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One final flash of light, and the three Tia Auran leaders appeared—Empress Saefii and Calivere both seated on thrones that had the best view overlooking the stadium, and Tayros materialising on the circular platform.

The dark-haired advisor held a box in his hands that he opened as he stepped closer. Inside were six pairs of identical golden wrist cuffs, beautifully crafted pieces with swirled engravings and—

“You guys have a thing about mixing diamonds and gold together, don’t you?” Jordan observed, pulling one pair from the box at Tayros’s gesture.

“What you refer to are neither gold nor diamond,” Tayros said, “but rather a precious metal and stone native only to our world. They cannot be replicated in such a pure form elsewhere.”

Jordan just blinked at him. “Okay. Well, whatever it is, you seem to really like using it.”

“It is a symbol of our supremacy—of our strength, of our power. Of our dominance.”

“If you say so,” Jordan said, snorting lightly as he slid the cuff onto his wrist. “Personally, I think it’s a bit excessi—”

Alex shoved her foot down onto his before he could finish his sentence, and he broke off with a curse, glaring at her in question. He had been too busy fiddling with the cuff to notice Tayros’s darkening expression, but she hadn’t missed it. The last thing they needed before doing whatever they were about to do was to offend one of the Tia Auran rulers.

Reading the warning in her look, Jordan turned back to Tayros, realising his mistake. “Uh, excessively underdone,” he quickly tried to cover. “I think you should use more of it. Every chance you get. It’s so… shiny.”

Alex felt like smacking a hand to her forehead, at least until it appeared that Jordan’s blundering attempt appeased Tayros. Apparently the Tia Aurans weren’t skilled at recognising mortal sarcasm, to her relief.

“Each of you will wear the cuffs while undergoingTu’eh Saeron ess Telari,” Tayros said as the rest of them slid the bands onto their wrists. “They will ensure that you remain linked to share the same testing environment.”

Alex raised her eyebrows at that, seeing similar expressions on her friends’ faces.

“Is it like a virtual reality?” Bear asked, with a hint of his normal enthusiasm. Alex was pleased to again see evidence that he was compartmentalising his grief, at least for the time being, but she failed to understand his perpetual excitement over anything related to virtual reality. Any time she’d ever experienced it, she’d almost always ended up shocked in one way or another—sometimes a good shock, but mostly bad.

“What you experience will be real, or at least real to you,” Tayros answered, negating the virtual reality idea. “Thedangers you face inside the Gates will also be real, as will the consequences should you fail to… overcome those dangers.”

Alex didn’t like the sound of that, but she pushed away thoughts of Bear’s theory from last night about their lives being at stake. Now was the time to focus, not fear.

“Those in the audience each wear similar cuffs,” Tayros continued, waving to the assembled masses and then sliding up his white sleeves to reveal his own gold-enclosed wrists. “We’ll be able to watch everything that happens during your testing.”

How fabulous, Alex thought, sighing.

“No one has told us anything aboutTu’eh Saeron ess Telari,” she said, twisting one of the cuffs nervously around her forearm. She was again pleased that her golden skin was concealed, otherwise she would be looking overwhelmingly gaudy right now. “Are there any rules we must follow? Any instructions at all?”

“Six Gates you must overcome,” Tayros said. He pointed to the fiery arches floating above them. “Each day that you continue on, there will be three new options for you. You must step through only one and face what is on the other side.”

“Three new options?” Kaiden repeated, frowning slightly. “Options regarding what?”

“I cannot say,” Tayros said. “You will have to wait and see.”

“And all we have to do is choose which option we want and step through the Gate?” Alex asked. “Seems relatively simple.”

“You don’t get to choose the option,” Tayros corrected. “Only the Gate.”

Her brow furrowed. “But—How will we know which option is for which Gate?”

“You won’t.” Fisting his right hand and pressing it just above his heart in a strange kind of salute, he finished, “May the light shine upon you always, mortals.”

With a bright flash, Tayros vanished, only to reappear seated on the throne at Saefii’s right side.

Alex froze. Not because of his limited information regarding the Gates, but from his final statement, since that was the last thing Lady Mystique had ever said to her. The next time Alex had seen the ancient woman, she’d been killed by Aven.

‘May the light shine upon you always, Alexandra Jennings.’

“Hey, Alex, you okay?”

Alex blinked back the memory—and the tears tickling the back of her nose—and nodded to answer D.C.’s question. Slightly shaken, but otherwise okay, she knew she couldn’t afford to lose her composure. Not now.