Shawn's voice came from the carpet's far edge, flat and almost bored. "It's not the adrenaline, Lucas," he called. "This carpet is the source. That's why those off the weave feel time slipping—because their energy is draining faster. In short, if you stay outside long enough, people start to go mad."
The words landed like cold water. Anxiety slid along Lucas's skin; the chamber's roar narrowed until all he could hear was the pounding in his ears and the ragged breathing of teams beginning to turn on one another. Men and women punched and grappled, eyes wild as exhaustion sharpened into anger. The trial had already bled into chaos.
"Drew," Lucas said quietly, "no matter what—do not hit the carpet. Do not touch it." He kept his voice low so only Drew and Legge could hear. "If we break that weave blindly, it could drain more than just us."
Drew's jaw worked; he opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He let the fire of frustration settle into something steadier.
Lucas moved toward the scorch where Shawn had tested the weave. The hole shimmered with a strange, viscous purple light, a slow fluid that lapped at the torn edges of the fabric like oil. It pulsed faintly, as if something beneath it breathed. Lucas crouched, watching the way the glow pooled and receded—an energy-heart at the carpet's seam.
Shawn angled himself so that the light cut his silhouette. Quiet now, the bored look gone, he notched an arrow. The shaft warmed in his hand until it glowed; the tip broke into flames that burned without smoke, a clean, hungry fire. Lucas watched the bowstring snap forward—sudden, precise—and the arrow sang.
Where it struck, the red fabric exploded into ember and ash, a neat line of burning threads that unstitched banners and vaporized seams with surgical speed. The arrow's flame followed a path as if guided, cleaving banners and fabric in a single sweep, each strike knocking free another hinge. A pillar nearest the impact shivered, then toppled, cracking a gap in the wall like a door yanked open.
Shawn didn't wait. He and his team moved through the opening with the calm of those who know their exit before they take it. The moment their boots cleared the threshold, the stone sealed itself again—stone sliding back into place, the gap knitting as if it had never been.
For a beat the chamber held its breath; then the echoes resumed. Shawn's whisper of a smirk reached Lucas even as the dark seam closed. The path was gone, and with it the small mercy of a visible escape—but the truth of the chamber had been exposed: the carpet fed the lie, and fire had found a way to break that feed, if only for a moment.
Lucas planted himself in the center of the carpet and closed his eyes. The roar of the chamber became something distant and indistinct—more like the echo of glass struck than the sound of people fighting—but it refused to take a shape he could trust. He set one hand flat on the weave, feeling the faint tremor of energy pulse beneath his palm. He tried to reach out, to nudge at the weave the way he'd tried to probe other things before, he tried to use his magic, his elemental power. No power left his body. The carpet thrummed like a living thing, and Lucas sat with the sharp taste of frustration in his mouth.
Legge's shadow fell over him. The older boy crouched and spoke quietly. "I use fire," he said simply. "Not often — but I can." The confession was spare and steady. It struck Lucas like a small bell.
An idea snapped into place. If the carpet was the source, then fire might disturb the flow where force could not. Lucas pointed dead center. "Hit the middle," he said. "Use your rope—set it and burn it. Test the weave."
Legge's fingers tightened on the coil at his shoulder. He looped the rope, drew a small ember from his throat of breath, and swung. The rope struck the carpet and flamed at the contact like a wick kissed by oil. The purple light behind the torn weave did not mirror the blaze; instead it drank at the fire and bubbled like a viscous liquid.
For a moment the carpet simply sizzled, the weave collapsing into a scorched ring. Then the purple fluid beneath the cloth swelled, and the room itself began to wobble, distorting. Faces went slack; those clustered beyond the carpet's edge slumped and fell, the energy that had held them steady bleeding away. Drew's hands trembled at Lucas's side, panic sharpening his voice as the chamber folded between sanity and something darker.
"We need more," Lucas said. He could see the pattern now—the carpet fed the illusion and the illusion fed the people. "Spread it. Make it burn across the whole surface."
Legge straightened. For the first time Lucas saw a shift: the man who measured air prepared to change it. "Step back," Legge warned. "I do this once in a while. Don't be near."
He sank to his knees, palms opening. Heat climbed up through his arms like a living tide. The air around his hands shimmered until the skin itself seemed alight. He inhaled once, and when he spoke his voice rang not like a whisper but like a bell: "Second form—fire style."
His hands flared into a concentrated sphere of flame, held together by the strictness of control."FIREBALL" Legge thrust the burning sphere forward and slammed it into the carpet's heart. The purple fluid collided with the fire and did the impossible: it roared inward, drawing the flame as if swallowing breath. For a heartbeat the liquid glowed a molten violet, then the weave convulsed.
Glass did not so much break as remember it had always been glass. Cracks raced outward in a billion pinprick fractures; the painted stone of the pillars lost its depth; the banners went flat and translucent. The room bent in on itself like a played instrument, and the illusion—whole and hush-thick a moment before—shuddered and collapsed.
Then they were somewhere else. The air smelled of sun and sand instead of smoke; the camp's ordinary clatter returned in a rush. Teams lay where they had been pulled from the arena—some sitting, some shaky, some already asleep with bandages and grimy hands. A few were still curled where they'd passed out and did not move; an examiner moved among them with an official hand, marking names. Those who had been unconscious were being catalogued as disqualified.
Lucas blinked, the afterimage of purple smoke still at the edges of his vision. Around him Drew sat panting, face white with relief and exhaustion. Legge breathed shallowly, the glow gone from his palms but the fire's memory still warm in his arms. The chamber was gone; the test was over.
Legge's breath hitched. One moment he was steady on his feet; the next he bent at the waist and sank to a knee. Blood glistened at the seam of his nostrils and dripped slow onto the dust. Lucas jumped up, voice raw. "Medic!"
They came in a scatter—two hands on Legge's shoulders, another pressing cloth to his face, the practiced, efficient movement of people who'd seen trauma before. Legge's eyes slid closed; he tried to answer, then his body slackened and slid forward. One of the medics caught him, murmuring as they laid him down on a pallet.
An examiner moved through the crowd with that same calm authority he always wore like armor. He stopped beside the pallet and spoke plainly, so everyone could hear. "He fed his energy into the weave," the man said. "Legge knows many fire styles—fifteen, by his count—but he never mastered the cost that comes with drawing that much power. The glass took what it could; the remainder was taken from him."
The medics worked in silence, checking pulse and breath, dampening the panic in the circle of onlookers. Legge's face was pale under the smear of soot and dust, sweat beading at his temples. His chest rose on slow waves. He lay still with the quiet of someone spent beyond sleep.
Lucas stood watching the slow. A small paper was pressed into his hand—the drill of the trials: a neat, stamped sheet bearing his team's results.
• Team — Lucas, Drew, Legge
— Teamwork: 3.5 stars
— Thinking & Adaptability: 4 stars
— Fighting Ability: N/A
• Individual Scores
— Legge: 4 stars
— Lucas: 2 stars
— Drew: 2.5 stars
He read it twice as though the numbers might rearrange themselves into something kinder. Legge's name at four stars made the paper feel heavy. Lucas's own score sat lower than he had hoped, an acid truth that burned quieter than the cuts on his skin.
Around the camp people murmured—congratulations for passing, complaints at the disqualifications, soft worry for the ones unconscious. The triumph of surviving the chamber was already fraying at the edges.
Lucas folded the paper slowly and tucked it into his bandage-wrapped chest. The weight of it was less a prize than a mirror.
Even with the plan he'd made, even with the way Drew had fought and Legge had risked himself, Lucas realized the truth in the numbers: his leadership had steered them, but his hands had not carried much of the load. He had thought and seen and guided—but he had not struck with the strength that altered outcomes.
The thought settled into him like a new wound and, like every wound, it carried an instruction: get stronger. Not for praise, not for the stars, but because there would be a next time—and a next time might not let him stand at the edges of the fight and call the shots from safety.
He looked down at Legge, at Drew, at the battered circle of candidates around the fire. The glow of the embers painted their faces with the same stubborn light he felt ignite under his ribs. He would carry more. He had to.
Lucas folded the paper and pushed it toward Drew, an unspoken "don't want to talk about it." He left without another word.
Night fell across the camp. Tents clustered like a small village lit by lanterns and low fires; candidates lounged in pockets of light, laughing, arguing, nursing scrapes. Legge was still in the makeshift medical ward—the medics were watching him closely. The mirror had struck at something deeper than muscle: it had ruptured part of his heart-source, the small inner well that helps generate a warrior's energy. A direct strike to that place was brutal because the heart always tries to protect itself by coating that core in layers of energy—breach those layers, and the cost is severe.
Lucas sat by the embers, head crowded with the day's raw images: the chopping of stone, the purple glow, the way the chamber drank flame and then shuddered. He felt intense and hollow all at once. Around the fire other candidates held up their scores like banners; the bragging didn't sit right in his chest. He forced a face of listening and patience while his thoughts kept cleaving back to the room of mirrors.
"Lucas." Drew's voice cut through the loop. Lucas started as if he'd been woken. "Yeah?" he answered, a rough edge to it.
"Chill, man," Drew said, nudging him. "You did fine. You'll do great next time." He tried to offer a grin.
Lucas only stared at the camp—at those who bragged, at the easy laughter. The victory felt thin.
Then an examiner appeared, stepping through the lantern smoke as if he'd been carved from the night itself. He cleared his throat—a single sound that fell across the camp and put every conversation on mute. His presence was enough to make the loudest jokers fall quiet.
"Tomorrow," he announced, "we test the blade that must stand alone." He held up a sheaf of papers, crisp and official in his hand. "Duels. One-on-one. No teams. No mercy—only skill." With a precise toss, sent them scattering among the candidates like official knives.
The papers landed; faces changed. Some flinched in shock, others grinned, a few paled. Drew snatched his and read; his smile split bright and wide—maybe the widest Lucas had seen from him that night.
Lucas unfolded his paper with hands that had gone suddenly cool. He read, then looked up. The name at the bottom stopped him cold.
— Opponent: Masked Warrior
He glanced toward the masked figure. They were already looking at him. The mask gave nothing, but the presence behind it pressed at him like a physical weight. Menacing didn't begin to cover it—their stillness radiated a calm that felt hungry, like something waiting to take him apart bit by bit.
Around them the camp hummed again with whispers and low bets, but Lucas heard nothing but the hush of that mask's gaze fixed on him.
That night, when most of the camp had gone quiet, Lucas slipped away from the tents. He needed silence, air, anything to strip away the weight of tomorrow's duel.
The grass whispered under his boots until he found himself near the edge of the training grounds. He drew his sword, running a thumb along the flat, as if answers might hum back through the steel.
"You grip it too tight."
Lucas froze. Turning, he found Shawn leaning against a post, arms folded, posture loose but eyes sharp.
"Why are you here?" Lucas asked, lowering his blade slightly.
"Because you'll be fighting tomorrow," Shawn said, pushing off the post. His voice was even, almost bored. "And right now, you're going to lose."
Lucas frowned. "You don't know that."
"I do." Shawn's gaze pinned him, unblinking. "Because you've built yourself on instinct and rage. Familiar swings, familiar anger. You're predictable."
The words dug in, not as mockery but as fact. Lucas bristled, but Shawn only turned and gestured with his chin.
"Come with me."
Lucas hesitated, then followed. They moved past the edge of camp, leaving the glow of lanterns behind until the night opened into a flat stretch of ground. No trees, no walls — nothing but earth and sky, quiet and bare.