Page 308 of House Ignis

"Move!" Asher barked, shoving me forward as a swinging pendulum of jagged obsidian whistled through the space where my head had been a second before.

We weren't alone. The deeper we got, the more the Gauntlet became a graveyard.

We passed a corridor where a team from Eldrethine was pinned against the wall by a swarm of Chitin-Crawlers—pale, many-legged horrors with needle-teeth.

Their screams were cut short as the floor beneath them simply opened, dropping them into the dark. Their names flared red above the dome, then vanished.

"Don't look," Asher commanded, his shadows lashing out to decapitate a crawler that lunged from the ceiling.

Aether and Zya were a blur of lethal motion, their claws shredding through the monsters that poured from the cracks in the stone. But for every beast we killed, three more seemed to crawl out of the masonry. It was hectic—a frantic, suffocating rush of adrenaline and blood.

We crossed paths with a Tideris team, their leader’s face a mask of blind panic as he tried to wash away a horde of acid-spitting drakes.

They were overwhelmed in seconds, their water shields boiling under the onslaught.

By the time we reached the massive, circular chamber, my lungs were burning.

In the center, the pedestal with the pulsing red rune sat like a taunting prize. But the third-year Zephyrion squad was already there, levitating in a localized cyclone that sent lethal stone debris whistling through the air.

"The little firecracker and her shadow dog," the leader sneered, his white leathers pristine despite the carnage.

"I was hoping we'd be the ones to put you out."

The air turned freezing. Asher’s shadows boiled at his feet, rising like twin serpents. "No one calls her firecracker but me."

"Aether, Zya—take the flanks," I whispered, my voice raspy. "Asher, take the sky. I'm taking the floor."

I reached deep, past the exhaustion, past the warnings, and grabbed every ounce of magic I had left. I didn't just want to win; I wanted to end them.

“Ava, stop. You’re overdrawing,” Asher’s voice slammed into my mind, jagged with alarm.

Through the bond, I felt the panthers' distress. Aether let out a warning roar that vibrated in my marrow, Zya faltered beside me, her presence through the link flickering as I pulled too much.

They could feel it too, the familiar heat twisting deep in my abdomen, sharpening with every ounce of power I forced through my body.

I didn't listen. I couldn't.

I slammed my palms into the stone.

The fire that erupted wasn't red or gold; it was a blinding, transcendent white.

It tore through the chamber, vaporizing the Zephyrion cyclone and melting the very stone of the floor.

The third-years didn't even have time to scream before the shockwave threw them against the walls, unconscious and broken.

But the moment the light faded, the world broke with it.

My vision swam, the circular room spinning into a nauseating smear of grey. The pain didn't creep in. It struck all at once.

A sharp, agonizing cramp doubled me over, my insides feeling like they were being threaded with barbed wire.

I gasped, my knees hitting the charred stone.

Asher was there instantly, his cool shadows wrapping around me as he caught me before my face hit the ground, pulling me back against the hard planes of his chest.

“You idiot,” he hissed through the bond, though his hands were trembling as he gripped the back of my neck.

“You’re burning yourself out.”