Talia couldn’t believe her eyes. The audacity of that human. How dare he treat her like some unintelligent creature?

  She perched over a tree branch, watching him axe down tree after tree. She had to admit he had good stamina. He had been at it for hours without a single moment of rest or even a drop of water.

  Weylin glanced up at her, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He smiled. “Tired?”

  She tilted her head to the side. How could she be tired when all she had done since she got here was lazy around?

  He chuckled. “Me too. I’m a bit tired. I think it’s time for my lunch.”

  She flew down from her temporary chair and settled over his disheveled blonde locks. Except for an eye-roll, he didn’t say a thing. She watched him eat, refusing the pieces of bread offered to her. It wasn’t like she needed to eat. Heck, neither did he, if only he stopped for a second and noticed that everything was a mere construct—his hunger, tiredness, sleepiness, everything. Nothing was real.

  She had tried to nudge him in the right direction. She had shown him the end of the illusion in dreams—a realm beyond the trials’ overseer—but to no avail. He always dismissed the dreams as just that, dreams. Even though she had pulled the visions from deep in his soul.

  He refused to wake up, so the only remaining option was to wait for the illusion to take its course and for the nightmares to begin, for they surely would. The illusion never lasted. It waited until the person felt they owned the world and then crushed them under its truths, feeding the nightmares from their deepest fears. This time around, things wouldn’t be different.

  But would he be able to withstand it? Years ago, she would have believed in her candidates’ powers. She wouldn’t have spared doubt a single thought. But not now. Now, she needed to shake him awake, or better yet, she needed to force the illusion to come to an end before it encroached deeper into Weylin’s soul.

  She didn’t have a choice. She felt awful for subjugating him to such torture. But he had insisted on passing her trials. So it wasn’t her fault alone. She had warned him and asked him to reconsider, but he had refused. And now, he would pay the price for his choice.

  Weylin closed his eyes, and leaned against the tree trunk. He rested his hands over his abdomen, palms facing upward. Taking it as the sign it was, Talia jumped into the offered seat.

  “I’m tired, but I don’t want to sleep,” he complained, sighing deeply. His chest rose with the motion, disturbing her rest. “I’ve been having these strange dreams lately…” He trailed off.

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  Talia huffed, the sound coming out like a chirp rather than the reproach she wanted to voice. She couldn’t wait for the trials to start so she could let her real thoughts out in the open, in a language form. And no, she wasn’t going to nag him, no matter how deserving of it he was. Okay, maybe just a little. If he had only listened to what she was trying to convey to him, the illusion wouldn’t have gotten so far. He had already forgotten the memories of his life after, sealed away by the illusion after he had believed what it had shown him.

  She jumped over his head, slapping her feathers against his face. Sleep! She wanted to tell him. It was the only way for her to try and break the illusion. But the infuriating human laughed and took hold of her body, cradling her against his chest. She slapped his face again.

  Infuriating human! There was a limit to how much disrespect he could show her.

  “Alright, alright. I’ll rest.”

  Good. At least he understood what she wanted to tell him.

  As soon as he fell asleep, her work started.

  His soul was murky at best, corrupted to the core. A sea of darkness with not a single source of light. She remembered Ilya’s words—the demon lord. While she knew the human wasn’t a demon, still, his soul gave the same stench. There was also something else. A deep-seated hatred had taken root around his soul and twisted and twisted until one couldn’t tell its true color.

  Ignoring the stench given by all those dark emotions, she took hold of his soul, accessing its depth. His memories might have been sealed by the illusion, but as the master of scales, his very soul was hers. Until he left Idir, she had ownership over it. Of course, it came with its set of responsibilities, responsibilities that dwarfed any benefit such hold could ever bring.

  She brought the memories to the forefront of his mind, and she felt the landscape shift around her. His unease intensified as the memories unfolded.

  Then, something shifted. The dark water under her feet churned and raged, clashing against the edge of his soul with a vengeance. She watched with rapt attention as the waves mounted, threatening to swallow her.

  Was he aware of someone else’s presence in his soul core? Impressive! She, now more than ever, wanted him to win the trials. She wanted to split his soul open and examine it to its core. To see every nook and cranny.

  Fascinating! It seemed she was right. He was different.

  She floated above the raging sea. The waves tried to reach up for her, but the dark water fell back in a pitiful splash.

  He still has a hundred millennia to expel her from his soul landscape. But she commanded the effort. Who knew, with proper training, the time could be brought down to a couple of millennia—if he lived that long. A shame, really. Human lifespan was but a flicker in time.

  Who knew. Maybe he was different. No one had ever noticed her intrusion on their souls before.

  “I guess there’s a first time for everything.” She smiled.

  She stood there, waiting for the rush of memories to play their course. Now, she could only wait. Wait and see.

  If push came to shove, she would tear into the illusion itself. But for now, she would wait.