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Alex didn’t move from her position, but she did flick her eyes up to the cloaked figure now standing above her.

Watching him, she couldn’t hold back a moan when he created another glass of water out of thin air and passed it down to her.

“No more tasks,” he said, and while his tone remained bland, there was a hint of reassurance in it. “This one’s to quench your thirst.”

At that, Alex forced her body up into a seated position and reached for the offered drink.

“Ten hours, fifty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds,” the man said as she guzzled down the water. “You’re tenacious, I’ll give you that.” He made a pensive sound and added, “I’m curious how different your result would have been without your Meyarin blood strengthening your balance and endurance.”

Alex was past the point of surprise when it came to what secrets this mysterious man knew about her.

“I’m not sure it works like that,” she croaked out between swallows. The glass somehow offered an unlimited supply of water, and only when her thirst had been sated did she set it aside and watch it promptly disappear from sight. “I can tap into the heightened senses, speed and reflexes of the immortal race, but I’m still limited by certain aspects of my human nature. Balance being one of those.”

He made another sound, perhaps agreement this time.

“Yet with training, any skill can be developed,” he said.

“Not the least of which is balance.”

“Are we speaking figuratively or literally?” she asked, too tired to keep up if he was still playing word games.

“Both, of course.”

Alex sighed. “Of course.”

Noticing her wound dribbling blood onto the rug, Alex unwound the soggy bandage to inspect the damage. It wasn’t as bad as when she’d first been impaled, but the healing effects of thelaendrawere nowhere near as good as they had been before she’d travelled for nearly eleven hours on it.

Re-bandaging her leg and wincing at the renewed compression, Alex asked, “Any chance you’ll explain what all that was about?”

Given the lack of answers she was generally offered by most people in her life, Alex was downright shocked when a plush armchair appeared in front of her and the man sat down, heeding her request.

“Three tasks I gave you to judge your worthiness,” he said. “The first was to assess your complex reasoning skills by testing the speed by which you solved a problem while under pressure.” He paused. “You passed with acceptable swiftness.”

Alex snorted, since she’d practically inhaled the water in her first test. There was no way she could have acted any quicker than that, and he damn well knew it.Acceptable swiftness, my ass, she thought.

“The second task was to test how willing you were to put aside your natural inclinations towards trusting those around you and instead follow your instincts in high-risk situations.” He repositioned his hood as if to keep the light of the flames from revealing his face. “Again, you passed, but only just. There may come a time, Alexandra Jennings, when no matter how close you are with your loved ones, the only person you will be able to trust is yourself.”

Alex didn’t like what he was implying. “If I can’t trust the people I care about, then we might as well give up now.” She remembered Kyia’s words from earlier that day—relatively speaking—and added, “There’s no way I’ll be able to face what’s ahead without them by my side.”

“You of all people know that no one is safe from Aven’s reach—no one except for you and, perhaps, those once bound to you,” the man said. “What assurances do you have that your closest friends aren’t already Claimed by him, just like what happened with Jordan Sparker? Tell me this, Alexandra: without first Claiming them yourself, how would you know?”

Alex turned cold all over again as his point clutched painfully at her heart. The truth was, shehadn’trealised Jordan was Claimed, because Aven had ordered him to act as normal as possible. Sure, she had felt as if something was off about him, but she’d attributed it to other factors, like his miserable family.

“For the challenges you’ll face, you will need your friends by your side,” the man said, his monotone softening as if to comfort her—albeit slightly. “But you need to be aware of the possibilities and willing to put aside your faith in them if your instincts are telling you something different. Had you not decided to test the water in the glass and therefore distrust my word about its acidity, you would have soon fallen and, consequently, failed.”

Alex nodded, unable to form words of agreement yet also understanding what he was telling her. “And the final task?”

“That was to see how far you were willing to go to reach your goals. How stubborn your will, as it were,” he answered. “It was aimed to test the strength of your character in the face of what appeared to be an impossible, unending quest.”

“And I passed?”

“You didn’t give up, not until you reached your very end—and far beyond it, I dare say,” he responded.

Since that wasn’t quite an answer, Alex repeated, “So… I passed?”

The flames flickered across his cloak and the silence stretched on until he finally confirmed, “You passed.”

This was a good thing, Alex tried to remind herself. But in her current physical condition, she found it difficult to call forth any excitement.