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NOTHING TO LOSE

ELYRIA

Elyria clawed at the dirt, her feet kicking wildly as she plummeted. Her boot caught in the soft earth making up the sides of the fissure, and she managed to stop herself before she fell in completely.

With effort, she grappled with the steep side until she was able to boost herself back up over the edge, hauling her torso onto solid ground. For a moment, she hung there, bent at the waist, hips and legs dangling into the open chasm below. The tendons in her back strained painfully as she tried to pull more of herself out, but the ground was slick beneath her sweating palms.

Turning her head, she locked eyes with Kit, crouched on the other side of the rift. There was terror in her blue and green eyes as she rose, her head twisting as she looked for a place where she could get across. Could get to Elyria.

It didn’t matter. She was too far away.

And Elyria was slipping.

She flared her wings uselessly, that pressure still weighing down on her, preventing her from flying to safety. She called on her wild magic, willed the soil below her to move, to solidify, to boost her back onto solid ground.

But she couldn’t grasp it, not as she continued to slide, her fingers bleeding as she dug her nails into the ground.

This was how she would die, then. The Revenant, swallowed by darkness in the most literal sense. Elyria wanted to laugh at the poetry of it.

She threw her head back, a curse at the celestials for this trial and the existence of the entire infernal Crucible on the tip of her tongue. Something shiny glinted at the edge of her vision and her eyes shot to the source—the golden hilt of Leona’s dagger, embedded in the wall six inches to the right and a foot above her.

Hope sparked in her chest as Elyria reached for it.

Then, with one final rumble of the cavern, that hope sputtered out. A woman’s earsplitting scream filled the space just as Elyria’s bloodied fingers scraped the hilt. She lost the tentative bit of balance she had garnered and slipped further. She relatched her hands to the ledge, her heart plummeting into her stomach.

“Kit!” she shouted, fear coating every inch of her insides. She couldn’t even turn her head to check for her friend.

“I’m okay!” Kit called back, and relief flooded Elyria’s veins so rapidly she nearly burst into tears. But if it wasn’t Kit she heard, then...

Leona screamed again; the sound sharp at first—a panicked shriek that softened as it faded. It was followed by Belien’s agonized howl and Elyria knew Leona had fallen.

She wished she could bring herself to care.

Bootsteps pummeled the ground, the vibrations shaking Elyria’s grip on the ledge. Kit’s moonlight hair flew into Elyria’s line of sight a few seconds later, that look of terror still sketched on her young face as she wrapped her hands around Elyria’s wrists.

“Just hang on, Ellie,” Kit said, her voice cracking. “On the count of three, grab hold of me. I’ll pull you up.”

Elyria nodded, pressing her sweaty fingers into the ground with as much force as she could muster.

“One . . . two . . . three!”

Another moment of weightlessness as Elyria let go and grabbed hold of Kit. Grunting, Kit pulled. Elyria pushed against the rift’s side walls, gritting her teeth against the bite of the jagged ledge scraping against her stomach. And then Cyren was there too, wrapping an arm around Elyria’s waist, the three of them working together to haul her out of the pit.

“Thank you,” Elyria managed to gasp, looking between Kit and Cyren after they’d scrambled to a stretch of unbroken ground. “That was a bit close for comfort.”

“No thanks necessary. Though I’m sure I can come up with some creative ways you can show your gratitude if you insist.” Cyren grinned, the humor in his eyes only slightly dimmed by the wince that followed.

“Are you hurt?” Elyria asked, examining the fae with alarm.

He waved away her concern. “Fear not, beautiful,” he said, the flirtatious lilt of his tone dragging Elyria’s inspecting gaze back to his face so she could give him a pointed look. “I’ll survive.”

He shifted his focus across the cavern to where Belien sat on his knees, staring over the edge of the chasm. There was something vacant about the look on his face, something sharper than despondence, darker than disbelief over Leona’s fall. It sent a shiver up Elyria’s spine.

The ground was still, the cavern hauntingly quiet. As if Leona’s death had satisfied the labyrinth. With a groan, Elyria sat up, testing her limbs and prodding gently at her abdomen. Pain radiated through her body, her muscles tender and strained, but nothing was torn, nothing broken. She raked a hand down her face, grateful to note that her nose had stopped bleeding too.

Her shoulders sagged, relief and exhaustion chasing the adrenaline from her blood, and for a few moments, all four champions sat in silence. Elyria didn’t think she could move even if she wanted to.

The sound of shifting metal and that tug from within her forced Elyria’s eyes to the cavern entrance just as Cedric came into view, his chest heaving. Surprise and an annoyingly disproportionate amount of relief lit her from the inside when she saw him.

Zephyr emerged at the knight’s side, her large green eyes taking in the scene before them—the piles of shattered stone, the champions on the floor, the split in the ground.

Kit’s head whipped to the newly arrived champions. “Gael?” she asked.

Zephyr nodded and cast a look behind her, where a pale-faced Gael stepped out from a shadow. Elyria’s eyebrows shot up as she realized the fae was propped up by the formerly-missing Tenebris Nox.

“Well, fuck me,” Thraigg whispered as he skidded to a stop next to them, his blue eyes scanning the broken cavern before falling on Elyria, Kit, and Cyren. He cleared his throat with a low cough. “Glad to see ye’re still alive.”

“Most of us,” Kit said, a sadness in her tone that had Elyria’s throat tightening with pride. She had such a good heart. As awful as Leona was, Kit didn’t relish her death.

Unfortunately, her empathy didn’t seem to make much of a difference to Belien, who was suddenly whipping his head between the two groups of champions—Elyria, Kit, and Cyren still sitting on the other side of the rift, Cedric, Zephyr, Thraigg, Gael, and Nox at the cavern’s entrance—as if he just remembered he wasn’t alone.

He staggered to his feet, his face a twisted mask of anguish. Eyes bloodshot, his breaths came in shallow gasps—speeding up and slowing down in an erratic pattern, like he was fighting a growing panic.

A pang of pity ran through Elyria. Belien was an absolute asshole, but he had now lost his sister and Leona both. He was without allies. How alone he must have felt. Elyria’s eyes flicked to his token, which glimmered weakly with his residual mana. How alone and how powerless.

“You.” His voice was a rasping snarl, filled with venom and despair. Elyria returned her gaze to his face, expecting to find his malice directed at Cyren, Kit, or herself.

It wasn’t.

Belien’s hand trembled as he raised it at Cedric, his expression shifting—turning darker, more hateful—with each infinitesimal degree he lifted his arm. “You were supposed to be the one to save us. We came to try, came to do right by our people, but it was always supposed to be you, wasn’t it? Champion of Kingshelm. Savior of Havensreach.” Sneering, he took several steps toward Cedric. “Look at you now.”

Cedric mirrored his movements, moving away from Zephyr, Gael, Thraigg, and Nox, all of whom had fanned into the cavern behind him. “I never claimed to be anyone’s savior.”

Belien’s laugh was bitter. Hollow. “Now you stand with them. From the instant you arrived at Castle Lumin, you’ve been clamoring to join forces with them. Jumping at every opportunity to work with our enemy. Betraying your own kind. Becoming a traitor. And for what? So they can steal the crown right out of your hands when you make it to the end? So they can continue to hoard the land and power of Arcanis while more of us die each day?”

Cedric’s jaw hardened. “That’s not true. The Arbiter said?—”

“Fuck the Arbiter.” Belien took another step toward Cedric, the two of them now standing on parallel sides of the rift in the ground. “All this talk of unity, of harmony . It’s bullshit. They’ll only continue doing what they always do. Stepping on our necks to raise themselves higher.”

Elyria’s breath hitched. The tension in the air was so thick she could have sliced right through it. But the labyrinth had already shown them what became of fighting in here. “It’s over, Belien,” she said. “Let it go. You don’t have to end up like them.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Belien whirled toward her, hand clamped around his token. “I won’t let this be what Belis gave her life for. I won’t let Leona have died for nothing.”

Belien raised his hand and time seemed to slow. Using his magic to draw a jagged piece of stone from the floor, he carved its razor-sharp edge into the underside of his forearm. Crimson spilled down both sides of his wrist, dripping onto the floor like raindrops summoned straight from the fourth quarter of hell.

That’s when Elyria felt it.

Felt the power emanating off the sorcerer in palpable waves. Heard the magic crackling through the air. Saw the dark scarlet veins blooming under Belien’s eyes.

“Blood magic.” Kit’s voice was barely a whisper as the group watched the heinous transformation unfold.

Magic rolled off Belien, ricocheting off the stone walls of the cavern in random bursts as if he couldn’t contain it. The other champions were in disarray, trying to avoid the crimson bolts of power. Zephyr yelped as one struck alarmingly close, Nox pulling her into the shadows just before it bounced back.

But Elyria’s gaze was still on Belien. Gray-blue eyes transformed into a deep, burning red as he met Elyria’s wide-eyed stare. The side of his mouth tipped up in a dark smile and she knew. He was going to kill her.

Pain blossomed in Elyria’s muscles as she moved, angling herself in front of Kit. There was no time to do anything else, and Elyria could only pray that her body might protect Kit from the magical blow—the final act of defiance from a man with nothing left to lose.

Then, just before he released the wave of dark magic roiling around him, Belien shifted. He twisted his body, guiding his bloodied arm until it was pointing at someone else.

And Elyria’s heart plummeted into her gut.

“Cedric!” His name ripped from her throat. It was too late. She could do nothing but watch as Belien’s magic arced through the air, a twisted bolt of blood-red lightning that hit Cedric in the center of his chest.

The knight soared backward, the deafening clang of his armor echoing through the cavern as he slammed into the wall and slid limply to the floor.

The entire world narrowed as Elyria leapt to her feet, pain and exhaustion a distant memory. She sprinted to Cedric’s side, her stomach twisting as she spotted the smear of red on the wall behind him. His eyes were closed, his face drained of color, but his brow was furrowed, his lips moving. Relief and terror tugged at her chest in equal measure. He was hurt—very, very badly—but he was alive.

An inhuman growl sounded from behind her. She turned her head. Belien was still alive too. Hunched over, panting, veins of scarlet continuing to creep over his skin, even as he bled out onto the cavern floor. His crimson gaze locked on Cedric’s pained face, on the slight movement there.

“No.” Elyria’s voice was made of stone and steel as she stood, positioning herself between Belien and Cedric. Her eyes flared with a promise as the ground trembled beneath her feet.

This time, it wasn’t the labyrinth.

It was the Revenant.

There was no second guessing. No pulling or begging or cajoling her power. With a single thought, ribbons of shadow shot from her hands, cinching around Belien’s arms, waist, neck.

With another, Elyria tore open the fissure in the ground.

And Belien didn’t even have time to shout his final words before she released him into the chasm and the earth swallowed him whole.