Back to: A Mirror of Shadows

Episode 11: Everything Here is Danger and Death

Dinner was the usual mess hall stew and potatoes type of food, but sitting there on the bench with my team made it feel like more than food. Calli kept refilling my cup like it was her job. Elara pretended to complain about everything being overcooked, then slid the best piece of meat into my bowl when she thought I wasn’t looking.

Orion said little, but every once in a while, he placed his hand on mine, as if to let me know he was there. That he hadn’t given up on me.

Brim didn’t join us. He stood in the doorway long enough to be seen and then turned on his heel, vanishing down the corridor with thunderous footsteps.

I thought about going after him to explain, but decided better of it. It might not even be safe to be alone with him right now.

Truthfully, though, Brim’s reaction seemed the most logical out of everyone. No one on the team knew what had really happened to me out there on the battlefield, so to them, it must have looked like I just got mad and threw my power at the Regent like a petulant child.

The fact that they were being so nice to me nearly made me want to cry.

We ate until every morsel of food was licked clean from the plates. We’d all need our strength for tomorrow’s Games, and I wasn’t about to waste a single bite.

When we reached the small rooms we’d been assigned, Orion squeezed my shoulder.

“Goodnight, my dear. Words cannot express the gratitude in my heart that you have come back to us safely.” He gave Calli and Elara a long look that managed to be both a permission and a warning. “Don’t keep her out too late. You all need your rest.”

“We will make no promises,” Elara said, mischief lighting up her eyes.

“What in the world are you both talking about?” I asked, stopping in front of my room. I really didn’t want to go in there, if I was being honest. What if there was someone waiting for me? Watching me?

What if they tried to kill me in my sleep?

It didn’t feel safe in there.

“I want to show you both something,” Calli said with a smile. “It will be worth the loss of sleep. I promise.”

Calli led us through a series of narrow passages. The corridors were half-dark at this hour, washed in violet twilight from the crystals embedded in the walls. My whole body still ached from whatever they’d done to me in that castle cell, but I didn’t protest. I just followed.

We slipped through corridors, down a set of stairs and around a corner into a hall I’d never seen before that finally emptied into a tall gallery. The air felt cooler here, as if the atmosphere itself carried a sense of reverence.

Names gleamed along crystal panels, each etched with a sigil. A blade. An infinity sign. A crescent moon that matched the one etched onto my own skin.

“The Hall of Champions,” Calli said. “This row lists the Amethyst Warriors who have won the Shadow Games.”

There were fewer names than I expected, but here they were all arranged in teams of four or five.

I ran my hand along the etchings, reading the names, though I recognized none of them. Not that I expected to.

“What are these?” Elara asked. “There are only six names listed here over the past one hundred years or more.”

Calli’s eyes filled with longing as she turned to the wall across the way. As if the only thing she cared about was getting her name on that wall.

“Those are the true heroes,” she said. “The ones who have earned their freedom.”

Elara placed her hand flat against one of the crystal panels and closed her eyes. The torch burning above it flared once and then settled.

“Impossible,” she whispered.

“No, it’s not impossible,” Calli snapped. “It’s rare and it’s hard, but these names prove that some have been strong enough and brave enough to do it.”

“And all you have to do is win the Shadow Games?” I asked, confused.

“You have to win multiple times,” she explained. “You win the Amethyst Games first. That gets you and your team into the Shadow Games down in the main arena. Each tournament is run by a different Shard’s Priestess. So if it’s a Shadow Games Tournament run by the Sapphire Shard, the winners are awarded the Sapphire signet. Collect all five signets, and you get a chance to challenge a Stone Guardian in a one-on-one battle to the death.”

She exhaled, thin and tight.

“Win that, and the Shard sets you free.”

Elara shook her head. “There is no way out.”

Calli swallowed. “I know it feels that way, but that’s not true for everyone.”

I studied the names on the champion’s plaques, gasping as I read Slate’s name. Not once, but three times, years apart. 

I ran my fingertip across the edging. “Slate’s listed here three times.”

“He is,” Calli said softly.

“And why is he not free, as you said?” Elara asked, folding her arms.

Calli shrugged. 

“That’s one mystery everyone in the Shard has been trying to solve for years,” she said. “When you win the battle against the Guardian, you don’t automatically go free. Basically, that just wins you a private audience with your Shard’s Priestess, who will usually agree to grant you whatever your heart desires. Everyone always asks for power and freedom.”

“What did Slate ask for?” I was breathless as I asked, wondering what could be more precious to him than escape?

“No one knows,” Calli said. “It’s been years since he competed, but there are rumors he plans to compete after the Condemned’s games are over.”

“Wait, there are Games that aren’t played by the Condemned?”

The rules of this place seemed to make my head spin.

Calli laughed, shaking her head.

“Sometimes I forget how in the dark they keep everyone until their first Games are over,” she said. “Twice a year, during the Summer and Winter Solstices, the mirror portals open and new Condemned enter the Shard. The Shadow Games that take place soon after are basically just for those Condemned and anyone dumb enough to want in on them.”

She said that last part with a wink.

“Like you?” Elara asked, her eyes cutting toward Calli with a smirk.”

“Yes, like me, “Calli said. “But there are other Games besides those two Solstice ones. In general, there’s at least one tournament every month.”

“Every month?” My whole body went cold with fear, like ice being poured through my veins.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be required to compete in any except these first ones. Everything after this will be voluntary.” She frowned. “Unless the Regent commands you to compete.”

We all looked down at that, realizing that was a very real possibility for me at this point.

“So, how do those Games work?” I asked. “You have to earn signets?”

“Each one is run by a different Shard, like I said, but every Shard competes, sometimes with multiple teams depending on the rules set out by that Shard’s Master or Mistress of Trials. Some people fight for freedom, but most of the Shards fight for rewards. Power. Resources. Slate’s planning to enter the Shadow Games right after the one we’ll compete in. He’ll be putting together a strong team, I’m sure, so that might be my chance to get the first signet. And trust me when I say you should definitely do your best to survive until then.”

“Why is that? Other than the fact that I have no desire to die in this place?”

She smiled. “Because watching Slate fight. Truly fight all out. It’s like watching art in motion. He’s unrelenting. Impossibly strong and fast. No one can ever get a single blow on him from what I’ve heard. I’ve only seen him fight like that once, and it was strangely beautiful. I mean, brutal, sure. But I was awestruck. There’s no one like him in the entire Shard.”

Elara touched her hand to the winner’s plaque again and shook her head.

“Maybe Slate has not asked for his freedom, because he knows it is a fool’s request,” she said softly. “None of these people are free. I can hear them screaming, even now. Trapped in a place where they are neither dead nor free.”

Calli’s shoulders tensed.

“I know you believe that you have some sense about this, but I’ve seen them leave with my own eyes. I saw a man named Ronan rewarded with power and treasures you can’t even imagine before he walked through a golden mirror, back to the outside world.”

Calli defended this with more passion than I’d maybe ever seen from her. Like she needed it to be true.

“If we’re lucky enough to survive these Games of ours, you’ll get to see it for yourself. There’s this warrior from Citrine they call the Veiled Blade. She’s earned every signet but one. Sapphire. Those are the next set of Games, too. If she wins that, she’ll be able to request a battle with the Stone Guardian.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You do not want to know,” Elara said with a shudder.

“Do you think she can do it?”

“If the stories are true, the Shard itself bends for her. Like it wants her out.”

Elara snorted softly. “The Shard doesn’t bend. It breaks you or it consumes you.”

“Then she’s the exception,” Calli said. “But enough of that. Come on. There’s something else I want you to see.”

We climbed a tight spiral staircase that seemed to go on forever, coiling upward toward the castle’s spires. Every step carried us farther from the noise of the barracks and deeper into silence. At last, the stairs ended at a narrow ledge, a single archway ahead spilling silver light across the floor.

When we stepped through, the corridor opened, and I nearly forgot how to breathe.

The Shard unfurled below us in impossible geometry, a city carved from glass and starlight. Towers rose like spears of crystal, their edges catching the light of the false moon and cutting it into ribbons of violet and gold. The great arena shone at the center of it all. A radiant bowl of brilliant fire, alive with the pulse of magic and power.

Beyond it, the horizon fractured into distant realms of color. Ruby. Emerald. Sapphire. And Citrine.

From up here, the Shard looked massive, like finding an entire world inside a snowglobe. Enclosed but alive. I felt small and awed and terrified, all at once.

How many prisoners had the Order of Shadows trapped in this place? And for how long?

Elara and I joined Calli as she sat on the wall, our feet hanging into nothing. For the longest time, we didn’t speak.

“Last time,” Calli said finally, her voice almost lost in the open air, “the final round of the Amethyst Games was a descent. The floor kept dropping away in pieces. We were good. My team? We’d trained together for months. We’d already survived one set of Games and come back for a second. We loved each other. We trusted each other.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “And in the end, they still died.”

The words hung between us, sharp and bare.

“I saw the floor collapsing and tried to warn them, but they didn’t listen. They were so sure of the finish line that they ran, screaming at each other to move faster.” She blinked hard, swiping at the corner of one eye. “I watched them fall—every single one of them—and there was nothing I could do but keep flying.”

Her gaze lifted to mine, steady and bright with pain

“I can’t go into those Games tomorrow with a team that doesn’t know how to talk to each other. How to listen. I can’t watch that happen again.”

My throat tightened.

Elara nudged Calli’s knee with her own, the tiniest press. “It was not your fault,” she said. “No more than it was my fault my brother died. We cannot face evil and then blame ourselves for its curses.”

Calli turned toward me. “I want to trust you, Bex. I do. But we were solidly winning that fight in the exhibition, and you threw your magic at the Regent in front of the entire world and almost got us killed. Why would you do something like that?”

My body went numb as I realized why she’d brought me here. She wanted a safe place to talk about what I’d done. To find out, once and for all, who I really was.

“I couldn’t breathe,” I said simply. “At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. It just felt like pressure on my chest. But then, invisible fingers wrapped around my throat. I couldn’t even draw a full breath, much less explain to someone what was going on. When I looked up at the Regent, she was smiling and flexing her hand. I’m telling you, somehow it was her fingers squeezing my throat. I think she was trying to kill me in a way that couldn’t be traced back to her.” I pressed my palm to the spot where I’d felt her magic on me. “I was running out of time, so I did the only thing I could think of to do before I died. I threw my magic at her because I thought it would make her let go. I didn’t mean to make it worse, but to be honest, I wasn’t fully able to think in that moment. I just didn’t want to die.”

Calli’s eyes shone. “You should’ve told us that.”

“I tried to,” I said. “But Brim wouldn’t even let me talk. He’s already made up his mind about me, and I can’t really blame him, I guess. I’m more surprised you didn’t all join him in hating me.”

Calli leaned into me, head against my shoulder for a brief, deliberate heartbeat. “I know the two of you don’t get along, but if we tell him the truth about what happened—”

“He won’t believe me,” I said. “He’s hated me from the minute he laid eyes on me. Has he told you why he’s got such a grudge against me?”

She looked away, and I nearly choked on my own breath.

“You know. Don’t you?”

“He won’t tell me, no matter how many times I’ve asked,” she said. “But you should talk to him, Bex. After the Game tomorrow. Right now, we just need to focus on winning.”

“I thought you said we’d win this no problem.”

She laughed. “That was before I knew just how badly the Regent had it out for us.”

“For me,” I mumbled.

Elara sighed. “Love is a powerful motivator.”

My entire body tensed. “I don’t love him.”

She cackled, low and amused.

“I did not mean you,” she whispered.

I leaned back, propping my weight up on my hands behind me.

Of course. I’d seen it in the Regent’s eyes when she looked at Slate the first day she’d come to the training grounds. Desire. Longing.

She wanted him, and she saw me as a threat. As ridiculous as that sounded, I couldn’t deny there was something there between us. Slate and me. I couldn’t fully explain it, but it was powerful. Like a magnet.

Like fate. 

“There are rumors,” Calli said. “And we’ve all seen the way she looks at him.”

“Like she owns him,” Elara said.

Calli nodded. “But I’ve never once seen him look at her with the same desire.” A crooked smile formed on her lips. “The only person I’ve ever seen him look at like that is you.”

I dropped my head into my hands, wishing I could disappear into the night like I’d done so many times in my life before.

“I can’t explain what’s happening between us,” I said finally. “But it’s putting us all in danger.”

“Everything here is danger and death,” Elara said. “The question is not how to avoid it. The question is what will make it worthwhile? What are you willing to die for?”

Her words nearly knocked the breath from my lungs.

“I would die for both of you,” I said. “For Orion. But Brim…”

“Brim isn’t as mean as he wants you to think,” Calli said. “Did you know that he collects the broken things he finds near the training ground and the barracks? Buttons. Beads. He made me this.”

She held out her wrist, adorned with a beautiful beaded bracelet.

“I saw him fix a child’s doll last week when she dropped it. He’s not a monster, Bex.”

I blinked. “That definitely does not sound like the same person I know.”

“He thinks kindness is weakness,” Elara said. “So he hides it. But it is there inside him. I have seen it, too.”

“Talk to him after the Game tomorrow,” Calli said, putting her hand on mine. “Once you see beyond that thick skin of his, he’s a good man.”

I sighed. “Let’s just get through the first round, and then we’ll see.”

Calli laughed under her breath.

“One more thing. Your crystal—the one I gave you.” She watched my face as it fell. “It can be mended. Lavender can do it, but she’ll need time and you’ll need to keep it secret. Give it to her in the morning before we go.”

“How did you know?” I asked.

“I went into your room after they took you to the castle.”

“I didn’t break it, you know. Someone was in my room the night before the exhibition.” I couldn’t believe I’d nearly forgotten to tell them. “I should have known I wasn’t safe when they announced that whole thing. I’m not sure I’m safe tonight, to be honest. I have no idea why the Regent didn’t just kill me in that castle, but I have no doubt she’ll try again. Either tonight or tomorrow. She will not willingly let me live.”

“You can sleep in my room,” Calli said, pulling me into a tight hug.

Elara sighed. “If we start hugging and crying like teenagers at a slumber party, I will throw myself off this wall.”

Calli and I laughed, pulling Elara into a hug that shocked her at first, and then softened something inside her as she leaned in once and then pulled away.

We stayed there together, talking and watching the lights of the Amethyst Shard for another hour until we finally made our way back to the barracks. Elara said goodnight, but I slept in Calli’s room, grateful to have found friends like these in such a dangerous world.

We woke early in the morning, ready to face whatever the day might bring. I laced my boots with hands that wouldn’t quite stop shaking, then took one steadying breath and another, matching an invisible rhythm I was slowly learning to trust.

Outside the room, I searched for Lavender, Calli’s stone hidden in my pocket ready to pass off to her. There was no sign of the alchemist, though. Had she forgotten? Or had she been blocked from visiting us this morning?

My nerves spiked. There would be no outside help this time.

Slate was waiting on the path up toward the arena. I tried to catch his eye, but he never once looked directly at me.

“Round One,” he said. “Rumor is the challenge you’ll face is called The Glass Labyrinth. It’s tough, but it’s not as bad as what you faced in the exhibition. The maze will be filled with shifting corridors, mirrored walls, and traps. You’ve trained for this.”

Calli swallowed. “How many teams?”

“Four,” Slate said. “One team didn’t make it through the exhibition.”

“What’s our penalty?” Orion asked.

“Unknown,” he said, obviously frustrated. “Which means you need to be ready for anything. The Regent is counting on panic. Give her discipline.”

Brim adjusted the leather at his wrist without looking up. “And if discipline fails? Or a team member sabotages us?”

He didn’t look at me, but his words made my jaw clench tight. Arguing with him here wouldn’t help anyone, though. If we made it through this challenge alive, though, I was going to unleash on him.

“Trust your instincts above all,” Slate said.

His gaze landed on me at last, hard and electric. 

“You will not go rogue out there. Control your power. Stay close to Orion. If you get into trouble, you tell him what’s going on instead of taking fate into your own hands.”

I nodded once. “Yes, Warden.”

His face showed no emotion at all. Whatever had existed between us before the exhibition was either dead or hidden. He didn’t ask what happened that day or how I was holding up. He didn’t ask about what I’d gone through in the castle. Nothing.

Instead, he stepped back, shoulders straightening like a proper soldier.

“Get into formation.”

We moved quickly. Elara behind my right shoulder. Calli to my left. Brim a pace ahead, a dark wall with a pulse. Orion at the back of the group, a quiet and confident anchor to the nerves in my stomach.

We entered the tunnel and made our way silently to the Amethyst Arena. This time, we were directed to a holding area with a thick gate holding us back from the floor. 

From here, it looked as though the upper arena was full. Tiers of nobles and witches draped in color. Sentinels glittering in their armor. The Regent like a dark star on her amethyst dais. The false sun rose behind her, casting light and shadows across the battleground.

The other Amethyst teams waited behind their own gates scattered across the arena, their faces taut, and their bodies tuned like instruments before a symphony.

Above us, the five-sided crystal hung in the air, each facet bearing a Warden’s mark, just like in the exhibition. Each counter was set to zero except ours, which showed a -50.

I glanced back at Orion and he nodded, as if to say this was expected. Stay calm.

But I was not calm. We were starting a full fifty points behind. And it was all my fault.

A woman walked to the center of the arena floor, and I inhaled sharply.

Adisa, the Mistress of Trials.

She’d run the scarf game when we were all in the lower dungeons, but I hadn’t seen her since.

Did that mean she’d designed this Game? And if so, was that better for me? Or worse?

“Welcome to the first round of the Amethyst Games for the Winter Solstice,” Adisa said, her voice carrying as if she held a microphone. Magical amplification, no doubt, which would have seemed very cool if I weren’t waiting here to face my certain death.

“For today’s Game, we have chosen a particularly challenging competition of skill, speed, and agility,” she said. “May I present to you The Glass Labyrinth.”

She raised her hands and the entire surface of the arena floor shifted and changed as spires of crystal rose, twisting and forming into a vast maze of amethysts that looked like blocks of lavender ice.

“Inside the labyrinth, I have placed ten buttons, each marked with a different symbol,” Adisa said. “Teams are to search the labyrinth for these buttons. Each button pushed will award your team with twenty points. Here’s an example of what your target looks like.”

She glanced over her left shoulder and a large purple diamond shape appeared, glowing from within. An illusion that disappeared a few seconds later.

“Each team can only press each button once, so to help with communication inside the maze, your Wardens will now activate your marks.”

Slate turned around, jaw tense as he placed two fingers on his own skin, just below his collarbone where a mark that matched ours glowed faintly. The second he did it, a rush of heat pulsed through me, hot enough to take my breath away. Thankfully, it only lasted a few brief seconds, but the warmth of it never fully faded.

“Can you hear me?” he said, the sound seeming to come from the inside of my head instead of from my ears.

My eyes widened. Had our marks just become magical walkie-talkies?

Calli pressed on her mark. “I got it. Everyone else? Let’s do a quick test.”

One by one, each of us pressed the sigil on our bodies and spoke, and each voice came in loud and clear in my head.

That would have been useful in the last challenge, but at least we had it now.

“When you find a button inside the maze, make sure to tell the rest of the team what the sigil was, because if someone else on your team presses the same button a second time, you will lose forty points,” Adisa said. “If you’re doing the math in your heads, you know that the max amount of points that can be awarded from the buttons is two hundred, but there’s another way to earn points for your team.”

Calli’s voice intruded into my thoughts. “Because these Games are complex enough.”

I smiled, so glad she wasn’t mad at me for the exhibition. I wished I’d had a chance to talk to Brim last night. I hated that we were going into this challenge with him so angry at me for what I’d done.

Hopefully, once we were inside, we’d just go our separate ways and I wouldn’t see him again until we were safely finished and declared the winning team.

“Throughout the labyrinth, you’ll come across various traps and constructs,” Adisa continued. “For each monster you kill, your team will be awarded an additional ten points. There are four teams competing in today’s round. The top two teams at the end of thirty minutes will move on to the final round in three days.”

I took a deep breath. Top two teams only. We could do this.

“The two losing teams will face the dungeons or death, at the command of the Amethyst Regent,” she said, bowing toward the dais.

I couldn’t be sure from this angle, but I felt certain the Regent was smiling. If we didn’t finish in the top two spots, she’d have a good excuse to kill me outright without making it seem personal.

We had to win this.

“Cross-team fatalities are permitted in today’s battle, but no additional points will be awarded to a team that kills an opponent,” Adisa said, drawing cheers from the crowd. “Physical weapons will not be allowed in today’s match. Magic and fists only, please. Are there any questions from our team Wardens?”

Eternity seemed to stretch out as we waited for her to speak again.

My entire body lit up with nerves. The Game itself was complex and dangerous enough, but if the Regent tried to attack me again, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I would have to trust my team, and trust was terrifying.

Could Brim be trusted to protect me, if it came to that? Or would he be glad to see me fall?

The floor in front of each gate unfolded into corridors of clear crystal, and as our gate slid open with a groan, every nerve in my body screamed at me to turn and run.

Unfortunately, I had no choice but to face whatever fate had in store.

Brim stepped forward, the first into the maze as each of us marched past our leader.

I paused for the briefest moment, lifting my eyes to Slate. Our eyes locked, and he raised his hand as if to touch me before he thought better of it. The first hint of fear and longing flashed between us before he shut it down again and took a step backward. I forced my eyes ahead, determined not to let this be the last moments of my life.

Cold air rolled out, and I shivered as we stepped inside.

The maze stretched before us, all facets and reflections. An endless hall of lavender light. Every surface gleamed like cut glass, and every step echoed back wrong, as though the sound were half a heartbeat behind us.

“The Wardens go dark from this point forward,” Adisa’s voice rang out from above. “No outside contact until the Game ends. Let the first round begin.”

With those words, giant plates like screens formed above our heads, flashing with images that were too high for us to see clearly.

“They’re televising the Game,” Calli said. “Smile.”

She smiled and flashed a peace sign, taking some of the pressure off the moment like she always did.

“Go high,” Brim said. “Your flight is our greatest advantage here.”

Calli shifted and stretched her wings once, feathers brushing the air as she flew upward and slammed into an invisible ceiling with a sickening thud.

 “Damn it!” she cursed, dropping back down and rubbing her head. “I’m no use here. There’s no way over the walls.”

“So much for our aerial advantage,” Elara muttered.

“We’ll adapt,” Orion said, scanning the glass corridors. “We always do.”

A single beam of false sunlight sliced through the ceiling, scattering our reflections into hundreds across the crystalline walls.

“We need to move faster,” Calli said. “We need points.”

“I can phase through these walls,” I said, taking a deep breath to connect to my power. “I can slip through and reach the buttons faster.”

Brim turned on me immediately, eyes hard as obsidian. “Absolutely not. You’ll lose control, or worse. You can’t be trusted alone.”

“Her unique ability could turn this in our favor,” Orion said.

Brim stepped closer, his shadow swallowing the light between us. “Not if she’s dead.”

“Enough,” Calli snapped. “Brim’s right about one thing—Bex can’t go off alone. The Regent would love to make her disappear inside this maze.”

My chest tightened. She was right. If I was alone, she’d have free reign to kill me and make it look like a construct.

“Fine. Then we’ll play it your way. For now. But we can’t all stay together. It will take too long.”

We decided to split up. Calli went with Elara, Orion with me, and Brim forging ahead on his own.

“Twenty-five minutes left on the clock,” Orion said quietly as we moved. “Ten buttons total. Fifty points behind to start. We need to act fast.”

The first stretch twisted back on itself. Every few steps, our reflections shifted. Sometimes my shadow walked beside me, sometimes ahead. Then, around a blind corner, Calli’s voice came through the mark.

“Found one. It’s etched with a Cescent moon, which has to be good luck, right? Pressing it now.”

A chime rang through the labyrinth. The prism above us flashed. +20.

We were still in last place, but at least we were the first to gain points.

“Nine to go.”

We picked up the pace.

A flash of motion caught my eye as we turned the next corner. A crystalline beast that looked like part wolf, part bear, lunged from a mirrored wall. Orion swept his hand through the air, and a burst of white fire disintegrated it mid-leap. The crowd above roared.

“+10,” I breathed, watching the prism shift. “We’re closing in.”

Several other teams flashed points, the rankings swapping back and forth as we moved through the maze, sometimes hitting a dead end, other times facing another creature.

 Orion and I hit our first button five minutes later.

“Got one,” I shouted into the mark. “An etched spiral.”

Our score climbed again, and this time we finally moved from fourth to third.

“Not bad,” Calli said. “We’re getting pounded with constructs over here, but Elara’s kicking butt.”

Brim’s voice growled through the link. “Triangle with a dot inside. Pressed.”

Another chime.

Just ten points from second place.

We were climbing.

The deeper we went, the more the maze began to shift around us. Walls slid, openings sealed, corridors swallowed their own reflections. Calli and Elara nearly ran into us twice, laughing breathlessly before sprinting in opposite directions.

We were doing great, but time kept slipping away from us. The first place team was killing it, moving farther and farther ahead, while the bottom three teams kept swapping places, staying neck and neck most of the way through.

“Ten minutes!” Calli shouted. “Five more buttons to find.”

We’d fallen to third again, maybe even fourth, the prism above us flashing so fast it was impossible to track. Orion and I began to run. He kept a shield around us at all times, which came in handy when a crystal construct emerged from the walls unexpectedly. But we were still moving too slowly. Every second wasted was another chance for the Regent to take her “mercy” back.

If we were going to have a chance at second, we needed to move faster.

“We’re never going to catch up like this,” I said, breathless as I stopped next to Orion at yet another dead end. 

“Bex,  know what you’re thinking, but—”

“I can phase. I can find those sigils faster than anyone else, and we’re just wasting that advantage.”

He caught my wrist. “You don’t know what’s behind those walls. You could be putting yourself in grave danger going alone, so unless you can phase us both, you’re staying with me.”

“We’ll lose,” I said, meeting his eyes. “We started at a disadvantage because of me. Let me make it up to the whole team. I owe you that.”

“Stay with your teammate,” Brim ordered over the comm, as if he could read my thoughts. “That’s an order.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” I whispered, and before Orion could stop me, I slipped sideways into the glass.

The world turned to liquid light.

For a heartbeat, there was nothing but cold pressure, like the maze itself was trying to squeeze me out of existence. Then I burst through into another corridor, stumbling to my knees. My stomach spun as I got my bearings, but when I looked up, it made the discomfort well worth it.

A button with a sigil shaped like a star was embedded in the wall in front of me.

“Button found,” I gasped. “A star.”

The sound of a chime echoed through the maze as I pressed the button. The prism flickered, and our score climbed.

Third again. Ten points behind the second place team with five minutes remaining.

I phased again but came up empty. Trying to think through which directions we hadn’t tried yet, I chose the east wall and phased through, struggling for breath on the other side.

“I got another one,” I said. “An eye.”

Adrenaline carried me forward as our points shot up. Second place. I could do this. I had to do this.

“What is she doing, Orion? She better not have gone off on her own.” Brim’s voice vibrated through the mark.

Calli followed next. “Bex, you’ve got to be careful. What if—”

“I’ve got this,” I said, running and pushing myself through the next wall, only to come up empty.

My chest burned from the strain, my body screaming at the magic twisting through it. But I pushed again, slipping through another wall, desperate to find one last—

I slammed straight into solid muscle.

The impact knocked me flat. My head cracked against the glass floor, stars bursting behind my eyes.

Brim.

He’d been rounding the corner at the same time I phased through. For a second, neither of us moved.

He stared down at me, fists clenched, breathing hard.

“Bex?” Calli’s voice crackled in my head. “What’s happening? Another team just hit a button. We don’t have enough time. They’re ahead by ten.”

Thirty seconds ticked down on the clock.

I scrambled backward, but Brim followed, dark eyes locked on me with such rage burning in them, it stole my breath. His shadow loomed over me as he lifted his fist into the air.

“Five seconds,” Orion said. “Everyone run.”

But I couldn’t run. I was trapped.

“Brim, don’t—”

He drove his arm down toward me.

I flinched, lifting my hands over my face as a deafening crack of glass split the silence.

The ground shook as spikes bloomed across the floor from Brim’s fist straight toward me. But as the spikes reached me, they split into two, rising on either side of my body and continuing down the corridor.

Something screamed, and I turned to see a trio of constructs, enormous and spider-like, collapse into dust.

The prism above flared: +30 points.

Our team sigil moved up to second place just as the final bell rang out.

Brim and I both stared at each other, breathing hard.

His fist still hovered between us, and his voice came out low and rough. “Next time you break formation, you’ll answer to me.”

Light exploded through the labyrinth as the walls slowly retreated into the floor. The roar of the crowd poured in, deafening and electric.

Adisa’s voice boomed overhead. “Round One complete. Congratulations to Warden Lorien for a first-place finish.”

I was still on the ground, heart thundering, trying to process that we were alive. Barely.

Brim reached a stone-hard hand down to me, and I took it, my body trembling as we stepped into the light together, rejoining our team. The cheers of the crowd rolled through my bones like thunder.

“And without a single second to spare, congratulations to Warden Slate for achieving second place.”

Slate stood at the edge of the Warden’s platform, hands clasped behind his back, expression carved from stone. For a heartbeat, he looked every inch the weapon the Regent had created him to be. Cold and unshakeable.

But then his eyes found mine, and for a moment, the mask slipped.

Something fierce and aching passed between us, gone almost before it began, and when he looked away, my knees nearly gave out.

On the large screens that lined the edge of the arena, the camera zoomed in on the Regent as she rose from her throne, her expression cold as ice as she stared down at our team.

At me.

And I knew in my bones there would be no more mercy—supposed or otherwise.

If I wanted to live, I was going to have to fight for it, inside the arena and out.

But as Calli and Elara leaned closer, putting their arms around me, I felt for the first time since Maggie betrayed me that I would not have to fight alone.