Chapter Five:

  “The Test”

  The sky cracked.

  Not with sound, but with stillness.

  One moment, they were creeping through the lower edge of the city, eyes fixed on a servant entrance near the coliseum’s foundation. The next, the world changed—not with magic, not with spectacle, but like a stage backdrop had been flipped mid-scene. The light dulled. The edges of things felt too sharp, too focused, like they’d stepped into a photograph that hadn’t decided if it wanted to move.

  And they were somewhere else.

  Stone columns surrounded them, wider than any they’d seen in the city. The sky above had gone pale, almost bleached, like sunlight filtered through bone. The floor beneath their feet was sand—perfect, untouched, not a single footprint. The scent of olive smoke drifted on the breeze, though there was no fire.

  They stood in the center of the arena.

  But this wasn’t the Mirror Field. This was something else.

  John reached for his weapons. Rai already had her war fan open. RW arched her back, ears flat. Akira didn’t speak.

  Then the voices came.

  Three of them. At once. In harmony, but never in sync.

  “You have watched.”

  “You have wondered.”

  “You have walked too far into our games.”

  Light poured in from the upper arches.

  And the Triarchs appeared.

  Damarion stood like a statue of war, arms crossed, a great maul slung across his back. His skin was dark, bronzed like burnished copper, and his eyes gleamed like coals.

  Thessala hovered just behind him—half-veiled, half-shadow, her cracked porcelain mask lit from within. The Pale Oracle said nothing, but John felt her presence like fingers trailing along his being.

  Calix lounged to the side, seated on a ledge as if it were a throne. Dressed in deep violet and serpent-scaled silk, he wore a crown that curled like horns around his brow. He was smiling.

  “Strangers,” Calix said. “Not from Athens. Not from the southern fleets. Not from anywhere our records recall.”

  “You do not belong,” Damarion said. His voice rolled through the arena like falling stone.

  “And yet,” Thessala whispered, her voice not spoken but simply present, “here you are.”

  John took a step forward. “We’re not here for your games. We’re looking for something else.”

  Calix’s smile sharpened. “Oh? Do tell.”

  “We’re here for the Void.”

  All three Triarchs reacted.

  Damarion’s grip tightened on his belt. Thessala tilted her head. Calix rose to his feet.

  “Void,” Calix echoed, almost tasting the word. “Such a clean name for such a filthy door.”

  “Nekrosyne,” Thessala said.

  John looked at her. “You know it?”

  “We know it exists,” Damarion said. “And we know what it demands.”

  “Passage is not given,” Calix added. “It is earned. Paid in full.”

  Thessala’s masked gaze turned toward John. “Do you intend to cross into Nekrosyne?”

  John didn’t hesitate. “We have to.”

  “Then prove it,” Damarion said.

  The sand stilled. The wind died.

  And the test began.

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  The arena didn’t stir. It just waited, like something old and bored that had seen all this before.

  No torches. No guards. Just the Triarchs, the four of them, and the silence.

  Calix was the first to speak.

  “Thessala has had her game. A lovely piece of work, if a bit excessive. So let us now speak of trials—if you insist on proving yourselves.”

  John didn’t move. Neither did Rai. Akira kept his eyes on the three of them, like a man measuring wolves.

  “We have no interest in your games,” John said again. “We’re here to reach Nekrosyne.”

  “Then you are already playing,” Calix said. “You simply didn’t read the rules.”

  Damarion stepped forward. His boots left no mark in the sand. “We do not grant access to Nekrosyne lightly.”

  “Because it is not a gate,” Thessala said. “It is a judgment.”

  RW paced in a slow circle around John’s feet, tail low.

  “You want us to fight.” He said.

  “Of course,” Calix said. “But not for sport. For clarity.”

  Damarion lifted a hand, flexed his fingers. “A show of strength.”

  “A show of choice,” Thessala said. “Two enter. One leaves. What happens in between… that’s the truth we’re after.”

  “You want us to kill each other,” Rai said flatly.

  “Not all of you,” Calix replied, amused. “Just one pair. One match.”

  “And if we refuse?” John asked.

  Calix’s smile didn’t change. “Then you all die. Quickly. Bloodlessly, if we’re feeling generous.”

  RW growled.

  John’s fingers twitched near his blades, then stilled.

  Silence settled again.

  Then Akira stepped forward.

  “I’ll fight.”

  John looked at him. So did Rai.

  Akira shrugged one shoulder. “Someone has to.”

  Calix tilted his head. “Noble. Predictable. Not nearly cruel enough.”

  Damarion turned toward Thessala. “Shall we let them choose?”

  Thessala said nothing. She only stared at Rai.

  And Rai stepped forward.

  “No,” she said. “We already have.”

  No horn sounded. No announcer called their names.

  Just space. Just silence.

  The Triarchs stepped back in unison, as if they’d rehearsed it. The ground beneath John’s feet shifted—softened. A wide ring of sand spread out around them, perfectly flat, perfectly clean.

  Rai and Akira stepped into the center.

  John wanted to speak. To stop them. But he didn’t. They’d already made their decision, and anything he said now would only make it worse.

  Akira cracked his neck, shook out his arms, and gave Rai a crooked smile.

  “Don’t hold back,” he said.

  Rai didn’t answer. She just drew her war fan and flicked it open with a sharp snap.

  RW crouched low beside John, tail still, ears pinned back.

  Calix clapped once. The sound echoed too long.

  “Begin.”

  They didn’t charge. This wasn’t that kind of fight.

  Akira moved first—one step, two. Testing the distance. He drew his tanto and his katana together, blades low.

  Rai mirrored him, pivoting on her back foot. Her fan caught the light and flared.

  The clash came quick.

  Metal met metal. Sparks scattered into the sand. Akira feinted high, spun low, came up with his tanto slicing toward her ribs.

  She twisted away, fan flashing, catching the blade and pushing it wide. She struck his shoulder—just a tap, but enough to send him back two steps.

  He grinned. “That all you got?”

  Rai didn’t reply.

  They closed again.

  This time she struck first—fan to the wrist, knee to the stomach, elbow to the jaw. He reeled but stayed upright. He came back harder. Faster. Two blades moving in tandem.

  John couldn’t look away. RW stood beside him, silent.

  Damarion crossed his arms, watching with open approval. Thessala stared at Rai alone. Calix watched John.

  The tide turned in seconds.

  Rai landed a slash across Akira’s thigh. He stumbled. Dropped his tanto.

  Akira stepped back. Breathing hard now. Blood in the sand.

  Then he charged.

  He went all in. No hesitation. Katana raised, scream buried in his throat.

  Rai didn’t dodge.

  She stepped in.

  And drove her fan into his ribs.

  The strike wasn’t clean. Wasn’t perfect. But it was final.

  Akira collapsed at her feet.

  Rai knelt beside him. One hand on his chest. His eyes found hers. He smiled again.

  “Guess it had to be you.”

  Then he stopped breathing.

  And in the next moment, his body broke apart—not into blood, but into a cascade of blue light. Tiny shards of it shimmered upward like fireflies, scattered into the air, and vanished before they touched the sand.

  The arena didn’t cheer. The Triarchs didn’t speak.

  RW pressed against John’s leg.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t blink. If he blinked, he might miss the last piece of Akira disappearing.

  He watched Rai rise, blood on her hands, and walk back alone.

  No one spoke as Rai crossed the sand.

  She didn’t limp. She didn’t look back.

  Blood clung to the edge of her war fan like rust refusing to fade. Her eyes were dry. Her hands weren’t shaking. But John had seen her fight before—and this hadn’t been fighting. It had been something else.

  Damarion gave a grunt of satisfaction. “She did not hesitate.”

  Thessala tilted her masked face. “Not when it counted.”

  Calix smiled thinly. “Now we know.”

  John said nothing.

  “Do you still wish to reach Nekrosyne?” Thessala asked.

  “We do,” he said.

  “Then walk,” Calix said, and gestured.

  A gate behind them opened—tall, iron-barred, carved with the three overlapping crowns. The same path the Mirror Field survivors had taken. It led down.

  John stepped to Rai’s side. She didn’t look at him, but she didn’t step away.

  RW brushed against them both.

  "Is that it?" he asked, his voice sharp and shaking. "Just one dead friend, and we’re good to go? That’s the price of admission now?"

  The Triarchs laughed.

  "No," Calix said. "That was merely the entry fee."

  Thessala tilted her head, as if studying a leaf caught in a storm.

  Damarion turned without another word.

  Then John, Rai, and RW walked, leaving the Triarchs behind like gods who'd already moved on to their next amusement.

  The gate closed behind them with a sound that echoed too far.

  They descended.

  Stone steps slick with damp. Walls covered in carvings—some old, some fresh. Screams and prayers scratched into mortar by hands too weak to finish.

  At the bottom, a wide chamber opened up. A pool sat in the center, still and dark. Around it, other survivors watched them arrive. A few whispered. One muttered, "New ones." Another said, "She killed someone to get here." Eyes followed them—curious, wary, afraid.

  They were inside now.

  Not guests.

  Not enemies.

  Competitors.