Sixteen #4
The rain returns in force as I haul myself toward the pillar beside Marissa, the sky black with the promise of more.
Mana rises in me, but pain lances up my left arm, breaking my focus.
The light sputters—forms—then collapses in on itself.
I am too broken. The world too loud. All I manage is a pale shimmer, barely enough to protect us from the smaller fragments.
More swords fall, in clusters now. No longer a storm but a deluge, hundreds of razor-sharp tears pouring from the sky. Marissa screams as a sword clips her shoulder, tearing her uniform and scoring a perfect line across her back. I try to expand my shield—to cover more of her—but my strength wanes.
A dozen feet away, Callen shields Morwen with his own body, his face set in a mask of determination and hate. He channels his own Mana, and I see a flicker of gold and white—bright and fierce, the strongest I’ve ever seen him create.
But even that shield cannot take the strain, shrinking to nothing as a blade crashes against it.
In the chaos, I glimpse a Mana Echo: a girl, arms outstretched, pinned to the surface, bleeding out onto the glass. Her face is calm, but her eyes are open, unblinking, as the rain washes the blood away from her body. Next to her, a boy kneels, mouth open in a silent howl that never ends.
The swords keep falling.
Marissa clings to me, and I cling to her. I don’t know where Kael is. I need him. I want him here—with me. I want to scream for him, but the noise is all-consuming.
Then, abruptly, it stops.
The rain halts. The sky begins to clear. The only sound is the drip of water from nearby swords onto the mirrored glass.
For one laboured breath, I dare to hope.
Then I see it.
A final sword, larger than any of those that fell before, seems to descend from the heart of the pink crown above.
It is beautiful in the way all cruel things here are beautiful.
Its edges are so bright that they blind me.
The sword falls in slow motion, as if begging the world to savour this moment.
It falls straight toward Callen and Morwen.
I look for Kael—one last, desperate time.
He is nowhere to be seen.
“Callen!” I scream, but my voice is lost.
My light rises, useless and frantic, but it cannot cross the distance.
Callen sees it coming, but there is no time left.
He looks at me—
And in his eyes, there is resentment, grief, and an unspoken plea.
Then the moment is gone.
He throws himself over Morwen.
The sword hits with a sound like the world shattering.
It drives through Callen’s back, through bone and lung, pinning him—and Morwen beneath him—to the mirrored ground.
For a second, neither of them moves.
Callen’s body begins to peel apart; ribbons of flesh and bone turn to mist in the half-light. His life force shoots through the sky in a spiral of golden-red light, glittering as it merges with the Mother Shard’s crystalline crown.
Callen is dead.
Marissa shrieks, agony tearing through the sound.
The death counter morphs into the number eight.
I swallow, but it feels like my throat has forgotten how.
Morwen is alive, but the sword has pierced her leg, fixing her to the floor. She screams, high and desperate—the first sound I have ever heard her make. Tears spill freely down her face. But there is no one to help.
I stare at the space where Callen was moments ago. I want to feel sad. But mostly, I feel pity.
How does someone die so selflessly with so much hate still inside him?
I lean into Marissa, holding her close. She is hurt everywhere, but she is still alive. For now.
Above us, the middle ring spins, and I think I see the shadows of Kael and Atheron locked in battle.
But here, at what seems like the bottom of the world, there is only blood and death, and the sickly, heavy knowledge that I am still alive.
I wonder what Kael would see if he looked at me now—someone worth saving, or someone barely holding on.
But I cannot let go.
Not yet.
There is no pause after Callen’s death. The world does not grant us even a moment’s silence for his sacrifice.
The outer ring begins to spin again, fractured chunks tilting wildly, thrown out of alignment. Suddenly, gravity has no meaning. Every sword embedded in the mirror becomes a handle or a deadly snare. Marissa and I grip one together, bracing ourselves as the ground slips away beneath our feet.
Morwen screams in agony, the sound trapped and animal.
My grip on the sword nearly tears the skin from my palm as my other arm dangles uselessly at my side. Marissa’s arms shake, then fail, and for a terrible instant she dangles from my wrist, her pupils blown wide—eyes pleading with me to hold on for her.
“Hold on!” I scream, but she can’t. Her grip slips, fingers tearing free before I can tighten mine.
She tumbles outwards, bouncing and sliding across the cracked surface.
She hits a jagged cluster of swords, which gouge her thigh and stomach.
Blood fans out behind her, a spray of crimson lost on the slick glass.
I want to crawl after her, but the world is spinning too fast—and with one working hand, I’d only join her. Instead, I twist myself round, my grip locking around the sword, arm burning as I try to see where she landed.
Marissa lies sprawled, one hand gripping the hilt of a sword while her body is wrapped around a pillar. She is breathing, but the wound on her leg is bleeding steadily.
I want to reach her, but my body refuses to obey. My vision tunnels: I am so dizzy I nearly let go. The death counter above us pulses with fresh intensity, as though it has a taste for blood.
It remains at eight.
Morwen’s screams are unending. She claws at the sword pinning her thigh to the mirror, every attempt only making the bleeding worse.
The ring lurches abruptly to a stop, and I stagger, bile rising.
Then the choice opens in front of me. The kind I never wanted to make.
Marissa is farther away, past broken glass and blades.
Morwen is only feet from me, across a small gap in the ring.
If I choose Marissa, am I killing Morwen myself?
I make my choice, turning away from Morwen. Disgust turns my stomach.
I drag myself to Marissa’s side, one foot at a time, using the swords as crutches to haul myself forward, narrowly avoiding slicing myself into ribbons. Every movement is agony, but I do not stop.
When I reach her, she’s so cold I panic. I pull her up, holding her against my chest, using my body to warm her. I have no bandages, but I press my sleeve to her leg and hope the blood clots. Hope the light inside her is enough.
I remember Atheron on the middle ring, pressing fire to his own wound. Light isn’t fire, but it burns. It can burn. Maybe it can seal flesh too. It has to.
I slide her down, leaning her body over my lap so I can see the wound better.
I pull my Mana to the surface. It takes far too long.
My control has never felt worse. I take slow, shaking breaths, blocking out the swords, the rain, Morwen’s screams. I focus on my hands.
On my breathing. On willing my Mana into my fingers.
Eventually, they glow, and relief cuts through me.
I was beginning to think I had lost it. I force the light into two fingers, imitating Alaris, and point them at the cut.
Searing heat builds in my fingertips, hot enough to hurt me too. I force it out, and the light releases in a thin, white-hot beam. I sweep it slowly along Marissa’s leg, tracing the deep gash. Marissa comes to, wincing and biting back a scream. Her eyes meet mine.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Just grit your teeth.”
She does, but tears still stream from her eyes, mixing with the rain.
The smell of burning flesh fills the air as her skin knits together, wet and uneven, a gruesome mesh of brown and red.
“Almost done,” I tell her. My own skin feels far too hot, and I plunge my fingers into a nearby puddle the instant the last millimetre of skin seals over.
She takes a shuddering breath, mouth open in a silent scream, but only a small whimper escapes.
“Brave girl,” I say, smiling at her through my own gritted teeth.
She closes her eyes. I wish I were putting her to bed, tucking her into safety instead of holding her together in the middle of all this.
A new silence falls. Not real silence, but a hush inside my skull. The only sound is Marissa’s laboured breathing and the hiss of cracking glass.
I am not the hero she needs. I could not save Callen. I have abandoned Morwen.
All I have left is this—a hollow boy holding a broken girl, my blood and tears mingling with hers on the floor, my working arm locked around her.
The death counter has still not changed. A terrible part of me wishes that Morwen had died too—so this might be over. How many lives does this trial need to claim? Surely just one more.
I want to pray for us, but I do not think the Mother Shard listens to prayers.
Instead, I close my eyes and hold Marissa.
For now, that’s all I have the strength to do.
But I will need to find more soon. This trial isn’t done.
We’re not done.
The clouds are clearing, the sun breaking through in shards of blinding light—splintering across the mirrored world.
Too bright.
Too exposed.
My stomach drops.
Kael—
I need to find him.