Fury boiled in me, but I didn’t tear my sight from Drystan. Seeing my father was sure to plunge me deep into the clutches of this illusion once more.
“This is what he wants. Us fighting each other. Betraying each other. He wouldn’t care if one of us killed the other,” I said.
“Seems inevitable,” Drystan said, panting through his exertion, and soon he would falter.
“No, it’s not. Father has never been able to forgive anything. But I forgive you, and no matter how long it takes, I’m going to keep trying to become something you can forgive too.”
Drystan kept advancing, not breaking out of the trial’s illusion. I had Astraea to think of and keep me aware, but Drystan… did he really have nothing to reach for in this world? Nothing worth coming back to?
The next time he pushed me back… I dropped my sword.
Drystan’s blade slashed across my front from the right side of my chest to my left hip. A searing line of fire scorched the deep path of his sword. That was real. Our swords were real, not just part of the memory.
I collapsed to my knees, bleeding onto the floor.
“Nyte,” Drystan’s voice broke.
“I’m-I’m okay,” I said, but I wasn’t sure. My mind became foggy, and I hoped it was just the trial and I would begin to heal as soon as we were out of it.
“I just wanted to be like you,” Drystan confessed. He fell to his knees with me, sword clattering next to mine.
Father’s voice became too loud, piercing our ears and rattling through our bones. “You incompetent brats. Get up! Get up and fight!”
I was too consumed by Drystan’s words to be affected by the conjuring of our father in his most vicious days.
I said, “All I wanted… was to make sure you never ended up like me.” Shit, I was losing too much blood. While it wouldn’t truly kill me, I didn’t want to risk restarting this trial. “I’m sorry that you felt like I abandoned you. That I was cruel and judged you too harshly, like father did. I thought if you saw a monster in me you’d never want to become it.”
“I forgive—”
Before Drystan could finish a flicker of movement caught in the side of my vision. A tall form, an unforgiving twisted face, the glint of a blade coming down toward Drystan. Agony roared through my body, lunging me forward to push Drystan out of the path and brace for it to slice through my shoulder instead.
The impact obliterated the world, and I blacked out.
“Nyte!”
The call of my name echoed, muffled and distorted, as though I were drifting through an endless ocean. It repeated, throwing out a line for me to grasp and pull myself to the surface before I could drown.
“Dammit, you bastard, don’t fucking die here,” Drystan said. His voice became assured and louder as I detected his frustration. Then pressure on my abdomen shot a new wave of pain through me, and I gasped, eyes flying open.
My vision blurred, but I kept blinking, reaching to hold onto my fading consciousness.
“Shit, this is bad. Can’t you heal any faster?”
I gulped for breath that didn’t come so easily. My body felt heavy and warm andwet.I was bathed in my own blood.
“Stopbleeding,”Drystan groaned, adding pressure again that made me wheeze my next breath.
“Stop trying to kill me fucking faster,” I barked, forcing myself up and pushing him off. I quickly scanned him over, then muttered with mild irritation, “At least one of us remained unscathed.”
Drystan ignored me, picking up something discarded beside him. The sight of the key piece made me forget my misery for a second.“Is it a real one?” Drystan pondered, examining it before holding it out to me.
I snatched it too desperately, coating it with the blood from my hand as I flipped it, waiting for something.Anything.
When I felt nothing at all, my hand tightened around it and my body slumped.
“Another fake piece,” I confirmed.
Drystan swore, standing now. I started taking in more of the room, which appeared like a long neglected storage room in the temple. Drystan groaned and his patience snapped, causing him to scatter the few old books and paper from a nearby table.
