Page 35 of The Faebound Trials (Mates and Madness: The Phantom Prince and The Bloodweaver #1)

Blinking, I woke up to the warmth of the sun hitting me directly in the face. I lost the feeling of my right arm as I used it as a pillow yesterday. My neck and my back hurt as I sat up straight, I would never sleep like that ever again.

Images of a shadow flashed in my mind and I shrugged it off, deeming it a fragment of a dream I would no longer remember.

The Etarans didn’t waste time. The next test began with new mortals joining us today.

I guess no one died from the last day. Until I saw one of them had lost his arm because I was trying to look for his wrists to check if their veins glowed. Maybe no one died, but someone was fatally hurt.

Every mortal had their forearms bared open to me. But their veins didn’t glow. I couldn’t see exactly where their blood flows.

I tried once again. See if I could trigger bloodweaving to see their veins.

Theirs didn’t really glow. There was just nothing. All skin and scars.

Then does that mean I could never use bloodweaving on mortals?

Ellis entered last with his arms bound tightly behind him. His entrance pulled me out of my thoughts.

Kell wasn’t with him.

I didn’t see bruises in Ellis’s face, a relieved sigh escaped my lips. He’s alright.

I saw mixed expressions from the rest of the mortals when they saw the newcomer. Confusion was common among them, but something else made them stare at him.

Ellis was the depiction of a man who belonged in the future.

With ears pierced from his earlobes up to his cartilage, to the raw markings tattooed into his skin, down to the scars he had collected as a Bloodweaver Elite.

Everything about him screamed different .

“How were you able to pierce your ears so much with metal? Did it hurt a lot?” someone asked, it was one of the brutes who were among the quiet ones.

I didn’t hear if Ellis answered him because a sudden question blinded me.

How was it that even now I still hadn’t asked anyone what year was it today?

Wasn’t that supposed to be the question I should be asking the first time I landed here?

Or was it because that was one of the laws of bloodweaving and timethreading?

But still? I don’t think it would hurt the laws of the universe to ask what year is it today?

It’s literally like asking what’s the date today.

And even now when I tried to open my mouth to bluntly ask everyone what year it was today, my mouth wouldn’t open.

It was like my mind deliberately wanted me to forget asking about it. Even when we were stuck for four days in the dungeon, that question didn’t cross my mind.

And the thing was, right now when I tried to remember what we had talked about during those four days we were locked, my mind was blank.

I couldn’t remember anything. I felt the cold creeping up my skin.

Why can’t I remember anything? Panic rises in my stomach.

I tried to catch my breath. And I counted. I focused on taking deep breaths. I ignored the sound of Shilmarej’s voice or the breathing hum of the Etaran’s core.

I focused on stabilizing my breathing.

I was so close to fainting. When I blinked, I realized I didn’t hear the instructions for the next test.

The rest of the mortals started walking.

My eyes fell on Ellis and he was already looking at me with the same glint of knowing in his eyes like he did last time.

And I wanted to know so much what was the meaning behind those eyes.

The buzzing noise surrounding the cave jolted me back to reality. I couldn’t see the forest. Or the Forge.

I realized I was in a trance the whole way to this cave. With no recollection of how my feet brought me here.

The cave was dark and deep and when I craned my neck to study the cave, crystals gleamed a hundred colors when light hit it, metals and minerals decorated the cave. I was struck in awe as I took a step deeper into the caves, following the rest of the mortals.

The ground was damp as I heard the pit pattering of the water coming from the ceiling of the cave.

But the hum of the core was louder here. The abnormally fast blood flow of Ellis was loud in my ears compared to the normal blood flow of the fear-stricken mortals we’re with.

That meant I could bloodweave. I had no injuries, no open wound to stop me from timethreading.

The desire to leave was stronger than before.

I could leave Ellis and Kell right now. I was confident and sure they could escape here alive without my help, I doubt they ever needed it.

They were stronger, smarter, and experienced. They knew how to play whatever time would give them, they always knew what to do.

They were Bloodweaver Elites for a reason.

But the thing was, was it even possible to bloodweave in a cave?

The cave stretches meters from where I stood from how pitch black it was. But I wasn’t sure how deep it was with only the sound of the echo reverberating inside.

From what I remembered, I needed to run almost a kilometer at least to pump enough blood to crawl into a ball of fire and bloodweave.

I wasn’t sure but it felt like that was the length of how I ran the last time I had attempted to bloodweave.

I wasn’t sure either if that was the case for the rest of the bloodweavers I knew. But a kilometer was no joke.

I could only try. And I wasn’t one to hesitate.

I bolted for a run.

But before I could even reach the mortal leading through the cave, a hand clamp down on my arm, I was forced to a stop.

“What are you doing?”

I felt Drystan harshly snapped his head to Ellis’s hand on me.

I couldn’t answer him.

“Were you trying to bloodweave?” His voice was lower when he said the last word.

“Yes. I was.”

“You don’t know what’s inside the cave. It’s not safe to try it here.”

He was right.

Yesterday I had so many questions I wanted to ask him but right now my mind wouldn’t work. My mouth wouldn’t open.

Ellis glanced away as if he understood my intentions.

“Breathe, Lowen. I’m not sure of my hunches. But I will tell it to you…” he trailed. “But right now we have to face that.”

As soon as Ellis pointed at what awaits us, I heard a male screaming. Behind me were the mortals who had watched what appeared in front of the mortals leading us deeper into the cave.

The dark made the creatures bleaker in the shadows, but the body parts were striking in the little light glowing past our back.

Antennas protruding high above the ceiling were hairy and long. I felt my cold sweat dripping down my back. I was nailed to the ground.

I heard about a hundred pairs of wings fluttering angrily as veiny black roots peek from its skin, black and reddish in the shadow, eyes were a hollow black, a nightmare creeping out of its hiding.

I heard the ticking of pointed claws or something else, and when my eyes darted to it, I saw stick-like feet about three meters high. And in the middle was a creature cradling a body of another creature with teeth for its eyes, and in the middle of the nightmare in front remembered me of a hundred claws molded to become thousands of sharp knives.

And there were two of those creatures.

And a hundred buzzing noises from the flying moth-like creatures waiting to attach its teeth to our flesh.

The creatures were ready to rip us all apart.

And at that moment, I knew this wasn’t a test anymore.

This was a test of how long a mortal can survive.

End of Part 1