Her breath was short as she cleared the first half of the room. Was she the only one in this chamber?
The spiked walls were less than a foot from skewering her.
Kirana screamed, scrambling to the end of the chamber and leaping through the air, hoping that she wouldn’t fall to her death in the next room.
When she landed, she noticed a sharp pain in her left arm.
There was a deep cut running along her bicep.
She cursed, glancing behind herself briefly to see that the walls had indeed closed, the spikes intersecting and leaving no room for any unlucky enough to be caught there to save themselves. Several of the spikes at the front were dripping with her blood.
Her stamina was starting to waver; her breath was short. She turned to the room she was in.
Thankfully, this chamber seemed to be devoid of spike traps. There was something else here, though. A noxious smell that was somehow familiar.
She rushed forward and leapt to the next platform, only to find that these platforms were slick with some kind of slime or oil. Her back smacked onto the platform and slipped off. She screamed, thrusting her hand out to grab the platform, only to find that the surface was too slippery to hold her grip.
She thought it was all over until her back slammed into another platform.
The room felt like it was spinning.
That’s when she realized that the platforms were moving.
Carefully, she rose to her feet.
She counted herself lucky that the platform she’d landed on wasn’t covered in oil as well. She’d have to be more careful.
There were three more platforms, each moving back and forth on tracks in the air as the walls came closing in.
The floor... it was a pit.
That smell!
It could have been the same kind of gas that kept the ever-burning fires aflame. And if that was the case, firing a blast of Sulen might ignite it.
It was damn lucky that so far her aura had only consisted of light. She imagined some of her peers wouldn’t be so lucky. If Sage landed in a room filled with gas while his aura was raging the way it had been...
She grinned, and leapt into the air, firing a blast behind her. The air exploded around her, as if the entire world had caught fire. Fortunately, her reflexes proved strong, and the barrier she’d put up held as her body arced into the next chamber.
I can do this, she thought.
She hit solid ground and sprinted through the next room, thankful she’d been lucky enough to find a room with a solid floor.
There was only one path to take here; she rushed forward. Halfway through, a great explosion rocked the chamber she was in, causing soot and dust to fall from the enclosing walls. Once she got her bearings, she looked up at the path before her. Great fires had sprung up where there had once been darkness, swallowing the chamber ahead of the one she was in.
She could feel both Sage and Reysha’s Sulen in there, and what was worse...their Sulen wasn’t fading. Far from it. It was moving through the room, fast.
“Come back here!” she screamed, charging into the wall of flames with her barrier surrounding her entire body.
She couldn’t see a damn thing in that chamber. Flames caressed the transparent surface of her barrier from every angle, but feeling out with her Sulen, there didn’t seem to be any platforms or pits. She used their Sulen as a guide into the next chamber, where darkness awaited.
They were already dashing into the next chamber when she dropped her barrier. She tossed a lightning bolt at what she thought was Reysha’s back, but only hit stone.
Kirana cursed, lighting her path with a white aura, and leaping up to one of the platforms. She cleared this room easily, following after Sage and Reysha’s Sulen at breakneck speed.
There was a scream ahead. Kirana came to a stop at a ledge.
In the dark, Sage was crouched on a platform, holding Reysha’s dangling body by one arm. Reysha’s golden eyes stared back at her.
“Fall!” Kirana shouted, tossing a wave of flames through the chamber.
Sage glared and bared his teeth at her, and, with his free arm, extended his palm toward her. The chamber rumbled as a beam of pure Sulen tore through the air, dragging her flames in a vicious spiral.
Kirana screamed, tossing her arms up as the beam slammed into her barrier. It took everything she had to hold the force of that beam at bay.
Was he still holding it? How did he have the stamina?
Cracks were forming in her barrier.
I don’t want to die, Kirana thought.
And, as if he’d read her thoughts, the beam disintegrated around her, and once the light faded, Sage and Reysha were nowhere in sight...
Kirana cursed her stupidity and leapt to the first platform in the chamber, trying to feel for their presence. Their Sulen was gone.
Bastards suppressed their Sulen!
Lighting this chamber with her aura, she could see it was simple enough. Six platforms at different heights. Walls closing in. And a spike pit running along the floor.
She was about to leap to the next platform when she stopped herself.
Why had Reysha screamed? Why had Sage been holding her up?
Looking at the platforms...there was a strange sensation permeating the room. Like...
It felt like Geidra!
Kirana tossed a fireball at the platform she’d just been about to leap to, and sure enough, it passed right through it, colliding with the metallic spikes beneath her.
Some of the platforms were illusions.
Is this what Valier have to deal with on a daily basis? she thought.
Her eyes narrowed; she took a deep breath.
Doesn’t matter, I am my father’s daughter!
She tossed small fireballs to each of the other platforms. They exploded on the end platforms, passing right through the middle ones.
She leapt to the end of the chamber and charged into the next room.
I’ll just have to blast every platform I find.
The next chamber wasn’t a chamber at all, but a long, twisting hallway. The walls weren’t closing in here.
Was she at the end already?
She started to walk forward...stopped herself. What sort of traps might be in here? And how the hell would she be able to see them coming?
She brightened her aura and noticed the tilework in the floor was raised in some places. Maybe pressure plates?
She was forgetting something...she was certain of it. A technique that Father had told her of during their training.
What had he said?
“The Shar are cunning,” he’d said, sitting on the ice with only their auras to light their surroundings. The shadows had seemed to grow larger, as if they were alive, when he’d said the name. “You’ll learn eventually that your natural sense of Sulen is useless when fighting them.”
“Why, Father?” Takarus had asked.
“They get in your head,” Father had said. “And they confuse your senses, forcing you to see, think, and feel what they want you to.”
“How do you fight something like that?” Kirana had asked.
Father grinned. “How do you think blind Sulekiel navigate their surroundings?”
Takarus had shrugged.
“They fill their surroundings with their raw Sulen,” Kirana had said.
“Yes,” Father had said. “You must learn to guard your mind, and fill the battlefield with your aura, feeling it out like a blind Sulekiel.”
Then that’s what I’ll do, she thought, closing her eyes and washing her Sulen through the twisting hallway.
Then, once she felt she could feel her surroundings, she started moving forward.
There were gaps in the walls, holes that her Sulen was escaping down, and before these holes, where her Sulen found cracks and crevices to escape down, she felt out gears and mechanisms for possible pressure plates.
She avoided these and kept moving.
The whole floor was littered in pr
essure plates. And as she neared the end of the twisting hallway, she felt something else.
At the very end of the corridor, her Sulen seemed to dip off, falling down into a deep chasm...
When she opened her eyes, she saw nothing, just more floor.
Another illusion. She closed her eyes again and sprinted forward, leaping over the pit.
In the next room, she heard a great crashing sound behind her, then a sound like a whistle, cutting through the air, and finally, shouts and screams.
Someone must have triggered the traps.
Kirana turned and faced the room she was in now. Her limbs were growing stiff, her breath was running harsh in her throat, stitches sewing in her sides. She wasn’t sure she could handle much more, let alone a take on the third trial chamber right after this.
The sound of grinding stone filled the air. The chamber was a hallway...a straight path into darkness. But there were platforms here, suspended over pits of spikes and the rushing current of Yce Ralakar’s river. She wasn’t sure if she could reach the end before those walls came closing in on her.
And knowing what she’d dealt with prior to this...
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, let her Sulen fill the long hallway, and leapt to the first platform.
She could feel the solid surfaces in the chamber. Significantly fewer than there had been before. The distances between platforms seemed to be longer than before as well. Hundreds of feet apart even. She didn’t know if she could close that distance in her current state...
But the walls were solid. If she fired a blast behind her, she might be able to keep her momentum up long enough to run along the surface until she reached the next platform.
Taking a deep breath, she let out a battle cry, and leapt into the air, twisting around and firing a wave of Sulen behind herself, then sprinting along the length of the wall and landing on the next platform.
She couldn’t believe that had worked! She ignored her fatigue, damning her limits, and did it again, and again, until she was standing just one hundred feet away from the arches of another doorway.
Part of her desperately hoped this was the end of the maze. Feeling her surroundings out, she could tell that the next platform was moving back and forth along a track.
This would be tricky...she’d have to time her jump just right.
Another deep breath and she took the leap, blasting her way across the length of the wall, landing on the platform and rushing into the next chamber...
As soon as she entered the next room, something crashed, shaking the entire room behind her.
She opened her eyes to see a wall had come down behind her—and it was coming toward her.
Looking forward, she could see another wall...a goddamned dead end!
“No!” she screamed, turning back to the looming wall of stone.
Panic rose within her; her fatigue filled her limbs like abaniel shackles. She’d failed.
Staring up at the open cavern high above the room she was in, she knew her only option would be to leap out of the maze.
And be failed, escorted out of the Hall of Trials, doomed to a life devoid of purpose...
She was just about to pour her Sulen into her legs, preparing herself for the leap, when she sensed Sulen gathering on the other side of wall of stone behind her.
Was it possible that this was just another test?
How thick was that wall?
Could she blast it down? Was that allowed?
High Elder Geidra had said that there weren’t any rules...that they would be forced to make tough choices in their lives as Valier.
She had to act fast if she didn’t want to be smashed to bits.
She approached the dead end, placed her hands on the stone wall, and summoned her Sulen once more. Her limbs ached from the effort.
Kirana screamed; the wall shattered around her palms. The light of her attack faded, and she stepped forward.
The dust cleared, revealing a set of stone steps. She stepped through the broken wall and ascended them, fearing that she would just end up in another chamber of the maze. But, to her surprise, she found herself staring at an open cavern, her peers staring back at her in the torchlight.
There was laughter, and Kirana found Reysha’s mocking golden eyes among the crowd. “Look, Sage, she actually made it.”
“That’s right,” Kirana said, approaching the small group that had passed the trial. “Despite your smug attitude, I’ve succeeded.”
Reysha crossed her arms. “You seem pretty winded, princess. You sure you can go on?”
“Give up.” Sage’s expression was grave. “You don’t have the stamina for the next trial.”
“Mind your own business, Son of Kyrties,” Kirana said.
“Have it your way,” Sage said.
Kirana turned back, and noticed that the maze had multiple openings on this side.
There were multiple solutions, she thought. But...
She turned back to the ones that had passed. Vyce, Daos, Takarus, Liyo, and the Council’s grandchildren were among the twenty that had passed the trial. That meant that the rest had failed...
Had Takarus actually reached the end of the maze before her?
She was glad he was alive, but with only twenty participants left, she had to wonder...
How many of them had died?
She found herself looking to her father in the spectator seats. His expression seemed as though it hadn’t changed since she’d entered the maze.
Is this really worth it? she thought. Is it necessary?
She shook her head. Of course it was necessary. Against the Shar, any and all measures to prepare their people were justified.
And the grandchildren... She turned back to them.
Byshun ran his hands through his violet mane of hair, giggling as his eyes focused on her.
Nelic stood like a mountain next to him, his black skin nearly blending in with the darkness.
And Cyra stood there, laughing and joking with Byshun—no doubt at Kirana’s expense. Her silver skin and dark eyes regarding her with nothing but contempt.
Footsteps approached from behind her.
“And you thought I wouldn’t pass,” Takarus said, approaching her with a big smile on his face. “I told you we had nothing to worry about.”
“You should take the oath-breaker’s advice,” Kirana said. “I can hardly feel your Sulen.”
“The next trial doesn’t need Sulen,” Takarus said. “I can use it as a break.”
“It’s a stealth challenge, Takarus,” Kirana said. “Your stamina, will, and resolve will be tested. You can’t pass it as you are.”
His eyebrows came together. “I’m going to pass the test.”
“I hope so...” Kirana moved past him, heading to the doors that would lead them into the next trial chamber. “But if you don’t—remember that I warned you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
REYSHA
In the dim light of the torches, as the Elders and Valier vacated their seats and moved into the next trial chamber, Reysha breathed a sigh of relief.
The crusher had been the most challenging thing she’d ever attempted. And somehow, she’d won.
Looking around, there weren’t many students left. The only one from her class, other than herself, was Liyo. The majority were people from Sage’s class, and those three Sulekiel who’d darted to the front of the pack at the start of the maze, taking the first path on the left as if they’d known exactly where they had been going.
Who the hell were they?
The big one with black skin and silver eyebrows regarded her with his crimson eyes.
Somehow their Sulen felt familiar...
Her eyes drifted to Sage. If it hadn’t been for him, she might not have gotten out of there alive.
Maybe that was the real test of the crusher? To see who would band together with their brothers and sisters, and who would try to take the glory for themselves?
She watched Kirana app
roach the vaulted doors to the next trial chamber.
“You didn’t let her fall,” Reysha said quietly to Sage. “You could have blasted her right back into the next chamber. She would have been forced to quit. Why didn’t you?”
“It was more important to get out of there with our lives,” he said. “Besides. She’s not my enemy.”
“Yet,” Reysha said, chuckling. “You might just get matched up with her in the fourth trial. I won’t be there to save you next time.”
Sage smiled, his voice getting louder. “Working together was your idea, remember? And who fell for Geidra’s illusions?”
She grinned. “Well, I hope we both make it to the fourth round."
“As if you’ll make it that far!” Vyce shouted, approaching him. Sage stared down at him, crossing his arms. “I saw what you did back there. Some of the guys you knocked into the river were my friends.”
“Too bad for them,” Sage said.
“You just wait,” Vyce said, jabbing Sage with his index finger. “If you make it to the fourth trial, I’m going to destroy you.”
Sage grinned, his Sulen starting to rise. The tiles they were standing on rumbled.
Vyce’s expression soured and he backed off.
“Why do you keep letting him run his mouth?” Reysha asked.
“I want to fight him,” Sage said.
“Why?” Reysha asked.
“I don’t know,” Sage said, glancing at the spectator seats. The Elders and Valier had mostly moved on from their seats. “Maybe I just want to see how far I’ve come?”
“And you think that asshole is worth testing yourself against?” Reysha asked. “I’m insulted.”
“Don’t be,” Sage said, smiling. “I want to fight you too.”
“You’re just saying that,” Reysha said. “That’s it, I’m not helping you in the next test.”
Sage chuckled. “You’re the one that needed help.”
“Are you kidding?” She nudged him. “If I hadn’t told you to put your barrier up before we leapt into that one chamber, you would’ve been burnt to a crisp.”
“Okay, maybe,” Sage said.
She had the sudden urge to loop her arm through his. Would he let her? Would the Elders and Valier look down on them? Was that allowed here?
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