Chapter 83: Three Silver Tokens

At sunrise, the competitors gathered at the edge of the Moonwood while officials read out the rules one final time. Each student would enter alone, locate three silver tokens hidden somewhere in the forest, and return before sunset without weapons or communication with other contestants.

The first to return with all three tokens would earn the highest score of the day. Liam caught Roxanne’s arm just before the gates opened. "If you find anything edible, bring me some," he said. "We’re being timed," she reminded him. "Then run faster," he said, grinning, and she laughed as she stepped through the gate into the trees.

The forest turned confusing within minutes. Dozens of scents tangled together along the first stretch of trail, overlapping footprints crossed in every direction, and broken branches littered paths that clearly led nowhere useful.

Some of the trails had been planted deliberately to mislead the competitors, exactly the kind of trick the academy had trained her to expect. Roxanne stopped walking and closed her eyes, letting the chaos settle around her instead of fighting it. One scent, one sound, one thing at a time.

Beneath the heavy smell of wet earth, she caught something faint and metallic, and she followed it until it led her to a fallen tree with the first token tucked into a crack along its roots.

Deeper into the forest, she came across another competitor moving along the same trail, and although neither of them spoke, the rules made the moment feel like an unspoken race. The other student reached the next clearing first and crouched over an obvious marker carved into a stone at the center, clearly pleased with himself. Roxanne noticed what he hadn’t, a second silver token hanging from a low branch directly above his head, glinting faintly in the morning light while the carved stone sat there as nothing but a decoy.

She climbed quickly, pulled the token free, and slipped back into the trees before he even looked up.

The path to the second section ended at a steep ravine, and on the far side she caught the faint trace of the next token’s scent drifting on the wind. There was no obvious way across except a long detour that would cost her far too much time.

She thought suddenly of something Liam had told her during a Moonball match weeks ago, when she had complained that the defense had closed every lane. If there’s no opening, make one, he’d said, grinning like it was the most obvious advice in the world. She studied the terrain instead of looking for a path someone else had already carved, found a narrow outcrop of rock jutting from the ravine wall, and used it to cross in three fast strides and a leap.

She landed hard on the far side and scraped her palm against the stone, wincing as she examined the shallow cut. "Liam is going to be unbearable if he ever finds out that actually worked," she muttered, and kept moving.

The third token proved far harder than the first two, and the scent that should have led her forward simply vanished partway through a clearing near a stream. Frustration crept in before she caught herself and reconsidered the problem. The trial wasn’t testing whether she could follow a scent at all, and it was testing whether she could recognize where a scent shouldn’t be missing.

She crouched near the water and studied the soil until she found a patch that had clearly been disturbed and packed back down too neatly. She dug through it with her bare hands and pulled the third token free, cold and silver against her palm. Three tokens, and the sun was still well above the treeline, though she still had the long walk back before she could call it done.

On her way out of the forest, she heard a voice calling for help somewhere off the main path. A competitor had twisted her ankle badly on a root and couldn’t put weight on it. The rules didn’t forbid helping another student, but every minute she spent here would cost her time she couldn’t get back. She hesitated for only a moment before turning off the path toward the sound.

The injured girl looked up at her in surprise as she approached. "You don’t have to," she said. Roxanne crouched beside her and started checking the ankle. "I know," she said, and she helped the girl up and guided her, limping, toward the marked return route until they reached help.

By the time Roxanne finally crossed back into camp, several competitors had already returned ahead of her, and she braced herself for the cost of the delay.

The officials posted the results that evening, and Roxanne hadn’t finished first, but her scores for tracking accuracy, adaptability, and decision-making were exceptional. The lead instructor noted specifically that she had lost time helping another contestant and still hadn’t lost a single token in the process.

Elias found her near the board and studied her with an unreadable expression. "You could’ve finished first," he said. "Maybe," she admitted. "You don’t regret it?" he asked. "No," she said simply, and he nodded. "Good," he said, and meant it.

The Moonstones found her soon after, and Liam noticed the scrape on her palm before she had a chance to hide it. "What happened?" he asked.

"Nothing," she said. "That’s my line," he said, taking her hand before she could pull away and turning it over to look at the cut. "You got hurt." "Barely," she said. "Still counts," he said, and then he pulled a small packet from his jacket pocket and handed it over. It was her favorite drink, already cold.

"You brought that?" she asked, startled.

"Obviously," he said. "You weren’t even allowed inside," she said. "I know," he said. "I waited." It landed differently this time, without any trace of his usual teasing, and she understood that he had simply wanted something waiting for her when she came back.

That evening, the trial officials posted the preliminary rankings on the central board, and Roxanne pushed through the crowd until she found her name. ROXANNE SILVER, THIRD. She stared at it, not disappointed but genuinely surprised, since the two names above hers belonged to students from elite packs she had never even heard of before arriving at the trials this week.

Liam leaned over her shoulder to read it. "Third?" he said. Roxanne smiled. "Tomorrow, I move up," she said. Behind them, the official announcement carried across the camp: Day two will be a team trial, and teams will be assigned at random. Her smile faded slightly as the meaning settled in. This time, she wouldn’t get to choose who stood beside her.