The Luna Queen's Rebirth (Ellie and Dominic) novel Chapter 95

Chapter 95

Ellie POV

The mountain watches us long before we reach it.

By the time we gather at the clearing at its base, the air has turned sharp enough to sting when I inhale too deeply. Cold clings low to the ground, seeping up through the soles of my boots, settling into my calves.

Even in daylight, jackets are necessary, the fabric pulled close, collars turned up, hands shoved into pockets for warmth that never quite holds.

The clearing it’s self is massive, open like a cold window to the wind.

It’s wide enough to fit the entire two academys, ringed in uneven stone and towering pines that loom. The mountain rises behind us in a long, slanted climb of gray rock and stubborn scrub, its peak lost in low, drifting cloud. Ahead, the land falls away into a shallow valley, where a river cuts a silver line through dark earth. Beyond that-farther than I like to look-the forest begins.

I shiver.

Students cluster together in uneasy groups, healers and management students intermingled but not quite blend. Voices overlap in confused murmurs. Someone laughs too loudly. Someone else rubs their hands together, breath fogging faintly in the air.

No one knows why we’re here, just know we were told to be.

Professor Nel steps forward, boots crunching against frost-kissed grass, her presence snapping the clearing into something like order.

“Alright students, I’m sure you have questions and I’m here to answer them. This is your final trial in our exercise,” she announces.

The words ripple outward over the head, quieting them.

“Yesterday you complete two smaller trials based on if you where healer or management. Today, we blend. This will be a large-scale, multi-part terrain exercise,” she continues. “You’ll be working together- management and healers-as a single unit. Like a real pack.”

୮

My eyes narrow. I feel like… I’ve done this. The memories slower and slower to come back.

“Roles,” she explains, “will be assigned within teams. Leadership is decided amongst you. Decisions will have consequences. Speed will matter-but accuracy more so. You’re final trial? A game of telephone.”

A rush of hush whispers erupt.

“The first runner at the top of the mountain will receive a single message. That message must be carried- unchanged — from point to point across the course of the terrain. One student will start up top. Exchange it to another who will cross the valley. Another will take the message through the river. The final runner will pass through the forest and deliver it to the instructors waiting below.

If the message matches the original closely enough, and the team’s time is fast, they win.”

Simple.

+25 Bonus

On paper.

People began to cheer, excited, a physical based competition with room for sabotage.

Great.

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