Her eyes flicked to Eva’s wrist, catching sight of a small snake wrapped around just behind her hand. Something she might have mistaken for a bracelet had she not known that Eva never wore jewelry. The two flasks at her hip were notable as well. If Eva really wasn’t using blood magic, the flasks likely lacked blood.
Zoe could imagine what potions were inside.
“And make no mistake, they will be your opponents. Only one school can be the victor in this event. Will you try to take them out at the start and brave the dangers of the forest on your own? Will you backstab them at a critical time? Or will you fight together, raising your chances of reaching your objective, and have an honorable fight to determine the true victor?”
He said the word with a slight sneer.
Zoe just rolled her eyes. To say that Wallace Redford had an issue regarding honorable fighting would be putting it lightly. Though she wanted to scoff, Zoe couldn’t quite bring herself to demean him that much. Wallace was the leader of the Guild. Before becoming the leader, he had been quite the adept mage-knight. It was entirely possible that something in his past had given him such a cynical view.
Still worth an eye roll, however.
“The starting locations are positioned around a ring. Once you enter, leaving will disqualify you. A ward has been set up along the perimeter that will cause a slight push against you if you try to leave. So do not fear becoming turned around in the forest and accidentally disqualifying yourself.
“Your goal is to reach the center of the arena. Once there, what you should do will become obvious.”
Wallace paused one more time, looking over the group of students.
Satisfied with whatever he was looking at, he drew his wand. Flicking out seven different colored orbs of light from his wand, he finished with a wide wave of his hand.
A large and fairly plain sack materialized before the podium.
The way it appeared with a brief tinge of white light had Zoe narrowing her eyes. Things she pulled from Between had a remarkably similar effect. She hadn’t been aware that he could use the Elysium Order’s magic. The people outside the Order who could were those who had stolen the knowledge. Wayne and herself, for example. While they could teach people, she hadn’t and highly doubted that Wayne had.
“Come,” Wallace said, unaware of Zoe’s thoughts. “Select your marble and stand by the associated light. Once ready, they will lead you to your starting position. As soon as everyone is in place, the lights will flash white three times before moving within the arena boundaries. When they disappear, the event will begin.
“Straying too far from the light or attacking anyone else before the light disappears will result in immediate disqualification.”
As he gave the final instructions, the students all broke their lines and moved up to the sack. One by one, they reached into the bag and pulled out colored marbles.
The television snapped back to herself and Hank, seated on their benches. Zoe, who had been leaning forward to get a better view of the students’ selection, casually stiffened her back to regain her proper posture.
“Exciting times,” Hank said with a broad smile towards the camera.
She could swear that his teeth actually sparkled.
“We’ll be back to go over the chosen teams after a word from our sponsors. Don’t change that channel. The event will be starting next.”
He finished with a finger pointing towards the camera, freezing for a moment until the commercials began.
Chapter 008
Eva reached into the large leathery bag. By a strange happenstance, she was the first to choose a marble. The first school to leave the ready area had gone to the far left, the second had gone to the far right. Third and fourth went to the left and right leaving Brakket right in the center.
Right in front of the marble bag.
The opening was right at waist height. Despite being able to easily see inside, Eva couldn’t actually see anything. Some darkness spell was keeping everything below the lip of the bag effectively invisible.
Feeling around inside the bag, Eva’s hand swept through hundreds of marbles. Her hand dove deep, burrowing inside the large bag. As it wasn’t on any sort of pedestal, just resting on the ground, Eva would actually have to bend over to reach the bottom. Something she wasn’t willing to do.
But it spoke of how many marbles there were.
Redford had said that there were seven starting locations with a maximum of three people per spot.
So what are all the other marbles for?
For all she knew, this was some kind of test before the test. Not picking one of the colors might disqualify her. Or something else horrible.
Or perhaps it was just an innocent bit of magic. The marbles might color themselves upon being drawn and only so many could be drawn of one color. Something so that the last person to pick would feel like they had just as many choices as the first, even though that was just an illusion.
With nothing else to do, she gripped one of the marbles and pulled it out.
Her hand came out of the darkness with a violet sphere.
She stepped away, allowing her two companions to choose their marbles.
Randal reached inside first. Much like Eva, he looked surprised as he moved his hand around. He didn’t take quite as long to pick, coming away with a yellow marble.
Rachael stepped up after him. She reached in and immediately pulled out a green marble with no surprise or digging around. By the looks of things, she had taken the very first marble her fingers touched.
“Alright,” Eva said as they moved away for the next schools to have their turns. “Guess I’ll see you guys in the center.”
Randal looked to her with a half-smirk. “Don’t get killed.”
“Please, after everything I’ve been through? I’m more worried about accidentally killing one of them.”
“Don’t get cocky either,” Rachael said with a sour expression. “Or kill anyone. It wouldn’t reflect well on us.”
“I’ll try not to,” Eva said, taking one step towards the violet light hovering just behind where the schools had been standing. She paused, looking back to her companions. “I warned you before,” she said in a hushed tone of voice, “but keep an eye on the Nod Complex’s vampire. I don’t know that he’ll be playing nice.”
“So long as fire puts him down nicely, I shouldn’t have a problem.”
“And I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve as well,” Randal said. “Good luck.”
With that, they split up. Eva slipped her own marble into a pocket on her skirt, watching the other schools pick their marbles as she waited.
Somehow, the Isomer students muscled their way past the Mount Hope girls despite being further away. Only one of the Elysium Order nun trainees were participating in this event. The two other boys picked out a blue and a red marble.
The curly-haired nun picked her marble, looked over it, and began scowling as soon as she glanced towards Eva’s colored light.
From their brief interaction, Eva had a vague idea bout the curly-haired nun’s personality. She deferred to the other trainee, acted somewhat nervous about Eva, and—if Eva wasn’t missing her mark—had been more believing about the fact that a vampire was roaming the halls.
Of course, just because this was the nun more believing of Eva’s claims did not make them friends.
She stalked over with a glare yet somehow managed to avoid eye contact.
Eva paid her little mind for the moment. When the event actually started, she would have to be wary. It wouldn’t be surprising if the nun tried to take her out the second the light disappeared.
Instead of talking or taunting, Eva continued to watch as the students split off to their respective colors.