Luna hid beneath the bed.
The space was too small.
The air too thin.
Footsteps echoed across the chamber.
Slow.
Unhurried.
She pressed a hand over her mouth as tears slipped down her cheeks, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain it could be heard. Every breath felt like betrayal.
“Princess…”
Lance’s voice drifted through the room, almost gentle. Almost fond.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
He circled the chamber. She could hear fabric brush against stone, hear him pause at every corner—checking, searching.
Her vision blurred. Her thoughts spiraled. She thought of the window. Of the door. Of anything that wasn’t this.
She shifted—
Just a little.
The sound was barely there.
Lance stopped.
Silence stretched.
Then—
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He knelt.
Her eyes opened.
His face filled her world beneath the bed, too close, eyes bloodshot and gleaming with certainty.
“There you are.”
She screamed.
Hands seized her ankle and yanked her free. She kicked and clawed, nails scraping skin, lungs burning as she fought for air. He lifted her with terrifying ease and tossed her onto the mattress.
His face twisted into a grin.
That same sinister grin.
The door slammed shut, leaving her in darkness with the man she feared.
The sound echoed like a verdict.
Luna turned her face away and did the only thing she could—
She let herself disappear.
Darkness swallowed her mind before the fear could finish its work.
She lay there unconscious.
A burning pain flared along her arm.
A sigil.
A mark.
The trial’s judgment.
She had hesitated.
She had seen escape—
And been too afraid to take it.
The room dissolved.
The child vanished.
And Luna Sangrelle lay unconscious on an empty floor.
She had failed.
And something she had buried long ago had been dragged into the light.
Elsewhere—
Alicia Helior took another step.
Her hands trembled.
The skin along her fingers wrinkled, veins standing out sharply as time gnawed at her flesh. A mark bloomed across the back of her hand, spreading numbness up her arm.
She was barely halfway.
The door loomed impossibly far away.
For the first time—
She understood fear.
Elsewhere—
Leon sat in white nothingness.
No walls.
No sound.
No door.
He waited.
Minutes passed. Then hours. Then days—at least, it felt that way.
He stood once. Walked. Turned back.
Nothing changed.
So he sat again.
If this was the test, then he would endure it.
Alone.
In the Stands
The crowd shifted uneasily.
Some contestants remained trapped in the first room.
Others wandered the maze endlessly.
Several stood frozen—twitching, shaking, lost within their own minds.
The trial did not rush.
The trial did not care.
And it continued.
