Lyra's strength was awareness—divinations that mapped invisible hazards, binding spells that created windows of safety, and knowledge of temple runes. Daryn's strength was presence—aggression that shaped space, brute force that held openings, the steadiness of a shield.
Together, they forged a tactic: Lyra created windows, Daryn held them. Subtlety and strength braided into one rhythm.
By the time they reached the maze's heart, their movements had the cadence of a practiced dance. Lyra's pulses threaded through Daryn's arms like a metronome; his feet answered with the surety of someone who had learned to trust another's touch more than his own eyes. They moved as a single instrument: Lyra mapping, Daryn committing; Lyra pausing, Daryn holding.
When a mirror spun to show a corridor that led to a dead end, Lyra's pulse would warn cool and steady. Daryn would stop, pivot, and find the true path by the warmth that bloomed on his skin. When a pressure plate demanded simultaneous weight, he held his stance until Lyra's footfall matched his. When the fog swallowed sound, Lyra's staff tapped the stone twice, and he knew to step.
Although they were not flawless, a spike-field had once nicked Daryn's calf when a mirror's hinge shifted faster than Lyra's pulse could warn. At that moment, Daryn cursed as he tasted iron and the metallic tang of copper in his mouth, and she cursed back. The words were sharp and human, but they adjusted, tightened, and then moved on....as they should have. They knew they were not an entirely perfect duo. Well, at least not yet. But they chose to put their trust in each other as a paired team and navigate through the labyrinth that the authors of fate put them on.
At the center of the maze, a low pool reflected the sky like a black coin. What they had to acquire to pass the test trial was sitting on a plinth in the middle of the pool. It was sealed by a sigil that required both of them to touch it at once.
This final approach was a narrow causeway, mirrors on either side, fog curling like fingers. Surely the arena's designers had saved their most intimate test for last: could two people who had learned to trust touch now trust the timing of their bodies to meet at the same heartbeat?
Lyra's pulse had come slow and sure, still Daryn matched his breath to it, and they stepped in unison, heel to heel as the double pulse played a drumbeat under their skin. When their hands closed on the reliquary, the sigil warmed and sighed open like a held breath being released.
After, they emerged from the maze with dust in their hair and a thin smear of blood on Daryn's calf and exited the arena, not even bothering to wait for the praises anyone in the arena might award them. For what mattered to them was that they had survived.
Yes, the whole arena applauded, but the crowd's applause felt distant and small compared to the quiet that settled between them and the reality of what they had experienced inside the labyrinth. Even if no contestant may actually die since it was a mock trial, it still sent the message home of what the main thing would be like.
Changes had also become noticeable among them, even if they would not have personally admitted it. The moon's champion had become calmer and precise, while the priestess became even more cautious. Overall, they both learned to trust each other more.
'Was this how the main tournament was going to be?' was what they both asked themselves internally.
They sat on the low wall outside the arena and let the night press around them. The maze had been a test of sight turned into a test of touch; it had taken at them what it could and left them with a new language.
Lyra wiped the blood with a scrap of cloth and handed it back to him without ceremony. "You kept your feet," she said.
"And you kept my head," Daryn answered.
Lyra traced the pulse marks on his forearm with a thumb, as if reading a map. "We move differently now," she said. "You trust my pulses, I trust your feet."
Daryn looked at the place where the tablet's name still burned under his ribs. "We move so I can find her," he said. "So I can ask the gods for what they owe."
Lyra's gaze stayed steady. "Then we keep the rhythm. We do not let the maze teach us to trade memory for motion."
He nodded. The maze had shown him how easily sight could be fooled and how quickly grief could be weaponized. It also showed him how small, human things—an agreed tap, a pulse of warmth—could become armor. They rose together, shoulders brushing for a moment that was neither intimacy nor distance but the simple contact of two people who had learned to keep one another alive.
The arena's next trials waited like a line of closed doors. For now, they had the map of each other's hands. For now, that was enough.