Chosen Bride of the Seven Dark Princes

Leonardo did not wait for Candi to agree.

With a flourish of his hand, the virtual monitor flashed to a different view. It was another empty platform with the same cream carpet and the same brown couch.

Anaïse Paroles didn't even bother to sit on the sofa. She wandered around, taking note of everything that was in the room.

Her eyes glanced up to check ceiling height and the walls on all sides. She even checked the stability of the sofa and flipped up the underside of the carpet to check for anomalies.

Candi was impressed.

This was a woman who was thorough with all her preparations. If anyone would win a Brilliance and Intellect competition, it would be Anaïse.

The moment the Event officially began, the center panel disappeared revealing a table holding the hammer, pliers, scissors, a knife, and the bundle of rope.

Anaïse grabbed the rope and hung it on her belt, along with the pliers, scissors and knife. The hammer, she picked up and held in her hand.

If there was need for any of these tools, she would not have to run back to the tools table to pick anything up. Candi shook her head, impressed at the way Anaïse's brain worked.

What a smart woman.

Candi was smiling at the ingenuity of the silicon blue glass female when the right side of the room opened up showing Slate tied up and bleeding from an open wound on his torso.

Even knowing it was fake, Candi could not hold in a sharp hiss. He looked badly hurt, which brought back very recent memories when she had seen him badly hurt before.

Beside her, Leonardo reached out and gave her a reassuring hug.

She leaned against him, drawing in his warmth and comfort as she continued to watch the virtual screen.

Like Jenna and herself, Anaïse ran to him, checking his pulse and breathing. As soon as she had assured herself he was not in imminent danger, she began trying various ways to extract him from the chains.

The one advantage Anaïse had was the ability to work with rocks. She began melting parts of the marble column, and had she been given another twenty minutes, Anaïse would have been able to shape enough of the marble to loosen up the chains and pull Slate out.

Unfortunately, the bomb appeared a few minutes into her marble sculpting attempt.

Anaïse ran over to the bomb and studied it from various angles. Her fingers flexed and clenched as she stood there thinking through the problem.

At one point, she looked at Slate, and then at the scissors on her belt. But then she shook her head. There was no way she could use any of these tools.

She threw the hammer to the ground and began rubbing her hands.

At first, her rubbing was slow. One minute later, she had increased her rubbing that her hands were starting to glow a white yellow color. The faster she rubbed, the whiter the color became.

With only two minutes left on the bomb timer, Anaïse began building a glass bubble around the bomb. Suddenly, all around her, the marble floors were starting to melt. She was taking marble from the floor to build the glass bubble around the bomb.

Candi's jaw dropped. This woman's rock magic was so amazing she could not believe her eyes.

One minute later, a strong glass bubble had encompassed the bomb, and Anaïse ceased her glass magic. She turned to look at Slate, as if wishing him good luck, and then made a mad dash for the front door.

It seemed as if Anaïse felt that she had done all she could to try and contain the blast with her magic. She could not extract Slate in the amount of time given.

There was no other choice. She had to save herself

Thinking it through in a logical fashion, the percentage of his death was very high whereas the percentage of her death was extremely low if she simply ran from the building before the bomb went off.

She had already calculated the time it would take to reach the front doors and had allowed the timer to roll down to the final second to give the glass bubble as much strength as she could fortify it.

As Anaïse raced through the double doors of the portico, the blast roared through, blasting her onto the grassy area in front of the Pantheon.

Because she was far enough from the center of the blast, Anaïse was able to roll through the force and landed back on her feet after the roll.

The monitor split screen showed the fire raging through the platform, engulfing Slate where he was chained.

Candi's eyes watered, but of course, once the fire blew past, he emerged without a scratch.

Pulling on his chains, he threw them down onto the floor and stood at the front of the platform, staring out into the bright sunshine.

From outside, the crystal blue figure of Anaïse stood in the grass, looking back at the partially destroyed Celestial Pantheon.

It was too dark within the Pantheon for her to see him, but there was no need. Two assistants were striding up to Anaïse and escorting her off the floating island on a transport pod.

It was then that the visual of Anaïse Paroles ended.

"Oh wow. She ran away." Candi choked out. It was something that didn't even cross her mind to do. All the Princes were supremely important to her, and she would have never abandoned them to face death alone.

"Yes," Leonardo took a deep breath. "Her Prince died in her care."

Candi turned to him with a quizzed look.

"I don't understand. Are each of us given a Prince that we're supposed to protect? Is that the end goal? Is that the real test?"

Leonardo smiled.

"My Darling, the real test was to see what each of the Avgo Females would do given the exact same situation. Based upon each of your personalities, we had some ideas of what you might do, but of course, there were surprises."

"Surprises?" Candi asked.

Leonardo laughed.

"Watch what happens to the next Avgo Female."