"Um, so, you gonna explain?" Marcus asks, but I ignore him. What would I tell them, anyway?
"You're here," Snow says, then gives me a hug. "I don't like the dark. Can we go?" Hoo, boy.
Aisha inspects me top to bottom with a fierce gaze. "Even sneakier than I had thought. You attempted to help the slave boy cheat, didn't you?"
Raksha brilliantly decides to clarify her confusion. "Don't be ridiculous. He isn't good enough with magic yet. I'm the one who did that."
"He's gonna get us killed," Obi whispers, adding a groan. "Can we all just agree not to murder each other until we get out? I really don't want to get murdered."
Aisha turns around. "This is a trial for the three of us. We're meant to be tested, not you. If we're too weak to survive being in The Labyrinth, we deserve to die." Harsh.
Obi throws his hands up. "Alright, then. You go alone. We'll just keep the safety in numbers to ourselves."
Huffing, the girl leaves us, and Marcus quickly follows after her. "She's got a point, y'know. You're probably screwed if you help the kid. Azazel's not kind to cheaters. See ya, and good luck."
Great, now that the expendables are out of the way, I can actually think. Our current situation is pretty damn bleak. We're in a famously dangerous place, full of famously dangerous monsters. We were seen coming here by two Apostles, which means there will be a penalty to face on the other side, regardless of whether or not they learn we were helping Snow cheat, rather than us joining him being an accident. Finally, we still have the trial to get through. The place is dangerous enough on a regular basis, but with the trial taking place here, it's likely the Apostles cranked it up a few hundred notches.
"Did they explain anything?" I ask Snow, who's still holding unto me.
"Gotta get a lumina crystal."
"A what now?"
"They're what Amplifiers are made of," Obi explains, looking around the dark place. "They only grow in here, really. It normally takes a group of magic knights just to collect one. I can't believe they sent a kid down here." I can.
"Did they mention what you'll have to do to get to it?"
Snow shakes his head, so I turn to Raksha,. "Can you sense them?" The djinn does his best, then looks away, refusing to admit something is beyond his capabilities.
"The crystals themselves do not hold mana, so they cannot be found by such means. If you really wish to find one, follow the spectres."
"The what?"
Obi grimaces. "You'll see when we start moving."
It takes all of five minutes for us to run into the first spectre. It's a bizarre, almost shadow-looking being slightly resembling a human. It's struggling to move along the walls of The Labyrinth, and doesn't seem to have any particular destination in mind.
"That is what happens when a mage dies," Raksha explains. "If they are powerful enough, a bit of their mana remains in that form. They are a minor threat one at a time, but being surrounded will get you possessed, since their ultimate goal is to find a living body. The lumina crystals attract them, since they are nearly sentient."
I nod along. "But how do we get rid of them?"
Raksha blows some wind at the spectre, and it dissipates into smoky darkness. "They are nothing but remnants incapable of moving on. They will not be a problem."
"The other guardians will," Obi adds, cheering everyone up. "We shouldn't remain standing for long periods of time. The ghouls will have picked up on our scents by now."
"Ghouls?" squeaks Snow. "The undead? I don't even like the regular dead."
"How large is this place?" I ask as we continue to move. There's just enough light to see, but I'm not sure where it's coming from. It just seems to be there.
"It runs beneath the entire capital," Obi answers, and I groan. Just perfect.
"And how many exits are there?"
The idiot grins at me. "You really wanna know?"
I groan. How typical. Now all we need is a villain-of-the-week to stop by and make matters even worse.
I hear the ground beneath me rumble a bit, so I glance at my feet. There are cracks spreading across the rocky floor. "What the-"
Obi pulls me back before I can finish, and a grey, rotten arm bursts out from the ground. Raksha slices the arm off right away, but the rest of the creature isn't deterred, and it keeps coming out.
"That'd be a ghoul," Obi comments. "Can't put it down. Just run around it. They're really slow."
We do just that, but there's barely enough room to move around it, given The Labyrinth's walls. The ghoul, wearing a fancy outfit with holes all over it, reaches out toward me, so I panic and kick it in the knee. The bone breaks easily, and the creature tumbles to the ground, breaking itself into many small pieces.
"I'm gonna assume these aren't the real threat down here, either," I say.
Obi nervously looks around, and I'd be lying if I said seeing him like that didn't feel just a little bit good. "Try keeping that up for days on end while more and more of them come running, as you struggle to find the exit, having had no food, water, light or human contact, and no way of knowing exactly how far from the exit you are."
"Fair enough."
"Food," Snow whispers. "Oh! I have this." He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small piece of meat. I sniff it a bit, then take it and hurl it away.
"Are you trying to kill yourself?" The boy's happy face deflates, and I hurry to do damage control. "At least you thought to bring something, unlike us." It doesn't work completely, but at least he doesn't look like he's sulking. "It's okay, Snow. You're learning fast." Learning how to act like ordinary humans rather than a slave, that is. I'm not going to be bringing that up, though.
As we turn the corner, Obi grabs me by the shoulder and pulls me back. Something quick and silver flashes before my eyes, and I follow the thing as it flies into a wall. An arrow.
"Get back," Obi orders, and everyone hides behind the wall we just rounded. "Don't tell me they brought her in."
"What are you talking about?" I hiss, glaring at the weapon that nearly killed me. "Who brought who?"
"Her name is Arrow. She's a former slave girl, like Snow and I. Her magic lets her arrows do all sorts of funky stuff. Of all the assassins in the kingdom, she's the one with the highest body count. Rumours say it's in triple digits. The whole Restaire family was wiped out by her in a single night. If she was asked to be the opponent for this trial, that means they're finally taking them seriously."
"Again; What are you talking about?" Start speaking sense, damn it.
A bow and arrow appear in his hands out of thin air, and he gets ready to shoot. "The trials are mostly a formality â an old tradition kept alive for the sake of itself. None of the Apostles ever actually believed they'd find the Child of Light and Shadow. Hell, most still refuse to believe such a person exists. That's why they made a mockery of the Festival of Death during the recent years. It was turned into a contest meant to be enjoyed by an audience. No one believed the Everwinter was coming, so no one believed the Child would come, either. Something must've changed their minds if they asked someone like Arrow to partake."
I frown. "Or she was sent here to kill someone."
Obi manages a weak grin. "Or that." He then fires the arrow, and quickly retreats back behind the wall. Two other arrows embed themselves in the wall next to the one that nearly killed me. "Damn. She's even faster now."
"Did you get her?" I don't even bother sounding hopeful when I ask that.
"She wouldn't have made that shot if I had. Now be quiet. We need to move." He gets up and starts going backwards. "There's no proof that that's the direction we need to take, anyway. We need to lose her. The darkness gives her an overwhelming advantage."
Raksha and I exchange a look. Are we sure we can trust this guy? He didn't exactly lead us here, so it's not likely he actually knows what's up. Still...
A fourth arrow hits the wall, and then it explodes, sending fire everywhere. Raksha reacts with blinding speed, creating a barrier of wind to keep the fire away from us. Damn. Nearly died â again.
"Hurry up!" Obi snaps, and we rush after him. He takes the first turn we come across, and we follow him. I hear a few more arrows fly behind us. Shit. Had we not done this, we would've been killed by them. "Give me a break, Arrow!"
From the silent darkness, a cold voice responds, "I can't do that, Hat â not even for you."
"That's not my name anymore!" he screams, then jumps and turns, firing a shot mid-air. I follow his arrow, and see a girl dive behind the wall from which we came, just barely dodging. She's back on the offense a moment later, sending a red arrow at me.
"Raksha!" I scream, and the djinn blasts a gust of wind behind us. It doesn't quite knock the arrow out of the air, but it does make it explode sooner than usual, blowing the resulting smoke toward our assailant.
"Don't stop moving, idiot!" Obi chides, and I run after him. I'm feeling pretty damn useless right now. Obi is our counterattack, and Raksha's the defense. What does that make me? Right; The idiot they have to keep saving. At least Snow has the excuse of being a child.
An arrow flies next to my head, so I throw myself at Snow, and we roll across the ground. Several more arrows fly by, and one of them grazes Obi's ear. He winces, then fires one in return, but it gets knocked off course by Arrow's own shot. I grab his arm and pull him down, then reach up to heal his ear.
"You don't have-" he starts, but I put my other hand over his mouth.
"Spare me the macho bullshit. You're hurt, and I'm a healer. That's all there is to it." I fix the damage in no time, with Obi staring at me in confusion while I do it, as if he can't comprehend such a simple act of kindness. Was Yukiji raised in the same environment that made him so jaded? It least she never had a slave name â that I know of. I can't say I know a lot about any of the people I'm with.
"You don't have to die with them, Hat," the assassin says, her voice far too similar to Yukiji's for my liking. "You are not part of this. Lady Medea doesn't need to know of your involvement with them. Ditch them now, and I'll let you return to her services unpunished."
"How generous of you," he replies, and we start moving again, turning two consecutive corners. No sign of the exit yet. "Forgive me if I don't buy it. You've always been a liar." He turns around and fires another arrow, while the girl's own arrow scratches his shoulder.
"As have you. You have no loyalty to them. You hardly even know them. You'll never have a better life than the one you have right now. Ignore that longing for freedom; You know it will only end in heartache." A few more arrows fly around us, hitting the floor and walls ahead of us. In an instant, icy spikes start blooming from them, preventing us from moving ahead.
"Dagger might've failed, but that doesn't mean I will," Obi replies, firing two quick shots at her. "Yukiji managed to escape, and she did it easily. It's far from impossible."
A fire arrow nearly hit me, but Obi fired at it, and then Raksha swept the flames away. "Yukiji has escaped nothing. I've already been instructed to eliminate her. There is no escape, Obi. Own up to this truth, or die a deluded fool."
"How do we move?" Raksha asks, sending some winds toward Arrow, clearing the path between us and her of all smoke. Her arrow is pointed at Obi, and his at her. They fire them at the same time. Obi's flies by the girl's face, giving her cheek a bloody cut. Hers, on the other hand, embeds into his upper arm, forcing him to drop the bow. "We have to retreat!" Raksha adds urgently, and Snow starts moving. He runs over to the icy spikes, then shatters them with a simple touch.
Shit. I'd forgotten his magic is all about the cold.
Obi is the first one to move. He ducks behind the wall, then pulls out a knife and throws it at me. I manage to move out of the way, so the weapon harmlessly falls to the ground. "It's a deal!" Obi yells, and I hear his footsteps as he runs away.
"A smart decision," Arrow concludes, firing another burning attack at me. This time, Snow is the one to react; He throws his hands forward, and a wall of ice rises up in front of me. The arrow shatters it as soon as it explodes, showering me with ice shards and sending me flying backwards, my ears beginning to ring. "Give up now, and I'll kill you quickly. There is no escape from me; Not in here. Not where the shadows protect me." Another arrow flies at me, and it hits me in the knee. The pain nearly makes me pass out on the spot, drawing a loud scream from my throat. Raksha summons a whole bunch of wind, his face contorted by rage. Arrow aims her next attack toward him, her weapon now black. As their spells collide, the force they create throws each of us back, destroying the walls of The Labyrinth around us, making dust rise everywhere as the ground trembles.
Raksha runs through the dust, picking me up and moving away. Snow struggles to catch up with us, and I see the shadowy silhouette of a person behind him.
"Look out!" I yell, but the arrow gets him in the back. The boy's eyes widen in surprise, and a little bit of blood comes out of his mouth. Snow then falls to the ground, unmoving.
In that instant, my mana's potency increases a hundred-fold. It starts swimming inside me with such intensity that it feels like my whole body is both being torn apart and protected from everything at the same time. I swing my arm, and a torrent of fire flies toward the assassin, burning with the intensity of ten forest fires. The flames swirl as they head for Arrow, then engulf her whole. She never even gets a chance to scream as she's burned to a crisp.
"Snow," I whisper. "Get to Snow! I have to heal him!"
"No," Raksha says. "That got him in the heart."
"No! We have to go back!" I struggle against his arms, but he's not letting me go.
"He's gone, Jonah! The boy is gone!"
"No he's not! I can heal him! Let me go!"
"She might still be alive! We have to keep moving!"
"No! We're not leaving him! SNOW!"
My lack of mana catches up with me, as does the pain I'm in. My head starts spinning, and then darkness descends.
When I wake up, the pain in my knee is the first thing I notice. The campfire burning in front of me is the second.
"Finally," an unfriendly voice says. I look up and see Aisha glaring at me, a sleeping Raksha next to her. "I thought you'd never wake."
"Snow-"
"I heard," she says, not meeting my eyes.
It's long overdue, but tears finally start coming to me. Snow's dead. He's dead, and it's my fault. He had no business participating in the Festival. What was I thinking? He was a child. He was just a stupid, ignorant little child, and I brought him into a war he had no business being part of. He could've declined entering the festival, then gone on to become a great magic knight. Now he'll never get the chance, and it's all because of how selfish I was. I knew I was selfish from the start, and I told myself that was necessary for my family's safety, but I was a fool to think I could dismiss the harm I cause others so casually.
"You tried," Aisha says in an attempt at consolation. "These things happen in life. He didn't deserve it, but it wasn't your fault. The person who killed him is to blame, and no one else." Wrong. So very, very wrong. "If you let that guilt eat away at you, you'll decrease your chances of making it out of here, and then his death will have meant nothing." I look at her, but I can barely make out her features from the haziness in my eyes. "You want to make the boy's death mean something? Live. He died fighting a battle to protect you. If you die, he'll have thrown his own life way without purpose. Honour him by living through this."
Her words offer me absolutely no calm. I clutch my head with my hands, and continue crying. He was so young, and so, so stupidly optimistic. He didn't even know what kind of danger he was in, and he had no business being part of it. I did that to him. I reeled him in, and now he's dead.
I glance at Raksha, asleep on the ground. It could've been him. Hell, Yukiji could be dead at this very moment. I brought them into this, when they're not even part of it.
"You should eat some," Aisha speaks up again, and I realize she's holding a piece of meat out toward me. My stomach growls, and I grab the food, then stuff it into my mouth, barely chewing before I swallow it. Shit, I'm hungry.
I hear some more footsteps, and get ready to send as much fire as I have to at the person. The flames get extinguished as soon as they come out, however.
"Easy," Aisha drawls, and I realize the one I nearly just fried is Marcus, holding two dead rabbits.
"You're up," he says. "Sorry a-about the thing, man. Shit sucks."
I look away from him, and go back to stuffing my mouth. The two of them exchange a few words, but I don't bother trying to listen.
"There's something you should know," Aisha speaks up, preparing to fry one of the rabbits. I don't even look at her, but she keeps speaking. "The assassin who attacked you â she's still alive." At that, I do look at her, and she gestures for Marcus' hand, which is missing a finger, the closed wound looking disgusting. "She took his pinky off while you were asleep. We managed to ditch her a while ago, but I doubt she's given up on getting you."
"Why stick with me, then?" I ask, but the thing I'm really focused on is Arrow's survival. She kills Snow, and has the nerve to stay alive? What gives her the right? She's dead. I hate her. I want her dead. I want her to scream for me to stop as I sear her eyeballs shut.
"Because she's not the worst thing down here," Marcus answers, voice slightly meek. Hard to imagine he was ever a cocky bastard when I see him in this state. "The spectres walking around everywhere? They're no longer moving without purpose." He nervously glances at Aisha after that. She seems a lot more composed, but is probably as scared as we are. She wouldn't be teaming up if she wasn't.
"Ryan is among them. She left behind enough mana to make her spectre sentient. She's controlling all the others, using them to find you. She wasn't exactly kind when she saw us, either. Wants to kill as much as she can, I take it. She's the same insane, repugnant bitch she's always been. Our best bet to get rid of her is to draw her in, and we need you for that."
I'm just a tool for them, then. I can't even fault them. Snow was someone I viewed as just a tool, right? I used him, and then he died. Why, then, does it feel so horrible? It's like someone's constantly screaming in my ears, reminding me he's dead. Whenever my thoughts stray toward a different topic, his dying face pops into my mind.
I clench my fist, then glare at Aisha. Snow may have died as a tool, but I'm not going to. I'm going to make both Arrow and Ryan scream with their dying breaths.