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THE SECOND TRIAL

CEDRIC

“You’re not Zephyr.” The room was unnervingly silent as Cedric and the Revenant gaped at each other. She blinked at him, her green eyes lit with streaks of silver that danced in the light seeping from the torches along the walls.

The Arbiter’s announcement had brought chaos, to be sure, but hadn’t Zephyr been right behind him? He’d presumed their conversation yesterday meant they’d be pairing up to tackle this next trial—she had called him “partner”—but perhaps the sylvan had chosen a different door? Or was this some new, cruel trick of the Crucible—instructing the champions to trust each other, only to pair up those least inclined to do so? Why did it have to be her ?

You’re not Zephyr. Mentally, Cedric smacked himself upside the head. Maybe Elyria didn’t notice just how stupid that sounded.

She noticed.

“Is that your power?” She inclined her head at the token hanging from Cedric’s neck. “The magic of stating the obvious?”

He scowled. “You should save some of that quick wit for the trial itself. And speaking of...”

Elyria arched a brow. “What, no time for pleasantries?”

“Do illuminate me as to what part of this could possibly be construed as pleasant.”

Something zipped through Cedric’s center at the sight of Elyria’s pursed mouth quivering, as if she fought a grin.

He cleared his throat. “The sooner we get through this trial, the sooner we cease being...together. Might as well get on with it.”

“Get on with what?” She waved her arms animatedly, gesturing to the empty room. “There’s nothing here.”

Cedric looked pointedly over Elyria’s head, where the painted vines on the wall had started to glow.

“For fuck’s sake. Another archway, another gate?” she muttered. “Can they truly not come up with anything more creative?” A shimmer rippled across the wall as Elyria neared it.

Something about it made Cedric shudder. “I don’t think this is the same kind of gate.” Instead of glowing with the ethereal, inviting light Cedric had already become accustomed to, the section of flat wall transformed . Like alchemy, the stone between the edges of the painted frame melted into liquid gold.

“Well, this is new.” Elyria’s reflection stared back at the two champions—a golden mirror. She studied it, a soft melody falling from her lips, almost absentmindedly. She drew her staff from her back.

“I wouldn’t”—Cedric began, just as the end of her staff tapped the mirror—“touch that.” He sighed. “What is wrong with you?”

Elyria shot him an unimpressed look. “It’s called curiosity. I know it may be difficult for you to imagine with that stick up your ass, but it’s a perfectly normal?—”

“Riiiiiight,” he cut her off, drawing out the vowel. “What part of this entire thing is normal, again?”

She leaned closer to the mirror, inspecting her warped reflection for a moment before turning to face Cedric. “You tell me. Word around the Sanctum is that you’ve been preparing for the Crucible since you were knee-high to a gryphon. You are the darling of Lord Leviathan Church, are you not?” She grinned, a glint in her eye that made the air in the room seem suddenly thin.

He didn’t like that teasing twinkle. Didn’t like the way it made him feel—warm and a little bit itchy. He also didn’t like hearing Lord Church’s name come out of her mouth, how it made the world that existed outside the Sanctum come crashing in on them here. The knowledge that he was in here, forced to work with her , while Lord Church waited for him out there made Cedric’s stomach twist uncomfortably.

It took him a moment to realize Elyria was waiting for his response.

“Something like that,” he muttered. “But that doesn’t mean I can speak to whether this qualifies as a typical experience.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.” The air between them grew suddenly very still.

“Because anyone who might have made it here before is dead,” she said, her voice low. A moment passed. Her eyes turned glassy. Then, she made a jerking motion with her head, as if she was trying to shake some thought loose.

Cedric’s brow creased. Had she lost someone to a previous Crucible? He thought back to the argument he’d witnessed between Elyria and Kit in Castle Lumin. Well, the argument he’d inserted himself in.

“I am acting in the best interest of your remaining family,” Elyria had said.

It made sense, he supposed. The desperation Elyria had exuded, trying to convince Kit not to enter the Sanctum. The deep hurt she’d covered up at Kit’s implication that Elyria wasn’t part of that aforementioned family.

“Did you?—”

“Still,” she cut him off, “you might use a little imagination here. Or is that beyond the abilities of the great Sir Cedric Thorne, champion of Kingshelm?”

“Imagination?”

She rolled her eyes, all signs of whatever thought or memory that had trapped her moments before now gone. Her icy, indifferent mask had slid right back into place. “Yes. Imagination. The ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful? Ring any bells?”

“I know what the word means,” he said drily. “Just not my strong suit, I’m afraid.”

“ Imagine that,” she said. “Ah, well. I suppose I’ll just have to be creative enough for the both of us.” She rapped on the surface of the mirror with her staff again, inspecting her reflection.

“Stop doing that,” he chastised. “I thought the Revenant was supposed to be this legendary warrior, not an impulsive fool.”

She tensed. “And I thought you were supposed to be a knight, not some humorless prick.”

“Humorless?” he echoed, affecting the tone of mock offense Tristan so often used around him. “I’ll have you know I’m considered by many to be positively delightful.”

Elyria’s answering laugh rang through the small room like a bell. It was an infuriatingly beautiful sound. “Is that so?” she said, eyes sparkling, smile beaming.

He forced his gaze anywhere but that transformed, beatific face. “When I’m not stuck with reckless fae who think poking strange, magical, golden wall-mirrors out of curiosity is a good idea.”

“And here I thought being stuck with me would be the highlight of your day.” She turned back to the mirror with a shrug. “Admit it, Sir Grumpypants. You’d be bored to tears without me.”

A short, incredulous laugh left Cedric’s lips. “Quite the opposite, I assure you. I’d be thrilled not having to babysit someone who treats every challenge like it’s?—”

“You? Babysitting me ?” She cut him off with another bout of pealing laughter. “Now that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in, well, in a very long time. How old are you, human? You can’t be more than, what, twenty-nine? Thirty years of age?”

Cedric mumbled a response.

She cupped her hand around her ear. “Sorry, didn’t catch that.”

“Twenty-eight,” he said.

“Even better.”

Cedric’s face screwed up in a scowl. “And just how old are you?”

Elyria let out a melodramatic gasp. “How dare you? Don’t you know how rude it is to ask that of a lady? ”

“I’m not being rude,” he said with a frown. And I don’t see any ladies around here, he wanted to add. He held his tongue. It was too easy.

Elyria tutted. “I’m two hundred and sixty-one, if you must know.”

Cedric did a quick calculation in his head, based on what he knew of the fae lifecycle. They regularly lived to nine hundred years or more. “Wouldn’t that make you...essentially the same age as me?”

“That’s a bit reductive, but sure. As long as you disregard the extra centuries of life experience entirely.”

Cedric bit the inside of his lip to keep himself from smiling. “If only you directed even a fraction of that worldly experience toward figuring out what we’re supposed to be doing here, rather than toying with me.”

Mischief danced in her emerald eyes. “I’ll make you a deal, then. You loosen up a little when the occasion calls for it, and I’ll do just that.”

“That sounds like a losing proposition for us both.”

“On the contrary,” she said, slinging her staff over her shoulder and raising a delicate, pale finger toward the mirror. “ That is what we call a win-win situ?—”

She brought her finger to the mirror, just the barest touch. It was enough. The surface turned liquid again, gold rippling out from where she made contact.

Cedric heard her sharp intake of breath too late.

Molten gold slid up her wrist, wrapped around her arm, took hold of her.

He lunged, his hand outstretched, trying to grab her, trying to pull her back. He missed her by a heartbeat. His fingers snagged a few long strands of periwinkle hair as the Revenant was sucked into the gilded depths. All that remained was the sharp sounds of wood and metal rattling against rock, as Elyria’s staff and daggers bounced against the floor, discarded.

The rippling gold stilled, hardening back into unyielding stone.

Shit.

Panic gnawed at him. Where had she gone? This couldn’t be how it was supposed to go.

Could it?

It struck him then that perhaps this wasn’t the most terrible thing that could have happened. Was he not just lamenting their being stuck here together? So why was his pulse racing? Why did his armor suddenly feel too tight?

Cedric slammed his gauntlet-clad fist upon the wall—once, twice. The stone shook. He drew back. “This is your idea of unity, is it?” he yelled into the empty room.

As if in answer, the wall shimmered again, gold light dancing between the intricate swirls of paint.

“Let me in,” he said.

“Are you certain?” a voice replied, echoing in his head. Not the ominous, multi-tonal voice of the Arbiter, but someone else. High pitched. Young. Eerily familiar.

A chill crawled up Cedric’s spine. He shook it off. “Yes,” he said, laying his palm against the stone.

“Even knowing the darkness you must face?”

He swallowed. “I will face whatever the trial demands.”

The voice in his mind hummed with approval as the stone dissolved once more, making way for rippling liquid gold. He held his breath, waiting for the mirror to envelop him the same way it had Elyria.

Nothing happened.

His jaw tightened. He poked at the mirror, rapping his gauntlet against it. It felt as if he was tapping on glass.

“What is this?” he asked aloud.

“When defenses are raised, the path cannot open. Shed your shields,” crooned the voice in his head, “that you may reveal your truth.”

“What does that—” He looked at himself in the mirror, at the gleaming armor upon his chest, the pauldrons sitting heavy on his shoulders. “You mean that literally, don’t you?”

Cedric could’ve sworn he heard the equivalent of a shrug inside his head.

He chewed the inside of his cheek. Elyria hadn’t had to remove any protections. The trial had taken the fae as she was. Granted, the supple leather bodice and breeches that clung to her lithe frame—not that he’d been looking, of course—were certainly not the same as a knight’s armor. But was he supposed to believe that the world’s most defensive, sarcastic woman didn’t have her own kind of shield up?

The gold began to roil—agitated, impatient. Finally, the knight began removing his armor. He slipped off his gauntlets first, flexing his fingers. His cuirass clanged as it hit the ground, an echo of the hollow thud that seemed to beat in Cedric’s chest. He was used to the comforting weight of steel pressed against his heart.

Piece by piece, his armor fell away, and as he unbuckled the final item, a strange lightness settled over him. Not just the physical relief that came with unburdening his body of its heavy protection. Not a sense of freedom, either.

The disquiet of being . . . untethered.

He looked at his golden reflection in the mirror again. No longer was he Sir Cedric Thorne, champion of Kingshelm, ward and vassal of Lord Leviathan Church. He was just...Cedric.

The thought scared him so much that for a moment, he considered turning back. Retreating into the safety of the version of himself he knew, figuring out some other way—any other way—to move forward.

Leaving his armor behind meant leaving behind the parts of himself that he understood. Forging ahead undefended and unarmed.

Naked.

Vulnerable.

He hated it.

But the trial demanded truth, and truth could no longer hide behind steel.

Clad in only his arming doublet, breeches, and boots, Cedric placed his sword and dagger next to Elyria’s weapons, which he’d already propped neatly against the wall next to his armor. He tucked his mana token beneath the collar of his doublet, shuddering at the thought of that being taken from him too.

He tried to ignore the way the voice in his head once again radiated approval as he faced his reflection in the gilded mirror.

“Now, we see you,” whispered the voice, curling through his mind like smoke. “Now, you are ready.”

The gold shimmered—beckoning him. With a steadying breath, Cedric pressed his palm against the wall once more. This time, the liquid gold flowed out, lacing over his hand, his wrist, roaming up his arm.

Cold as ice. Burning, on fire. Wet and dripping. Dry and rough. Cedric’s nerves lit up with an onslaught of conflicting sensations. Then he plunged into a disorienting void.

It was dark. So dark. And for a moment, Cedric feared he would be trapped in this abyss, without light, without warmth, forever. But then the darkness lifted, and blue-green light filtered over the world around him.

He was on a bridge. A narrow wooden bridge, strung together with rope, suspended over...nothing. A bolt of terror raced through Cedric. Like a reflex, he pressed his palm to his chest, feeling the hard edges of his token dig into his skin. It eased his worry infinitesimally.

Above him, the aurora blazed, the faintest rivulets of blue, green, and purple carving through the sunlit sky. But below him? That void, that darkness he’d crossed through? He swayed over it now—a grim pit of swirling nothingness.

It stretched out around him, not just under the bridge, but to his left and to his right—an infinity of nonexistence. This was a thousand times worse than crossing the Chasm. What a fool he’d been for being nervous then. What he wouldn’t give for the firm stone and brick, the security of the wagon, rather than standing alone amidst rotting planks and fraying rope.

And he was alone.

The voice in his head had gone quiet—disappeared. Elyria was nowhere to be seen. Where was she? Where was he ? What was this?

Sweat gathered on Cedric’s forehead as he took a single, tentative step forward. The wood groaned under his weight. He immediately grabbed the rope on either side of him, holding on with a white-knuckled grip. The coarse edges of the rope bit into his palms.

A sound caught his attention. He squinted ahead—some fifty, sixty feet in front of him, there was...something. Some...one? The figure waved their arms wildly, jumping up and down on a platform of rock and dirt that materialized before Cedric’s eyes.

“Help!” the figure called. A woman, the desperation in her voice clear as day. Frantic. “Help us, please!”

Cedric swallowed hard and tried to slow his rapid intake of breath. Someone was in trouble. Someone needed help. And regardless of whatever this trial thought it was testing—his ability to overcome his irrational fear of heights, it would seem—he knew he had to move.

So, without looking down, without looking anywhere but at the lone, waving woman on the platform ahead of him, Cedric took his first step.

It felt like an eternity had passed before his feet finally touched solid ground, but touch it, they did.

“Thank Aurelia!” cried the woman, her weathered face visibly relieved as Cedric approached. She tucked a strand of loose gray hair back into the bun sitting at the nape of her neck before motioning for Cedric to follow her. “Come quickly, please! I don’t know how much longer they have.”

“Who?” he asked, though he did not hesitate to fall in step with the old woman.

“Just hurry,” she said. Trees seemed to sprout in the corners of Cedric’s vision as they rushed forward—what he’d thought was a small platform connected to that stars-forsaken bridge was rocky land that stretched for miles, as real as what had been in the arena during the first trial.

Real. Was this real? It felt real. It felt...important. Like he was headed toward something crucial.

“My name is Cedric, ma’am,” he said to the woman, breathing heavily. They had already been pushing forward at a hard pace for some time.

She gave him an odd look but did not slow her stride. “Alouette,” she replied between gulps of air. A pretty name. He thought it might be familiar, though he couldn’t place it. The trees grew thicker, denser. Worry began to crease Cedric’s brow. Where was she taking him? He heard nothing, saw nothing, other than the landscape around him, seemingly becoming more detailed, more lush as they walked.

The path they were on forked suddenly. “This way,” Alouette said, her voice a harsh whisper. “We must be quiet now. We’re very nearly there.”

Unease prickled at the back of Cedric’s neck. He opened his mouth, ready to ask—to demand—that Alouette tell him what was happening .

Then he saw it.

Thatched roof. Vine-covered white walls. Blue door. A single tall cherry tree growing in front, a low swing hanging from its branches.

A panicked breath caught in Cedric’s throat. This place...He knew this place.

Alouette went still at his side. “Welcome home, Cedric.”