A sharp pain coursed through my head as I screamed, but I felt cool hands holding my own in the darkness where I had dropped into a squat. My arms were awkwardly held above my head, and as the sudden pain faded, I tried to remember the last few minutes. Like a haze blanketing my mind, I could recall the emotions I felt: anger, sadness, and something else—was it betrayal?

  “The pain will soon fade. Blocking memories is difficult, so they have instead become blurred. While you might catch glimpses or feel a sense of déjà vu, you won’t fully remember them.” I was taken aback by Freya’s soft voice and gradually stood back up.

  “Where are we? Where’s Ashley, and Mum?” I asked, wanting to know that they were safe.

  “Relax,” I heard, standing there frozen as she pulled me in for a surprise hug. “You are currently in the first trial, just as Ashley is with the Twins. Athena is with your mother; she insisted on meeting with Master before her memories were blocked, unsurprisingly.”

  “What about?” I asked without considering that I shouldn’t know, yet.

  “Ah, spoilers.” I heard her laugh and felt a slight breeze of air brush against my face. If it was her breath, it was odd, as there was no scent to it. There was no doubt about it; she was a Guardian. “Now for the tedious part. You and Ashley made a decision; no, you can’t know yet; yes, important things were said.” I heard a rustle of paper and guessed she was reading from a list, as her tone conveyed disinterest. “Also, you both agreed to do the trials now instead of waiting a few weeks.”

  “Wait, before we were told our memories would be blocked, Athena mentioned sending one of-" I attempted to ask.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You think, after all the effort we’ve put in, we’d ship you off to one of those other egotistical nightmares? No, we’re keeping you here safe and sound—well, reasonably safe.” Padding my arms, I realised I had been given a change of clothes; it felt armoured, and my runners had been replaced with tall boots, clasps on the sides reaching almost to my knees. “Something to help you through the next few days. We have four trials that we deem suitable for you to explore the constraints of your new body without placing undue burden on you.”

  “Thank you,” I smiled awkwardly and raised my arms, and she appeared to duck into them so I could hug her once more. “Don’t tell the others, but you’re my favourite, the fun aunt.”

  “Oh, you’re quite the charmer, just like him, but flattery won’t get you everything; I’ll make you work for your next gift.” Pulling away from me, I heard her voice drift off as I stood alone in the darkness. “Your first task is simple: I shall release twenty goblins into the ring where you are standing. Dispatch them all without your sight or your Guardians. I shall be here, watching, and if you cheat, I will cancel the trial, and you will return empty-handed. Maybe I'll let you try again in a year, is that understood?”

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nodded at the seriousness of her tone, which had shifted as she walked away. I was unarmed, but goblins were weak, and I could surely snatch one of their weapons when they drew near. Kneeling down, I touched the ground, feeling my fingers glide across the leaves, and beneath them, the earth felt like damp mud. Leaves indicated trees or bushes, but there was no way to discern their size or location.

  ‘I’m opening the gates now; you have ten minutes,’ I heard Freya’s voice resonate as the sound of chains echoed around the ring.

  Crouching down, I could hear the scuffling of feet across the leaves, the sniffling of noses as they hunted, and the occasional snap of a branch. There were sporadic jitters as they communicated with one another, circling around me. I couldn’t see anything, but my eyes were definitely open as I blinked, and there was nothing covering them. Stirring the mana within me, I waved my hand in front of my face, yet I couldn’t see the golden lines that became visible when I did this.

  ‘The signals are blocked in your optic nerves, so no matter how hard you try, you won’t see until the end.’ Freya projected, and I lowered my hand with a sigh.

  I had my senses of smell, touch, hearing, and taste, but what about my sixth? Meadhbh had described how sensitivity to mana constituted a sixth sense, one that had only just re-emerged and to which we were unaccustomed. Placing my hand flat against the ground, I sent a pulse through it, feeling it rush away from me until it connected with another source. I pulled a single cheek back in a smirk; I had just reinvented radar for myself.

  Trying again, I applied more power and focused on the direction where I sensed the nearest enemy. Freya would undoubtedly be aware of what I was doing, but I couldn’t hear her calls to stop, which I took as a sign of approval. Tensing my muscles in preparation to pounce, I heard a cry from another direction and realised my sense of direction had flipped. The goblin charged at me with a scream, and I kicked out with my foot, connecting somewhere and sending it flying, it's cries silenced when I heard its body struck something.

  With the first goblin defeated, I sought the rest of them. Like a candle in a field, I detected each of their locations, but Freya loomed like a blazing sun, her mana overwhelming to my senses. Using her as a reference point, I adjusted my sense of direction and corrected my understanding. I heard the sound of wood straining before the tell-tale snap of a string as an arrow was released towards me. Unable to see the arrow, I dropped flat to the ground as it whizzed past and struck a tree with a heavy thud, followed by a chorus of disgusting laughter.

  Climbing back to my knees, I found the tree and the arrow protruding, pulling it out and launching it like a javelin towards where I felt the archer had fired at me from. Unable to study my surroundings again, my actions seemed to have caused a reaction as several of them screeched and ran towards me. Listening to the cries and the sounds of their feet kicking leaves, I caught one by the throat, squeezing until I felt a snap and threw the corpse away at another.

  Trying to repeat my attack, I wanted to cry in disgust as my hand missed it’s throat, instead punching it in the mouth, teeth scrapping across my hand and covering it in saliva. I discovered a long, sturdy stick in the desperate melee and wielded it as a weapon, dispatching several more goblins before it collided with a tree, sending a painful jolt up my arm.

  ‘Two minutes and four goblins remaining,’ Freya declared, startling me. I thought I had been keeping count of my kills, but it seems I had eliminated far more than I realised and had lost track of time.

  I quickly discovered where the last four were hiding, but in an effort to avoid making it easy, they were all in different directions. Unleashing a blood-curdling screech, three of them ran towards one another and charged at me, and I swung blindly at them until I could no longer sense their presence. The last goblin, snivelling behind me, remained still, and I pondered what it was armed with. If it had a blade, it needed to close the distance, but if it wielded a bow, I would have to pay attention to the sound.

  ‘Thirty seconds.’

  Blocking my head with my arms, I rushed forward, crashing through several trees as I wielded my newfound strength to overcome them. I heard the goblin screech as it attempted to flee, and I adjusted my course until my knee struck something, and I stamped down hard. Feeling a crunch, I let out a sigh of relief as my vision gradually returned, revealing a small forest surrounded by a grey wall. From a balcony, I could see Freya in front of a console, watching me.

  Trees were knocked over, some shattered, corpses littering the ground; the whole scene resembled a movie set, yet it was all too real. My hands bore scratches, and thankfully the clothes I had been given remained undamaged, though they still had goblin blood on them. More Niji leisure armour—I could tell Frey had a taste, as she, too, was wearing Niji.

  “A body like that, yet so little grace,” Freya said, leaping over the railing to join me on the forest floor. “I don’t wish to be rude, but you require intensive training. Your movements are awkward because your mind struggles to catch up with what you can achieve.” I flinched slightly as her arm shot towards me. “Imagine I told you to swing your hand and hold it here; your mind is still only here when you have reached the correct position.”

  Lowering her arm, it hung below her elbow, barely halfway up, and I understood what she meant. I was so accustomed to my old body, putting full force into everything, that I was now underestimating myself and overreaching. Following her insistence to try to slap her while holding my hand back by an inch, I was thrown off balance as she deftly ducked her head back, causing me to overshoot and nearly spin around.

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  “Find something soft to practice with and improve your hand-eye coordination. A pillow works best. Now, follow me.”

  Guiding me towards the centre, a rift opened and we stepped through into another ring; this time, however, there were no trees. Instead, a Caretaker sat opposite a cushion in the middle of the arena. Sensing where I should sit, it then stood up and presented me with a flickering flame as I settled in. Looking up at Freya, who jumped up to the gantry to watch, I felt the flame leeching my mana while I cradled it in my hands.

  ‘Concentrate on the flame; last time you had to focus on everything, but now you must do the opposite.’

  Looking back at the flame, I fed it a little more mana, and it grew larger, yet there was no heat from it. Out of curiosity, I poked a finger into it. It curled away from my skin, refusing to make contact, and I smiled as I made it dance around my finger as if it were alive until I noticed a cloud of black smoke creeping across the ground towards me. Stopping a few feet away, it rose up and solidified into the shape of a goblin. I prepared to fight, but watched as it began to circle around me, brandishing its weapon, yet seemingly unable to cross an invisible line.

  The goblin was enveloped in smoke from head to foot and grew slightly bigger, emerging as a chieftain, equipped with heavier armour that looked just as ramshackle as its predecessor, adorned with spikes. It dragged a spiked and barbed sword behind it, hissing and gnashing it’s teeth at me from beyond the barrier between us. Muscles bulged as it flexed, as if trying to frighten me, but I did my best to focus solely on the flame.

  With its allotted time up, smoke enveloped it once more as it hunched over and grew larger before splitting into two wolves. Hackles raised, the air rumbled with their growls, sounding like motorbike engines as they circled. My confidence faltered when a paw swung out, leaving deep scratches mere inches from me on the ground. The flame flickered in my hands, and I refocused on it as the circle seemed to shrink, feeling their hot breath on my neck as they drew uncomfortably close. I was certain I could kill them if they were real, but I couldn’t tell if they were merely a smoke mirage or not, and my task was to concentrate on the flame.

  The smoke rolled over my shoulders, sending a chill down my spine, and I felt the hairs on my body stand on end. There was a strange crackling sound as an even larger wolf circled around, sparks dancing across its body until it roared, inches from my face, and the sound of its roar was deafened by a lightning strike elsewhere that made me flinch and cover the flame with my body. It seemed to sneer at me, and I could sense an intelligence in its eyes as a light chuckle appeared to escape its mouth as it changed once more.

  “Monsters don’t frighten me; do your worst,” I said, glaring at the smoke that had started to shift.

  “Very well then, if you insist.” The man’s voice carried a bemused tone, which seemed at odds with what I had witnessed thus far; perhaps he was one of the others controlling the Spire.

  The smoke lost its shape, descending to the ground, and the light appeared to fade, leaving me in darkness, illuminated only by the flame. I increased the amount of mana I supplied to it in an attempt to brighten my surroundings, but I realised I was allowing it to draw too much power and reduced it again, as I had no means of tracking how long it had been, and what might occur if I exhausted it before reaching the limit.

  “Sadie? Sadie, are you there, sweetie?" I heard Mum’s voice echo around me, accompanied by the sound of heels clicking on the ground, as though she were racing about.

  “She’s not real; there’s no way she would appear here like this,” I whispered to myself, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths.

  “Who’s not real, sweetie?" It was her voice, yet it sounded too sweet, almost sinister.

  “Didn’t you hear? We’re not real.” A new voice called out, one that shook me as its familiarity stabbed a knife through my heart. “How can we be real when she left us to die?” Josie emerged from the mist, shuffling as if she had died moments ago. Her torn and shredded body barely held together by bits of flesh and sinew.

  “Not real, not real, they’ve died," I whispered to myself, redirecting my gaze to the flame.

  “Tell me, Sadie, why did you survive when I had to die?” Josie’s voice cried out to me as she shuffled closer.

  “I didn’t choose,” I mumbled, struggling to hold back tears. “Someone else made that choice for me. I didn’t want to be the only survivor.”

  “Am I not good enough for you then?” Ashley’s voice joined the assault on my sanity. I looked at her fearfully, trying to assess whether it truly was her, but the golden aura I could see around her was black and sinister, seemingly draping her in shadows.

  I turned my head away from her, unwilling to respond to the apparition and avoiding the look of contempt in her eyes, reminiscent of how she had regarded me at the train station. The flame was all I needed to concentrate on; this was my fault for provoking them into attempting to test me, and I dreaded what they would say if I failed.

  “I asked you a question: am I not good enough for you?” I was shocked as her hand gripped my face, forcing me to look up at her. I was frightened by the raw strength in her grip, unable to escape. “Don’t look at me like that. Fine, if you won’t answer, perhaps I should just remove the obstacles to our happily ever after.”

  Raising her other hand, she pointed at Trevor, Michael and Josie, unleashing a stream of fire that consumed them. Their twisted and tortured bodies began writhing as their cries of pain filled my ears. I could see them out of the corner of my eye, but Ashley’s malevolent clone forced me to keep staring at her, sneering at my pained expression. Ensuring that the charred husks had ceased moving, they drifted away in a haze of smoke, vanished as if they had never existed.

  “Did you forget what I've done? You belong to me, my means to the top, a queen to reign over all.”

  “No!” I exclaimed angrily, summoning the courage to defy her. “You aren’t real, and that’s not something she would say. Piss off.”

  Drumming her fingers across my cheek, she sneered at me for discovering my courage before releasing me with a shove. “Very well, my time here is at an end; it’s her turn.”

  The ground trembled as an immense pillar of swirling smoke rose before me, and a second tremor made me jump slightly as the fake Ashley sneered and danced over to the pillar of smoke. A giant armoured leg emerged from the smoke, landing heavily and causing the ground to shake for a third time. I glanced sideways at Freya, whose cool and calm expression throughout my entire ordeal was replaced by a frantic urgency as she worked on the console in front of her.

  If the dictionary required a definition of a villain, a mere image of the armoured monstrosity emerging from the smoke would scarcely do it justice. Dark armour, caked in dried rust and gore, covered in spikes glared down at me menacingly. Chains dangled from its belt, and three skulls, glowing with runes carved into them, swung and clashed as the giant walked. For the first time, I felt true fear, even more so than when I faced the wolf in the dungeon.

  “You. Are. Weak!” A deep, heavy voice rumbled from beneath its helmet. “You… you are too young.” Pausing in their approach, they glanced around and spotted Freya, who nervously ducked down, surprising me. Lumbering towards me, each step made me flinch as the ground trembled, and I contemplated fleeing, the weight of their presence bearing down on me.

  “Not real, not real, not..." I repeated several times before a hooked finger lifted me from the ground by my shirt, raising me to eye level. They were the same height as F?r, and I wondered if it was someone from his past.

  “Yes, this form may not be real, but I am very much real.” Their voice had transformed, no longer a heavy, grating sound garbled by their helm, but rather crystal clear and surprisingly a woman’s. “I can tell from the look in your eyes that you do not know who I am. F?r is a fool for believing he can conceal the truth from you; we look so remarkably alike, don’t you think?”

  Her helmet vanished in a puff of smoke, and I felt as though I were gazing into a mirror. She nearly had my features, but they were more beautiful, adorned with intricate designs of red that flowed across her eyes and into her hairline between her eyebrows. Her eyes gleamed with the same red light, just like F?r’s, which appeared blue in my dream, and I hung there limply, no longer attempting to sustain the flame, allowing it to extinguish into nothingness.

  “I would have preferred our introduction in my true form rather than this hollow apparition, but Fate can certainly be cruel," lifting her other arm, her cruel looking glove disappeared and a finger gently stroked my cheek, wiping away a tear. "Go, ask him who I am, ask your-” As she attempted to speak, she abruptly vanished into a black cloud, and I screamed as I fell to the ground.

  Landing heavily, I was covered in sweat, overwhelmed by the terror of her presence, and I vomited what little I had in my stomach. I heard the sound of running feet and saw Freya quickly approaching, bursting through the fake Ashley, who disappeared with a sneer. Tears streaming down my face, Freya pulled me into her arms as I shivered, the woman’s face lingering in my mind; her soft smile, which screamed of cruelty, called out to me.

  “I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to be her; it was meant to be the Sovereign of the Second Legion,” Freya shouted frantically as a rift opened nearby and Athena came racing in, face in a fit of rage.

  “Was that her?” I asked anxiously. “The one who betrayed and injured F?r?”

  Athena looked at Freya nervously and shook her head. “The purpose of this trial was to test your resolve. She was merely a conjuration to find those limits.”

  I felt unwell listening to her, yet there was a nervous look in her eye. She was concealing something, but I couldn’t discern what it was, and I felt a sense of distrust as Freya hurried over to help me to my feet. “Consider it tested," I said bitterly.