Chapter 32 #2
"The trial begins when you enter," Mor'va continued. "You go alone, with no weapons, no aid from your companions. If you do not emerge by sunset, you are declared dead and your companions will meet your same fate."
"Without completing our mission." Briar looked at the elder steadily. "Without reinforcing the seal that protects you too."
"That is no longer your concern."
Briar turned to look at her friends one last time.
Eliam's face was a mask of controlled fury, but his eyes.
.. she saw everything there he couldn't say.
Arion was gripping Sian's arm to keep himself from moving forward.
Thaine gave her a single nod—warrior to warrior, acknowledging what she was about to do.
"Briar." Karse's voice was rough. "I'm sorry. For all of it."
She met his golden eyes, saw the genuine anguish there. "I know."
She turned back to the cave, squared her shoulders, and stepped forward.
The darkness swallowed her whole.
Not the gradual dimming of walking from sunlight into shadow, but immediate, absolute blackness that pressed against her eyes with physical weight. The cave mouth could have three steps behind her or three miles, the darkness erased all sense of distance, direction, space.
Briar kept one hand on the cave wall, using it to guide herself forward. Her footsteps echoed strangely, sometimes sounding far away, sometimes so close she flinched from her own movement.
Then light began to seep in. Not from any source she could identify, but a sickly phosphorescent glow that seemed to come from the stone itself. Pale green-white, just enough to see by, just enough to wish she couldn't.
Bodies.
The first one made her stumble. A Drak warrior, scales still gleaming despite death, slumped against the cave wall.
No wounds, no blood, no signs of violence.
He looked like he'd simply sat down and decided not to get up again.
His eyes were open, staring at nothing, and his expression was. .. peaceful. Resigned.
The second body lay a few feet further. Another warrior, this one younger, curled on his side with his hands tucked under his head. Sleeping, except for the stillness that meant he'd never wake.
More bodies as she went deeper. All Drak, all warriors, all dead without a mark on them. Some sat against walls, some lay flat, some were curled in protective balls. But every single one looked like they'd simply... given up.
The cave tunnel widened into a larger chamber, and Briar stopped at its entrance, her breath catching. Dozens of bodies here, scattered across the floor in various positions of surrender. Warriors who'd made it this far and no further, all wearing the same expression of defeat.
The phosphorescent light grew brighter, and she saw something else. Writing on the walls. Messages carved into stone by desperate claws.
It knows what you are
You cannot fight yourself
The truth is worse than dying
I am nothing I am nothing I am nothing—this one repeated until it became scratches, then nothing.
The warmth in her chest pulsed, agitated, warning. But warning against what? There was nothing here but death and surrender.
She picked her way between bodies, trying not to look at their faces, trying not to see the tear tracks dried on scaled cheeks. Whatever had killed them, they'd been crying when it happened.
The chamber narrowed into another tunnel. She followed it because there was nowhere else to go, the luminous light growing brighter with each step. Her shadow appeared on the wall beside her, and she tried not to notice how it didn't quite match her movements, how it seemed to have too many angles.
Then she heard it.
"Worthless."
Her mother's voice, clear as if she stood beside her. Briar spun, but the tunnel was empty.
"Always were worthless. It’s your fault we fought, your fault he’s dead."
"That's not—" Briar's voice cracked. "You're not here."
"Might as well have killed him yourself." Her mother's voice came from ahead now, from the darkness beyond the phosphorescent glow.
"Stop."
"Twenty-five years of burden." The voice was behind her again. "Twenty-five years of watching you fail. Too weak to work hard enough. Too stupid to see what was right in front of you. Too selfish to just disappear and stop dragging everyone down."
Briar pressed her hands over her ears, but the voice came from inside her head now.
"You think I loved you?" Laughter, cold and bitter. "I could barely stand to look at you. You had his face, but none of his strength. His eyes, but none of his courage. A pale imitation I had to feed and clothe and pretend to care about."
"You did care," Briar whispered, but doubt began to creep in. Had she? Or had her mother just been trapped by obligation, forced to raise children she'd never wanted after the man she'd loved died?
Briar stumbled but pressed her hand against the wall to keep from falling. Ahead of her the tunnel opened into another chamber, this one perfectly circular. The unnatural light was brilliant here, showing every detail in stark relief. In the center of the room stood a figure.
Herself.
But wrong. This Briar's eyes were flat, dead.
Her skin had a grayish cast, and dark veins traced patterns under the surface.
The marks at her throat weren't copper but black, spreading like infection up her jaw, down into her bare chest. The warmth that pulsed in the real Briar's chest was visible in this version—a sickly, muted glow that looked like rot, like disease.
"Look at yourself," the other Briar said, and her voice was perfectly normal, which made it worse. "Look at what you're becoming."
"No,” she shook her head as though that might be able to dislodge the image. “Y-you're not real."
"I'm the only real thing in your pathetic life." The shadow-Briar moved closer, and Briar saw that her fingernails had grown into long claws, that her teeth were slightly too sharp. "I'm what's under the skin. What the magic is making you. What you were always going to become."
"No."
"Denial doesn’t make it any less true.” Shadow-Briar smiled, and blood dripped from her teeth.
"You killed Ferria and you enjoyed it. We enjoyed it.
That moment when the thorns went through her, when her blood spilled?
I can still smell it, still feel the satisfaction.
For the first time since you came here you felt complete. "
Briar's stomach turned because it was true. In that moment, she had felt satisfaction, she had wanted Ferria dead and felt nothing but rightness when it happened.
"You're not even human anymore." Shadow-Briar reached out, and her touch was ice-cold on Briar's cheek.
When she tried to pull away, the fingers tightened, the clawed nails digging painfully into her face.
"The magic has been changing you, cell by cell, breath by breath.
Soon there won't be anything left of the girl who saved her sister. You’re going to be just another monster wearing a human face. "
"I'm not—"
"You are." Her mother's voice joined Shadow-Briar's. "Monster. Burden. Worthless thing that should have died instead of him."
More voices joined in. Allegra: "You ruined my life. I never asked you to save me."
Seraphin: "I was punished because of your selfishness, your need to have something from your old life."
Finally Eliam: "You thought I could care for a human? You think I’d want you after Malus used you? You're just a vessel for power. Once I have what's inside you, you're nothing."
"No, please…” Briar gasped. “Stop." She fell to her knees, the voices pressing down on her. Each word driving deeper than the last, each one something she'd always known but tried not to acknowledge.
Shadow-Briar knelt in front of her, gripping her face, forcing her to look into those dead eyes.
"Stop resisting. This is what you are," she said softly. "This is all you've ever been and all you’ll ever be. A burden who got lucky. A worthless girl who stumbled into power she doesn't deserve. A killer who pretends at kindness. It would be better for everyone if you died in this cave."
The shadow's hands moved to Briar's throat, over the marks which suddenly burned with an intensity that left Briar gasping on her hands and knees.
"You can't even love properly. You were right. Everything you feel is the magic, pulling you toward them. Without it, they'd never look at you twice. Without it, you're nothing but a broken girl whose mother couldn't stand her, whose sister resented her, who kills anyone who shows her kindness."
Briar felt tears running down her face.
"Just give up," Shadow-Briar said gently, almost kindly. "Like the warriors did. It's easier than fighting what you know is true. Easier than pretending you're worth saving."
Briar caught sight of more bodies, all in that same position of surrender. They too had faced their shadow selves and couldn't bear what they saw.
"You want to." Shadow-Briar's voice was hypnotic now. "I can see how tired you are of fighting for every scrap, for every breath. It’s okay to give up, to be tired of trying, of failing. Just let go. Just stop. Do something right for once in your pitiful, pointless life and die."
She was beyond tired, the exhaustion had worked its way deep into her bones.
Her body hurt from the fight with Ferria, from the march through corrupted lands, from the constant fear and tension.
It would be so easy to give in, to lie down like the warriors had.
To let the truth of her worthlessness finally win.
"That's it," Shadow-Briar crooned and Briar felt herself sinking lower, her trembling arms simply giving up, pitching her forward. Shadow-Briar caught her, laying her gently on the cool stone floor. "The sooner that you accept that you’ve always been nothing the better it will be for everyone."
More tears slid down Briar’s cheeks as eyes started to close. Maybe if she just rested for a moment...