I was led into a large, circular room. Perhaps on typical occasions, it was a ballroom or some kind of event space. Today, it was stripped completely bare, devoid of decoration other than the moons etched into the wall and the glistening beauty of the white marble floor. Only four objects stood in it: three pedestals, each holding a simple silver sphere. And, in the center of the room, there was a large, smooth basin. Nura stood beside it, arms clasped in
front of her, waiting for me.
The sight of her stirred a nervous surprise in my stomach. I wouldn’t have expected someone so important to be here.
I looked over my shoulder, up at the balcony that curved over half of the room. Max learned over the rail, watching, fingers intertwined. When I looked at him, he gave me an uneasy smile. I suspected he had the same thought that I did.
Nura cleared her throat, and my eyes snapped back to her.
“This,” she said, “will be your more advanced evaluation. You’ll notice that there are three spheres in this room.” She gestured to the three pedestals, arranged around the edges of the room in a triangle formation. “Your goal is to take each of these sphere and deposit them in the
basin at the center of the room.” She placed her hand on the curved lip.
My eyes darted between the three spheres. Then the basin. It seemed too simple. And too… gamelike. I wondered if this was normal — a standard part of every evaluation. Or if this was a task cooked up just for me.
“Do you understand?” Nura asked. As always, she was unreadable.
“I do,” I said, with a nod. And in her returning nod, the corners of Nura’s mouth curled.
“Good. In that case, we begin…” She raised one finger. Then two. Three.
“Now.”
Then she lifted her hands, and I was plunged into complete darkness.
 |
THE DARKNESS SWALLOWED me like a vat of ink, gargling in my lungs. I had to remind myself to breathe. My heartbeat quickened in pulsing shivers at the edges of my vision.
Breathe, Tisaanah. This isn’t your only sight.
I closed my eyes — out of habit, as the room was so dark that it made no difference in visibility — and reached around me, feeling the edges of the room with invisible hands, searching for the spheres. In my mind’s eye, they began to throb with a faint, silver light. I caught their thread, and with it came a silent breath of relief.
I have this. This is nothing.
I began to draw one of the orbs towards me, pulling it from its stand. But the moment I did, it was immediately knocked away, a violent force sending it careening across the marble floor. I lunged after it—
—And was yanked somewhere far away, into a wall of cold. Cold that surrounded me, inhaled me, settled deep into my bones and guts. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, the darkness melted into endless, rippling grass and smeared stars.
I felt liquid run down my back — down the backs of my thighs. Scalding compared to the icy air.
My blood.
I was in the plains, in Threll. Wearing that dingy coat.
With my dying horse.
A shiver of cold, of fear, of terror, ran up my spine. An illusion, I told myself. This was Nura. It wasn’t real.
Isn’t it?
I closed my eyes again. The backs of my eyelids revealed the same scene, the plains seared into my brain. My mind groped forward, searching for that thread of reality, dragging myself back to the tower, back to the room, back to those pedestals…
The plains flickered away, dissolving like sand in the wind.
The orbs glowed in front of me again. One of them slowly rolled across the floor.
I used magic to yank it towards me, snapping it to my fingers. It was pleasantly cool in my hands, firm and solid and real. I turned to drop it into the basin, smiling with satisfaction at the sound of metal against metal.
And then, suddenly, I was hit with a force. A wall of air so strong that it struck my body like a block of cement. Before I knew what was happening, I felt myself careen across the room, felt my back slam against a curved wall. My throat released a muffled, wordless cry.
Darkness again, and as I slid down the wall, I dipped back beneath the surface of that drowning illusion. The marble beneath my hands and knees was the marble of Esmaris’s study.
Crack.
Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
Esmaris’s flace flickered through the shadow, peering out from beneath a wide-brimmed, black hat. Terror drowned me.
You forgot what you are. Not real. Not real. Not real. It is real.
No. No.
I was stronger than this. I sliced through Esmaris’s face, groping for reality. I pushed myself to my feet only to feel the air knocked from my lungs again. But this time, at least, I was ready— I threw my arms up in front of me, like I did on the bridge in Tairn, and shielded myself. My whole body shook from the impact, but I remained standing.
In my mind, I sliced the remaining threads of Nura’s illusions, unraveling them like a tattered tapestry.
Sweat rolled down the back of my neck. It took everything I had to shield myself both externally and internally, but I was doing it — somehow. I pushed forward towards the second orb. Reached out. Placed my fingertips against its cool surface.
I was just about to lift it from its stand when I felt something shift. I looked up to see a dim, gentle glow seep through the darkness.
And as the shadows danced away like a floating curtain, they revealed Zeryth Aldris.
