as Sawyer not bond? And if he didn’t, what the hell kind of hope is there for the rest of us?
“I’m too short for the ramp,” I whisper to Rhi.
She glances over at me, and then back to the obstacle. “You’re wicked fast. If you get your speed up, I bet the momentum will take you to the top.”
Pryor—the shy cadet from the Krovlan border region—struggles on the swinging steel rods in the third ascent due to some rather predictable hesitation on his part, but he makes it just as Trina nearly falls at the shaking pillars, reaching for a rope. I can only make out the flash of red from her hair when she starts the rotating stair steps, but I hear her scream all the way to my toes as that particular rope sways near the ground.
“You can do it!” Sawyer shouts down from the top.
“They go in opposite directions!” Aurelie calls up.
“Tynan, start,” Professor Emetterio orders, watching his pocket watch and not the course.
My heart thuds in my ears when Trina makes it past the steps, and the drumming doesn’t let up as Rhiannon is called to start. She passes the first ascent with the grace I’ve come to expect from her before coming to a halt.
Tynan hangs from the second of five buoy balls on the second ascent, right where the ground drops out. If he falls, he’s got a minuscule chance of hitting the single spinning log from the first ascent and overwhelming odds of dropping thirty feet to the ground below.
“You have to keep moving, Tynan!” I shout, though it’s doubtful he can hear me from here. He might be a gullible ass, but he’s still my squadmate.
He shrieks, his arms wrapped around the swinging ball. It’s impossible for him to reach his hands completely around—that’s the point, and he’s slipping.
“He’s going to screw her time,” Aurelie says, blowing out a bored sigh.
“Good thing this is only practice, then,” Ridoc says, then bellows up at Tynan. “What’s the matter, Tynan? Scared of heights? Who’s the liability now?”
“Stop.” I elbow Ridoc in the side. He’s not quite as lean now. The last seven weeks have put some muscle on him. “Just because he’s a dick doesn’t mean you have to be.”
“But he’s giving me so much material to work with,” Ridoc replies, a corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk as he backs away, heading toward the starting position.
“Swing to the next one!” Trina suggests from the top of the course.
“I can’t!” Tynan’s shriek could break glass as it echoes down the mountain, and it makes my chest tighten.
“Ridoc, start!” Professor Emetterio commands.
Ridoc charges over the log.
“Rhi!” I shout up. “The rope is between the first and second!”
She nods down at me, then jumps for the first buoy ball, clasping it up top, near where the chains hold it to the iron rail above, and swinging her weight around the side.
It’s an utterly inspired approach, one that might just work for me.
Gravel crunches beneath my boots as I move to the starting position. Oh, look, it is possible for my heart to beat faster. The damned thing practically flutters as I wipe my clammy palms on my leather pants.
Rhiannon gets the rope into Tynan’s hand, but instead of using it to swing to the next ball, he climbs…down.
My jaw practically unhinges as he descends. Definitely didn’t see that one coming.