Twenty Three #2
The Fireborn exchange a look. They know they can’t win this cleanly. So they stop pretending.
Serraith lets out a bark of laughter, and Atheron finally, finally, lets the fire do what it wants to do.
The river surges, tripling in volume before exploding upwards.
A wall of flame beyond comprehension. No longer a river. No longer a trial to contend with.
An execution instead.
The chamber gives way overhead, filling with a rain of debris.
Nyxen shoves me down, pins my head to the floor, his own body covering mine.
I smell burned hair and skin, and something else—Nyxen’s shadows, crawling into my mouth, my ears, my nose, an all-consuming icy blackness.
I don’t know if it will save me, but I welcome the cold all the same.
The last thing I see before my vision is eclipsed is Kael, running toward me through the brimstone.
Reaching for me.
I don’t know if he makes it. I don’t know if any of us do.
All I know is pain and fire and darkness.
And how Nyxen’s hand never lets go of me, even as the world collapses.
Through Nyxen’s shadows I watch the fire.
But the river doesn’t crest.
It bursts.
Fire, stone, and air hot enough to scald bone all converge into a wall that blots out everything. Time vanishes, and for a heartbeat the world is pure white, the colour of absolute destruction.
My body remembers things it shouldn’t. I remember water: the first trial, the impossible wave that bore down and swept Theon away in a blink. The way my shield had not even been a shield—just a reflex, an accident, a last wish to save, to live. This is the same.
My heart knows it before my eyes catch up. The heat is so final, it erases thought. The very air begins to burn.
Kael moves before I even think his name. Shadow pours from his chest in a single, catastrophic pulse. It doesn’t try to take shape. It envelops me, and Nyxen’s hand is gone. A moment of sickly silence passes before Kael is beside me, his shrouded eyes looking only for me.
Nyxen is outside the shadows. I can see him just beyond the veil. This shadow is thin and flawed, fighting to exist in a world of fire—a world that hates it.
Kael braces both hands against the inside of the dome, sweat pouring from his face and neck, jaw clenched so tight the muscle twitches at his ear.
Outside, Nyxen is joined by Vaelis. They stand alone, backs straight, dutiful, as darkness bursts from their outstretched hands. There is no help for them. There is no help for anyone.
The molten wall hits their shadows first.
The impact is a noise, not a sound—a pressure that drives the air from my lungs, shakes every cell in my body. For a second, the world is compressed to a single point.
Their shadows hold, but they shriek.
The heat melts the air inside the dome, making it thick and red, a mist that tastes of blood and endings.
I claw at Kael’s arm with ruined fingers, desperate and shaking. “You have to help them,” I beg. “Don’t leave them. We can’t leave them.”
Kael does not look up. He only looks at me. His eyes are so dark I cannot believe they have ever had whites, but the tears still break through, running down his cheeks.
He pushes harder against the dome.
“I’ve already chosen,” he says. The voice is not his. It’s not anyone’s.
The heat outside intensifies, and the dome begins to collapse inward, the shadow losing its form at the edges. Nyxen stands directly outside, arms wide, head bowed as if listening to the fire.
Vaelis is kneeling now, using his Mana to reinforce Kael’s shield. His hands are black up to the elbow—shadow or burns, I can’t tell. He keeps them pressed to the dome, fingers locked in a spasm of defiance.
I know what’s about to happen before it does.
There is a sound like a final breath as Nyxen’s shadows dissolve, and the heat floods in.
Nyxen and Vaelis vanish.
They do not burn. They do not fade. They are erased in a heartbeat—bodies, shadows, everything. For a moment, the shield is full of them, their shapes burned into the darkness like fingerprints on glass. The next instant, they are gone.
Two streams of golden-red light spiral up from the exact place where they stood, twinned and racing for the Mother Shard’s crown. She drinks them both in, greedier than ever.
The death counter changes twice, without hesitation.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Inside the dome, the pressure drops as the fire vanishes. Kael collapses to his knees, both hands still pressed to the shadows, his face twisted in pain. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even try. His whole body shakes.
The shield is still there, but there is nothing left to hold back. I crawl to Kael on my elbows, both hands useless, my whole body a wreck. I try to touch his back, but the heat radiating off him is too much. I settle for curling myself around his knees, hiding my face against his thigh.
“You can let go,” I whisper.
He doesn’t.
Eventually, Kael lowers his head. Even the tears stop.
He doesn't speak. He doesn't have to. I saw it all.
He let them die, for me. He would do it again.
He will do it again.
Until all that’s left is me.
There is a kind of silence that only comes after the world ends.
It isn’t real silence—the Embrace never gives you that. There’s the hum of Mana, the slow pulse of water in the fountain. But the rest of the world is gone. It’s just the four of us left. I can hear their breath nearby.
I am on the floor, curled against the cold marble base of the central fountain. My head is in Kael’s lap. He is not conscious, not really, but his hands have locked around my ribs and will not let go. His shadows are gone. Spent.
The Mother Shard has replaced every burn with new skin, so much healing that Kael almost glows.
My own skin has knitted itself together—but not fast enough to erase the memories. I can still feel the burns across my back and wrists. I can still see the ghost of the trial’s scars. My body heals faster than my mind does.
I can see Serraith a few metres away. He is upright, knees drawn to his chest, elbows propped on them.
He watches Kael with a look I can’t decipher.
It looks like awe, but it could just as easily be jealousy or hatred.
When he blinks, his eyes unfocus for a second, like he’s vibrating with the thought of finishing this.
Atheron stands at the farthest edge of the room, facing away from us. His hands are behind his back, posture perfect. His hair is immaculate, not a strand out of place. Even here, in limbo, he refuses to be ruffled.
He turns, and I steal a glance. His face is different: the mask has slipped. His lips are pressed so tight that they are bloodless, his eyes fixed on the fountain, pupils blown wide. The theatre is gone. Now he is just a man taking stock of an impossible threat.
I cannot see Kael’s face, but I can feel the tremor in his hands, the way he holds me too tight, like I am the only anchor he has left.
Overseers phase in and out of the walls. They sing lines from their incessant litany, and I want to scream.
Kael’s breathing changes, going shallow and fast. I reach up and touch his chest, feeling his heart trip over itself, like it doesn’t know how to go on.
His grip loosens. Just enough that I can slide upright, resting my shoulder against his. He doesn’t look at me. He just stares at the floor, empty, as if his mind is a grave.
I don’t know what to say.
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
You did what you had to.
I don’t know what words will piece him back together, even for a moment.
“It’s not your fault,” I say.
The words taste like poison. Wrong the moment they leave me.
He shakes his head, slow and broken. “It’s not enough.”
He says it in a voice so small I almost miss it.
It isn’t his fault, though. This is the Mother Shard’s doing. The world was broken long before we got here. Nyxen and Vaelis. Marissa—fuck, Marissa, she was a child. They were all dead the moment they arrived here. Maybe it was always going to end like this.
But I can’t say those words either. I can’t because I know he wouldn’t believe me. I’m not sure I believe it either.
I reach for his hand and place it over my heart. He blinks, just once, and I see a sliver of life in his eyes.
Serraith snorts, then laughs, the sound echoing through the room. “Are you two going to fuck right here?”
His voice is ragged but full of life, the only thing in this place that doesn't feel dead.
I want to spit at him. But I don’t have the spirit.
Atheron turns, slowly, with the grace of a Crown. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Serraith. They’re the only interesting thing left.”
Serraith shrugs, shoulders still trembling, and wanders out of the chamber.
There’s something seriously wrong with these people. I don’t even have the energy to be angry. All I feel is exhaustion, heavy enough to sit in my lungs.
Kael squeezes my hand, then lets go and forces himself upright. He looks into the fountain, but doesn’t say anything.
Atheron clears his throat. “One trial to go, Prince. Let’s see how this ends.”
Kael ignores him.
I close my eyes, the noise around me blurring into the background. My body is weary, but my mind aches more. I think about Nyxen, the way he held me at the end, how he never let go. I think about Vaelis, the way he knelt and gave the last of himself to protect his prince.
I think about Marissa, and Alaris, and all the others.
I wonder what will be left of me at the end of this.
Kael’s hand finds my shoulder again, gentle this time, and I lean into it.
Across the room, Atheron is watching us, jaw clenched. He’s waiting for a weakness, for an opening, but he has finally learned to be afraid.
The fountain runs. The Mana hums. The world goes on.
I open my eyes to find Kael looking at me. His eyes are clear. He leans in, pressing his forehead to mine.
“Don’t leave me,” he whispers.
“I won’t,” I say, and for the first time, I almost believe it.
But it isn’t possible.
The next trial will come, and we will face it.
Only one can survive.
But for this moment, at least, I am not alone.