Read Red for Free Online Page B

never told anyone.
    Dad waited under his favorite trophy, the glossy head of a small albino dragon. He sighed at the state of my tunic. His was, of course, spotless and freshly ironed, and he wore a gold medallion of St. George slaying the dragon. “Honestly, have a sense of occasion, Ethan,” he said.
    I went to stand behind him, gritting my back teeth. Justin was across from me, also looking annoyed, but for a different reason. He was about to be the last guy who hadn’t been tried. Just like there was no convincing Colt to drop it, there was no convincing Justin, either. Hell, there was no convincing any of them except Justine. She refused to have her Trials because if she went through with it, her little sister would follow. She was determined to put it off as long as possible, even though she was personally ready. And if Justine wouldn’t have her Trials, then neither would Justin. Ariel stood between them now, wide-eyed and silent. The light flashed off her braces when she smiled at me.
    Sloane’s absence was notable. She’d survived the Trials, though barely, and not without consequences. My scars were nothing compared to hers. And Tobias wouldn’t talk about his night. All we knew was that he’d come out of the forest alive but without a trophy. No one was sure if that meant he’d officially passed his Trials or not.
    Colt took his position in the center, his parents beaming at him. He was barefoot, standing in a mixture of ground monster bones and rose petals. “Kneel now to receive the weapons that carry with them all the might of the Cabal,” Dad said.
    Colt’s father was the first to step forward. He handed him a new dagger with a scabbard etched in gold. I still had the dagger Dad gave me, with the turquoise crown in the hilt, but I mostly used knives I got from the hunting store in town. Dad gave Colt a new spear. Justine gave him leather arm bracers, Justin a chain-mail patch for his tunic, and Ariel a blue ribbon, like girls used to give knights in the Middle Ages. To his credit, he didn’t make a joke, just accepted it gravely.
    Dad handed me a horn cup. “Since my son, Ethan, was the only one to make it properly through his Trials, he will pass you the cup.”
    “That’s not true,” I muttered, thinking of Summer, frostbitten and bleeding, of Sloane crawling through the long grass, of Tobias refusing to tell his story.
    Dad gave me a look, the one that made me think of the first time he’d locked me in this room overnight, when I was seven years old. It was all family pride with him. “It’ll make you strong,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “It will give you the speed of a dragon, the fierceness of a manticore, the strength of a minotaur. And you can bring us back something truly unique to mark your Trials.”
    I couldn’t look at the leathery wings pinned to the wall from the Harpy I’d dragged out of the lake while I cried like a little kid.
    I handed Colt the cup, and he drank it without gagging, which was a heroic feat in itself, since it tasted like bloody swamp water and paprika. His mother stood in front of him, holding a ceremonial sword. Legend had it that the pommel contained hair from St. George and ashes from the fire that had burned Joan of Arc, but not her heart. Colt’s mother knighted him with the sword, as if he was a medieval warrior. She didn’t tap him lightly on the shoulder with it, but used the flat of the blade to slap him. It bit into his cheek, drawing blood and his first ceremonial scar.
    All that was left was the blessing from the children of the Cabal, but that would wait until right before his Trial. We’d done it with Summer, even though it hadn’t helped her in the end. And they’d done it for me. So I’d stand up for Colt, even though I felt like knocking him down so he couldn’t go through with it. Instead, I passed him the cup because in the end, it wasn’t my choice. And I knew my duty, if nothing else. Didn’t mean I had to like