Chapter Twelve
I stumble over a protruding stone, breaking up my run. I'm getting tired, and it shows. Normally a ten-minute run isn't a problem for me, but with the hike to the lake and the emotions of the day, that's not the case. But I need to keep going, we're nearly there. I can see the boulders in front of us.
"Raine!" Cobalt shouts as it happens again.
On instinct, I glance in his direction, even though I should be paying more attention to the dragon circling above us. I don't know what it did at the lake, but apparently it wasn't enough to satisfy the huge beast.
A blur of black comes towards me, and the next thing I know, the two of us are tumbling to the ground. He pins me there, the weight of his body pinning me there.
"What the..."
I'm cut off by a stream of flames from the dragon above. I bring my arm up to protect my face.
The flickering fire, but the heat is enough to make my mouth dry and threaten to singe the hairs on my exposed forearms. The sound is the worst of all. I knew what dragon fire sounded like already, but nothing prepared me for how loud it is up close. I'm not sure I could hear anything else over the thunderous din of it hitting the ground and the roar of the dragon above.
We're not even in range.
Though I would have been if Cobalt hadn't jumped me.
"This way," he whispers, though maybe he's shouting. It's hard to tell over the sound of the attack.
But it's impossible to miss him getting off me and moving away. There's an overhanging rock a few feet away, which is probably where he's going. If the dragon decides to attack that particular boulder, we'll be toast, but hopefully, it'll be distracted by where it thinks it's attacking and won't notice us going there. If it doesn't know where we are, then it won't attack. A sharp sting comes from my leg as we crawl inside. The pain is gone a second later, it must just have been a sharp bit of rock I caught myself on.
In theory. I have no idea if that's actually going to be the case. It turns out that everything I thought I knew about dragons is wrong. Not that it was much to begin with.
The shade is welcoming in its coolness compared to the way the fire felt against my skin.
Almost as suddenly as the dragon appeared, it goes away, leaving a real chill in the air. It's a welcome one after the heat of the fire, but could still be a problem. We have to stay here a little longer, though. The dragon won't have gone far, and if we start running around and presenting ourselves as targets, then it's just going to come back and finish us off.
"Why did you do that?" I ask Cobalt once we've both had enough time to compose ourselves. My breathing is still a little ragged, but it's nothing I can't deal with now I know I'm not about to be burned to a crisp. It's amazing what a little bit of safety can do to the mind.
"Do what?" he asks, picking off a piece of burnt debris from his coat.
"Save me."
He shrugs, then leans back against the boulder, closing his eyes and soaking up the more pleasant temperature. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Because then it would be one less person to stop you from winning the Duels," I point out, even though I know it's not how he feels.
"You really have no idea what's going on here, do you?"
"Only what you've told me," I admit. "They don't tell us anything in the city. Remember?"
"Sorry, I'm still coming to terms with what you're not told. It's horrible."
"You're not wrong," I mutter. "But that's a problem for another day."
"Hmm true. I can tell you what I know, but I suspect there are still gaps in that."
I nod. That makes sense. The longer I spend getting to know Cobalt, the more certain I am that the White Towers can't be as bad as I think they are. But that means they probably don't tell people everything they need to know either.
"There aren't a set amount of survivors," he says. "You dying doesn't help me at all."
"But they said that only a certain amount of us would survive," I remind him. Wasn't he there at orientation? I don't remember seeing him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't, just that I didn't pay enough attention.
"It's a statistic," Cobalt responds, his voice a lot calmer than mine would be in his place. "Normally, about one in fifteen of the contestants win the Duels, but that's different from the number of people who survive."
"Oh." I still don't completely understand, but hopefully, he'll be able to fill me in on what I'm missing.
"Each of us is given a points total at the start. I'm not sure how they calculate it exactly, but it takes into account your age, health, and where you're from..."
"Where we're from?" I echo.
He nods. "Prisoners have the smallest starting points. And people from the city always have fewer points than people from the White Towers."
People like me. I push the thought away. There's no point dwelling on it when it won't change anything.
"How do the points work?" I ask instead.
"Anyone with a points total above three hundred at the end of the Duels wins."
"But surely they'll know who has how many points before they start?" I ask.
Cobalt turns to face me, a serious expression on his face, like he realises the gravity of what he's saying to me.
"They change while we compete. We can lose and gain points as we go through the Duels."
"What kind of things change points?" I ask, sitting up straighter as I run through everything that's happened to me in my head.
"I don't know," he admits. "Even in the White Towers