Chapter 31 Behind Lexie's Door
The moment the door sealed behind me, silence pressed in like a weight. For a few breaths I simply stood there, my spine stiffening, my eyes adjusting to the dim glow of a lone lantern hanging from a brass hook. It threw a trembling halo of amber light across the room, small, self-contained, too neat to be anything accidental.
A neatly made bed sat in the far left corner, the sheets a pale cream, tucked flawlessly as though prepared for an honored guest. Adjacent to it stood a tall wardrobe carved from dark cedar, its polished surface. A narrow table and a wooden chair rested opposite.
But there was no window.
No cracks in the walls.
No scent of outside air.
Nothing that felt alive.
My pulse kicked once, painfully. “Who… lives here?” I whispered, though the room swallowed my voice before it could echo. Was this a dream?
A deception?
A trap disguised as comfort?
I moved back toward the door, intending to check whether it was still open, but when I reached the wall where it should have been, my fingers met a cold wall. I jerked back. My breath shuddered out. The door had vanished completely, seamless as if it had never existed.
“Great,” I muttered, exhaling sharply, “a room with no exit. Another brilliant idea, Lexie.”
But sarcasm did nothing to quiet the dread rising in my chest. I turned again, studying every corner. No runes. No symbols. No etched instructions. The Trial of Valor was supposed to test resolve, but how did one face a challenge when no challenge was apparent?
I sat on the bed. The mattress dipped slightly under my weight. Too soft. Too warm. The fabric felt… lived-in, as though someone had slept here only moments before. The thought chilled me.
I clasped my hands together, elbows on my knees, and stared at the worn rug under my feet. The weave was red and gold, elegant but fraying at the edges. Whoever arranged this room wanted it to look comforting, but had not bothered to make it new.
“What am I meant to do here?” I murmured. “Think? Wait? Die?”
A faint sound brushed my ear, like a breath drawn from beneath the floor. I jolted upright, scanning the room again. Nothing moved. The lantern’s flame flickered, then stilled.
Then, without warning, the stone beneath my boots grew damp. I looked down. A thin sheen of water seeped up between the cracks.
“What—?”
The water thickened instantly, spreading in a circle outward from where I stood. A shallow pool lapped around my ankles, cold enough to sting. My eyes widened. I scrambled backward, but the water followed, rising at an unnaturally fast pace.
“Okay, no, no… not good,” I breathed as I backed against the wardrobe.
The floor continued to fill, the water now swirling around my calves. A surge of panic punched through me. I lifted the lantern, peering around the baseboards for a drain, a mechanism, anything to stop it.
There was nothing.
Just smooth stone, rising water, and my reflection trembling on the surface.
“Help!” I shouted, pounding the wall where the door once stood. The force echoed dully. No response. “Is anyone there?” My voice cracked.
The water rose to my knees.
Then my thighs.
Cold threaded through my bones. My heartbeat raced in my ears. I frantically opened the wardrobe, hoping for any tool, a rope, a note, a hidden switch. Nothing but empty shelves stared back. I slammed it shut.
The water reached my waist.
Then my ribs.
“Please… stop,” I whispered, voice trembling. The room felt tighter, the walls closing in as the water crept higher. I waded to the table, climbing onto the chair, then onto the tabletop. The shallow pool below had turned into a churning basin. The lantern flickered violently as moisture filled the air.
“No, no, no… someone!” I screamed again. “Please!” My throat burned. My fingers trembled as I held the lantern above my head.
The water surged upward, swallowing the bed, the chair, the rug. Rising faster now, as though triggered by my fear. I pressed back until my spine hit the wall, breath shuddering. The lantern’s flame sputtered.
When it reached my chest, my shoulders, my chin.
I raised my face instinctively, desperate for any remaining air.
“I don’t want to die,” I whispered hoarsely.
The lantern went out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Cold water surged over my head.
I gasped and choked as the final pocket of air vanished. My arms flailed, my lungs convulsing. My feet left the table as the water lifted me, dragging me into a disorienting suspension of weightlessness. I kicked hard, searching for the surface, but the ceiling blocked me instantly. There was no way out.
The cold constricted my chest. My vision blurred. Pain spread through my lungs. My limbs have weakened. My thoughts scattered.
This is it.
This is how the trial ends.
My body sank. The last of my breath fled in a stream of bubbles that swirled around my cheeks like shimmering ghosts. I closed my eyes, bracing for the end.
Then—
My hand brushed something hard at my hip. A cool band of metal.
Oliver’s bangle.
His gift.
My fingers curled around it.
And a searing warmth shot up my arm.
My eyes flew open. Not with fear.
With something awakening deep inside me.
A pulse. A primal force I had felt only hints of before.
Then ivy, dark, twisting, alive, burst outward from my palm. It unfurled through the water like veins made of shadowed vines. The ivy coiled down toward the floor, slammed into the stone, and writhed across it with deliberate purpose.
The ground trembled.
The ivy thickened, digging into the stone like a serpent burrowing into flesh. The cracks split wider, splitting the floor open. The entire surface shuddered beneath me as a jagged line tore through it.
The stone gave way.
Water roared downward.
And I fell.
The rush of air tore past my ears as I plunged through darkness, the last of the water cascading around me like a collapsing tide. I hit a solid surface with a painful thud, rolling instinctively to absorb the impact. My palms scraped against cold marble.
I lay there for a moment, gasping, coughing, lungs burning, hair dripping, clothes plastered against my skin.
A voice spoke above me, calm, measured, authoritative.
“Candidate Lexie Lambert.”