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THE THIRD TRIAL

ELYRIA

Everyone froze for several heartbeats. There was nothing but the sound of settling earth and stunned breathing. The air felt thick, magic and tension clogging Elyria’s nostrils.

To her mild surprise, it was Zephyr who broke the silence.

“What in the Earth Mother’s name do we do now?” she asked.

Kit snorted. “Apt choice of words, given what we just witnessed. Fucking celestials. Aren’t they supposed to stay out of mortal affairs?”

Thraigg guffawed as if that was the funniest thing he’d heard in ages.

Elyria rolled her eyes. “I doubt this was Gaia’s intervention. More likely, it’s the magic of the Crucible itself. And either way, it hardly matters. Not when there’s a literal blockade preventing us from proceeding.”

Stepping carefully over the fractured ground, she moved toward the wall of root and thorn. She reached out a tentative hand, feeling for the wild magic that pulsed within all of nature—some thread she could grab onto, could use to create an opening.

Her brow creased. She could sense it, could tell it was there. But it was faint. Blocked.

A spark of recognition flared in her chest as she heard footsteps behind her. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do much to break through here, Kitty Kat,” she admitted.

“Why not?” asked a voice much lower and smoother than the one she expected.

She turned. “You’re not Kit.”

One side of Cedric’s mouth curved up. “That sounds familiar.”

Elyria scowled. “Yes, well, tit for tat, I suppose. Now you can call us even.”

Cedric frowned. He opened his mouth as if to say something in response, then seemed to think better of it.

Elyria didn’t like how much it bothered her not to know what he was going to say.

She cleared her throat and waved a hand at the wall. “The roots are too thick, too closely woven. Almost as if they’ve been welded together. There are a few weak spots I can sense but I don’t think I could open a passage big enough for even Zephyr to squeeze through.”

Cedric drew his dagger from his belt, and for a fleeting moment, alarm zipped through Elyria. But the knight simply used it to poke at the roots and vines in the wall, as if testing their girth.

“Too thick to cut through, too,” he said. “We can’t force our way in. And you can’t create an entry point for us. What about digging below it? From my understanding of wildshaper magic, you have some dominion over earth and rock as well, do you not? We could tunnel beneath it.”

Elyria gave him a blank stare. “You want me to . . . dig . . . a tunnel? Underneath that?”

“While I’m sure she appreciates your confidence in her abilities, even the mighty Revenant has her limitations.” Kit’s voice was lit with amusement as she joined them by the wall.

Elyria shot her a grateful look. After a bit of time to process, Kit had taken the revelation of Elyria’s hidden nightwielding magic in stride. While Elyria had hidden herself away in their room the previous day—well, not hiding, she wasn’t hiding from anyone—Kit was a constant source of comfort. She brought her food, talked her through how to disentangle this new dark magic from her familiar, wild one. It felt almost like old times. Felt like something precious. As if twenty years hadn’t passed and they weren’t here at all. No, they were back at the Ravenswing Estate and Evander would walk through the door any moment, pat Kit on the shoulder, and sweep Elyria into his arms.

If she didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn she’d felt his presence.

Cyren flitted over, his silver-white wings shimmering, and dragged Elyria’s attention back.

“Can’t go under it, can’t go through it, why don’t we just go over it? We could fly over this mess, get out of here like”—he snapped his fingers—“that.”

“I think you’re forgetting that not everyone here has wings, Cy,” called Gael.

“He didn’t forget,” said Belien with a sneer.

Cyren flashed him an innocent smile.

“We could carry them,” Kit said earnestly, as if actually considering this. “A couple of us will have to make two trips, but?—”

“Now, wait just a moment.” A look that could only be described as one of pure panic flashed over Cedric’s face. “Let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions here.”

Elyria bit down on her bottom lip to halt the grin threatening to break out there. Was the great champion of Kingshelm frightened of flying?

“We don’t even know whether bypassing this wall is what the Crucible demands,” Cedric continued. “What if whatever we seek in this trial lies not beyond this”—he gestured to the wall—“but within it?”

“Finally, some sense,” Belien said, though his tone made it clear he wasn’t pleased to give Cedric credit. “It’s idiotic to think the challenge here is as simple as getting over a wall.”

Cyren raised an eyebrow. “If you’re feeling inadequate about your ability to do so, know it truly would be my pleasure to carry you over, friend. As long as it’s understood I can’t be held responsible if you were to accidentally slip.”

Belien flipped him an obscene gesture in response .

Cyren only laughed, before leaning toward Elyria and faux-whispering, “I’d be happy to carry you, too, gorgeous.”

Elyria snorted. “This isn’t helpful, you two.” A weak attempt to broker peace. To be fair, she didn’t particularly care about playing nice with the redheaded twat. But what she didn’t want was the Arbiter’s voice suddenly booming in her head, extolling more platitudes about the necessity of unity. And she didn’t want any additional surprises.

So, of course, that was exactly what she got.

Faster than a lightning strike, the sky overhead erupted in a blaze of heat and light. The treetops burst into flame, fire racing across the canopy in a scorching wave. The heat of it grazed Elyria’s skin, even from the ground, as the flames stretched up and out, reaching into nothing but air and blue sky.

It didn’t stop the fire. The flames narrowed into lines that crisscrossed the sky. They danced across the open air—beautiful, smoldering threads that connected the treetops to the building with the doors they’d emerged from.

“Gael?” Cyren asked doubtfully.

She shook her head, her flame-red hair almost glowing. “It’s not me but let me see what I can—” She was in the air before she finished her sentence, orange wings glimmering as she flew up to the tree line.

Cedric, standing to Elyria’s right, tensed as Gael stretched tentative fingers toward the threads of fire. His hand moved to his chest. Elyria noted the movement from the corner of her eye and angled her head to get a better look at him without being too obvious. She’d been working so hard to ignore him, to not look, to not think about him. She wanted them both to forget that disastrous encounter in the moonlight.

But she couldn’t ignore the look on his face, the rapture as he watched Gael attempting to—well, Elyria wasn’t sure what she was attempting, but she was clearly using her magic to do something .

And Cedric was absolutely transfixed.

“Won’t it burn her?” he asked nobody in particular.

“She’s a flamecaller,” Elyria answered, as if that alone would explain everything. It should. For someone who had supposedly trained his whole life for a deadly competition against his enemy, the knight seemed shockingly naive in his knowledge of Arcanian magic. He should already know that being impervious to burns was just one of the many benefits of wielding fire magic.

If only we were all so lucky, she thought, resisting the urge to palm her thighs.

Gael let out a yelp as the flames finally subsided. Wings flaring, she started spinning in the air, movements erratic. She’d lost control, Elyria realized, as Gael began careening toward the ground, fast.

Too fast.

Elyria felt Cedric move at her side, darting toward the falling fae to catch her. At the same time, Cyren shot a hand out, a gentle gust of wind soaring up to meet Gael’s floundering body, slowing her descent. She landed softly in Cedric’s arms.

“What was that?” Elyria asked, incredulity coloring her tone as she rushed forward to meet them.

“Neat bit of magic,” Gael said, wonder warring with bitterness as Cedric set her on the ground, “but rather inconvenient. Flying is definitely not an option anymore.”

“What do you mean?” asked Cedric, and Elyria resisted the temptation to laugh at his obvious relief.

“The fire burned some sort of ward into place.” She pointed at the sky. “The magic hooked into me as soon as the flame winked out. All of the sudden, I couldn’t fly anymore.”

Elyria unsheathed her wings with a frown, taking in the somewhat slack-jawed expression on Cedric’s face with pride. Sure enough, as soon as she attempted to lift off the ground, some unseen force pushed on her, keeping her down.

“Great.” Elyria turned to Cyren. “I don’t think the Crucible much cared for your plan, Cy.”

Kit chuckled. “Exactly. Not very ‘unity’ focused.”

Cyren’s wings flared irritably before he folded them against his back. “Don’t talk about the Crucible as if it’s some living, breathing thing.”

“Isn’t it though?” Elyria said under her breath, squinting at the sky. She didn’t think anyone heard her, but when she pulled her gaze back, Cedric was looking at her with bemusement.

Gael stepped forward, inspecting the wall of trees as if she might be able to see what lay beyond. “What now then? ”

Elyria took another step toward the wall, sweeping her eyes over the tangled mass of roots and thorns once more. “What else can we do?” She sighed, pulling her staff over her head and discarding it in the grass, then folding her wings flat against her back. “Let me try again.”

“Are you sure you—” Cedric cut himself off at the dangerous look Elyria shot him.

Holding both hands in front of her face, Elyria splayed her fingers. She closed her eyes. Let her awareness sink past the grass, past the soil, into the heart of the earth. And she reached for the magic she could feel thrumming deep within each twisted vine, each gnarled root. It was faint, a veil placed over it. But it was there. The melody of life woven into the fabric of all wild things—a hymn of growth and potential.

With painstaking focus, she grabbed hold of the whispers humming within each root, the magic in each vine, beckoning them forth until she could feel them, grasp them.

And Elyria pulled .

It was like dragging an anchor through tar. Sweat beaded on her furrowed brow as she attempted to coax the roots apart. They did not want to budge, did not want to move. But eventually, she managed to unwind enough of the thorny tendrils to create an opening—barely two handspans wide.

“Kit.” Elyria’s whisper was a plea.

Kit sprang into action, three fingers pointed at the opening. Water shot from her hand, crystallizing as it met the roots, frost creeping along the vines. In seconds, the opening was encased in a thick sheet of ice.

Elyria let out a shuddering breath as she let go, stumbling back several paces. She met a column of stone, sturdy at her back as she slumped against it. Then the column placed two steadying hands on her shoulders, and she realized that it was not, in fact, a column at all.

It was a knight.

“Are you all right?” Cedric asked.

Elyria straightened as she whirled on him, color rushing to her cheeks. She didn’t have a chance to answer him, however, before Leona’s nasally voice snared her attention.

“That’s it? All that, for what? A window?”

“A window’s better than nothing,” Zephyr said, nimbly skipping over a crack in the ground as she joined the group in front of the wall. “At least now we can get an idea of what to expect whenever we do get through.”

Leona snorted. “Pray, tell us then, little greenfoot”—she gave Zephyr a poison-laced smile—“what lies ahead for us in this great trial?”

Beside Elyria, Cedric tensed.

Zephyr cleared her throat. “Um, I see...” She strained on the tips of her toes to peer through the pane of ice. “Hallways? That can’t be right.”

“Let me see.” Leona shouldered Zephyr out of the way, the sylvan releasing a pained gasp as the sorcerer trampled her foot.

Elyria fisted her hands at her side to keep herself from strangling the bitch.

“Not hallways,” Leona said, her voice suddenly serious. Studious. “Passages, perhaps. Narrow. Winding. Sh—” She jumped back, startled.

“What? What is it?” Belien asked, elbowing Cyren aside as he stepped next to Leona.

Her eyes met his with some unspoken understanding. “Shifting,” she said, her voice low.

“Shifting?” Nox was suddenly there, movement silent as the wind. They peered through the makeshift window and released a long breath. “It’s a labyrinth.”