Page 47 of Storm of Stars

“Thorne, look.” Briar rolled over a machine on wheels, her eyes searching mine. “Is this something?”

I stared at it. Dials, cords, blinking lights. “Maybe,” I said bitterly. “But I don’t know how the fuck to use it.” My hands clenched into fists. I felt useless. This must’ve been how Ezra and Bex felt in the tech trial, completely out of their element.

But Ezra survived that one. I’d be damned if he didn’t survive this.

“It’s a heart monitor,” Devrin said, appearing at Briar’s side, hands steady. “I don’t know how to set it up either, but if we can, it’ll at least track his vitals.”

“How do you know all this?” Lark asked.

“Saltspire’s always done well in these trials. And education too. My mom works as a healer in our Collective.”

I didn’t like him. I never had. But right now, I needed his brain more than I needed to hate him.

“Lark!” I barked. “Look for some kind of manual, check those desks.”

“On it!” he shouted back, already digging through drawers like a tornado.

Briar joined Bex at the supplies, creating order out of chaos. “I’m sorting what I recognize here, stuff I think I can use, and putting what I don’t over there.” She pointed to a growing pile of instruments and vials. The pile of things she didn’t know was much larger.

“Lark, anything?” I called.

“A lot of books,” he replied, popping up from behind the desk with a stack in his arms. “No manual, but these are medical textbooks, maybe there’s something useful?”

I looked at Bex. She was already moving.

“Get to reading, love,” I said.

She grabbed the top book and flipped through the pages at lightning speed. “This one’s on machines, yes!” She scanned the diagram, then bolted to the heart monitor with a kind of desperate grace.

Wires were connected. Thin white disks pressed to Ezra’s blistered skin. A button flipped.

The monitor whirred to life. And then—beep… beep… beep…

His pulse echoed through the room. Everyone exhaled. But it wasslow. Too slow.

“Okay,” I said, voice trembling as I met her eyes. “Time to read about how to treat burns.”

I glanced at the supplies. Praxis had left us with the tools, some of them, at least. That was always their way. They didn’t make these trials impossible. Just cruel. Twisted. Designed to break us before they tested us.

But we weren’t broken yet.

And Ezra wasn’t dead. Not yet.

We still had time.

The heart monitor's steady rhythm was a fragile thread we all clung to.Beep… beep… beep…The sound filled the silence like a lifeline, until it didn’t.

It stopped.

A single, flat tone screamed into the room.

“No, no, no, no,” I whispered, whirling toward the machine. The monitor displayed a flat line. Ezra’s pulse was gone.

“Bex!” I shouted.

She was already moving, flipping furiously through the pages of the textbook. Her hands shook, but her eyes scanned with laser focus. “There, page 142,” she muttered, voice tight with panic. “I think…I think I can do this.”

“Just tell us what you need,” Briar said, stepping to her side.