Chapter 7: The Drowned Hall

The chain was four feet long, and one end of it was locked around my left wrist.

The other end was locked around Cassian Thornwick's right.

"If you pull, I will have you flogged," he said.

"You'll have to find a whip first," I said. "They took yours at the gate."

Eleven of us stood in pairs on a stone ledge above the Drowned Hall, and the hall below was dry.

It was a round pit as wide as a church, with pillars in rings and a heavy iron door set in the far wall.

The herald read the rules from his platform.

"The water gate opens at the third horn. The first pair through the far door wins the trial."

"Pairs that finish with a chain broken are disqualified."

"Pairs that do not finish are not counted."

He didn't say what happened to them.

Bran and a girl from a southern house were chained three pairs down from us.

He saw me looking and lifted his free hand in a salute.

Moth sat on my shoulder with her tail smoking nervously.

"Keep her off me," Cassian said.

"She's the only one of us who doesn't want you dead."

The third horn blew, and the floor shook.

Black water came roaring in through the gate on the east wall.

It hit the pillars and sprayed up to the ceiling, and within a minute it was at my knees.

"Run," Cassian said.

"We can't run. The pillars are in the way, and the current is going left."

"Then go left!"

"No. The current is the trap. It pushes you into the drain."

I pointed at the floor.

A round grate the size of a cartwheel was sucking the water down near the left wall.

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