Stage Two – The Gauntlet
After the Trial Stone, they were led to the training arena—now transformed. Spiked gates. Spinning gears. Walls that shifted like puzzles. And a track of hell stretching across open ground toward a final glowing rune.
"The Gauntlet," barked the Trial Master. "Speed, skill, balance. You fall, you fail. And the ground is... not kind."
The first contestant bolted forward and immediately slipped, landing face-first into a swinging pendulum. The crowd winced in sympathy.
"Excellent start," Fig muttered. Still invisible. Still smug.
Lyssandra went second. Her flames carved a path through the traps. Metal melted. Levers bent. She didn't even dodge—she commanded. And she reached the rune with a bored flick of her wrist.
The instructors clapped politely.
Teryn went third.
He didn't melt traps. He endured them. Timed the axes, jumped the spikes, used a snapped beam to vault a turning platform. When a rope broke, he didn't flinch—just rolled, got up, kept moving. No flash. Just grit.
Elara watched his finish and whispered, "Stag-boy's got legs."
"My ears are tingling," Fig said. "Are we about to do something reckless?"
"Yes."
When her name was called, she exhaled—and ran.
The platform cracked under her weight. She leapt early, catching the chain of a swinging pendulum and using its momentum to launch herself over a spike pit. Rolled under a collapsing wall. Skidded across a turning gear. The entire Gauntlet rippled like it wanted to break her rhythm.
But Elara didn't slow. She danced.
A wall spun. She ran along it. A platform dropped—she dropped with it, flipped, landed on the next one as it rose. She ducked a swinging hammer, somersaulted under a searing beam of light, and used the wall to gain momentum before launching toward a final platform that threatened to sink under her feet.
At one point, she even laughed.
"Is she—enjoying this?" someone asked aloud.
"She's insane," someone else replied.
"Correct," said Fig proudly. "But stylish."
She vaulted the last hurdle, tumbled into a crouch, and slammed her hand on the rune. Glowing light shot upward in a spiral.
Silence.
Then thunderous applause.
Lyssandra scowled.
Teryn grinned.
Fig yawned. "Show-off."
Between Trials, the remaining candidates were given a short break.
Elara moved to the edge of the courtyard to catch her breath. Her limbs buzzed from exertion and adrenaline. She took a sip from a flask handed to her by a silent attendant and turned just in time to see Lyssandra approaching.
The fire-born walked like she owned the ground beneath her. Cloak flaring. Jaw set. Smirk razor-sharp.
They met at the edge of the shade beneath the archway.
"So," Lyssandra said, looking Elara over, "forest girl has reflexes. Color me shocked."
Elara took another sip. "And flame princess melted the gears instead of learning to dance."
Lyssandra's eyes narrowed. "You think this is a game of dancing?"
"No," Elara said, tone neutral. "But the ground didn't fall out under me."
For a moment, silence. The heat between them rose. The other candidates quietly edged away.
"You're good," Lyssandra admitted. "But Trials aren't just about flash. They're about control. Discipline. Power."
"Funny," Elara replied, smiling faintly. "I thought they were about survival."
Lyssandra stepped closer. "You think you survived the Monolith. You didn't. You're still running."
That hit a nerve. Elara didn't flinch, but her eyes sharpened.
"And you're still trying to impress a ghost in your bloodline," she said quietly. "We're all running from something. I just don't set mine on fire."
Lyssandra's hands twitched. A faint glow lit her palm.
"You want to test that?"
"After the Trials," Elara said. "If we both live."
A beat.
Then Lyssandra smiled. It was not friendly.
"Looking forward to it."
She turned and walked off.
"Well," Fig said, appearing just under Elara's hairline. "That wasn't ominous at all."
"She won't burn me," Elara whispered.
"No?"
"She'll try. But she'll burn herself first."
Stage Three – The Endurance Trial
No time to rest. The final stage was introduced by a younger Trial Master, eyes glinting like someone who enjoyed watching people collapse.
"Survive the storm. Reach the center before nightfall. Don't die."
That was all he said before the candidates were funneled into a sprawling valley surrounded by cliffs—and then the storm hit.
Rain. Wind. Hail. Shifting terrain, laced with magic. The ground cracked. Visibility dropped. There were no guides. No path. No help.
It was chaos.
Elara moved with caution at first—slipping between rock formations, fingers steady on her blade. But the wind screamed. The sky shifted color. Some sort of hallucinatory fog rolled in.
Candidates screamed. One got swept away by a magical current that turned their boots to stone. Another stumbled through a phantom battlefield and collapsed, clutching their head.
She stumbled through mud, soaking and cold, muscles aching. Her breath steamed in the air.
She found Teryn helping someone out of a ravine. She helped him. They didn't talk. They survived.
Lyssandra flew past them on a sheet of fire, but as the storm thickened, she flared too bright—attracting magical lightning. It struck her shield. She screamed, smoke curling around her shoulders.
Elara didn't stop. She couldn't afford to.
Hours blurred into aching knees and bruised ribs. Blisters. Hunger. Half a dozen illusions tried to throw her off track—shadows of her past, strange laughter, a voice that sounded like Kaden calling her to lie down and give in.
She snarled and kept going.
At one point, she fell face-first into a pool of ink-thick water. It tried to pull her under. She bit her lip until it bled, used the pain to focus, and crawled out.
Her cloak was ripped. Her hands were scraped. The wind howled like wolves.
Near dusk, she spotted movement—a cluster of candidates stumbling toward a rise in the terrain. She joined them. No one spoke. It was understood: speak, and you lose your breath. Lose your breath, and you're done.
She climbed a crumbling path. Slipped. Caught herself. Climbed again.
At the edge of collapse, she saw the finish: a tall torch in a ring of standing stones, glowing faintly blue. A sanctuary. A beacon.
Elara stumbled forward. Crawled. Hands bleeding. Fog coiled around her throat like a noose.
She slapped her palm on the sigil just as night fell.
And passed out.