121
121
KAEL
The ancient amphitheater takes shape around us as the sun dips toward the horizon, its stone seats hewn from something that at first glance could be mistaken for crystallized starlight. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen—the thing appears to be in several dimensions at once, one part of it dimming and the other flaring as one moves to the side or the other. Raven's midnight tresses whip past me in an otherworldly wind, smelling like eternity.
“Keep tight,” I whisper as I take her hand and lead her across the center platform. I feel her will power blazing through our mate bond as her skin glistens even though the same terror is flaring under it as with me, tearing at my lungs.
Welcome, candidates,” a voice reverberates from around us and inside us, coursing under our skin. "Beware, you stand at the confluence of the Ages, where might is met by right, and destiny is forged!
Three figures materialise from the swirling air above us, and they exude such an ancient power I can actually hear my wolf howling submit to me. The first looks like a woman with liquid water and moon beams flowing over her, her face beautiful and terrible in its perfection. The second is a fire-based man, with burning flames all around, that give off no heat, and molten gold eyes. A third is indescribable — sometimes sprouting like a vast tree, sometimes jutting like a mountain peak, sometimes looking like all shadow and light.
"I am Lunara, Speaker for the Divine," the water-woman says, her voice that of silver bells. I am Pyrion, Mouth of the Elemental Powers, and Nethys, Keeper of the Balance of All Things.
"Kael Rathmore and Raven Elowen," roars Pyrion, the voice of his fire cracking with power. “You are now bound before us for being an anomaly in the universe, for the power that you have harnessed is a disturbance in the cosmos.
“Or gives it promises to make it better,” Nethys says, in a male and female voice respectively. “That’s what we’re here to figure out.”
Raven takes a deep breath and squeezes my hand. "What do you want from us?" she demands, and does not blink as her violet eyes stare down each of the primordial beings.
“Three your trials,” Lunara says. “Three questions to ask yourself to check if your power is serving the common good or only your very narrow ambitions. Clear all three, and you may still go on existing, in our judgement. Fail even one..."
“And we are staring down the barrel of complete erasure,” I conclude grimly. "We know."
"Do you?" Nethys inquires, cocking one of Their inconstant heads. Do you even know what it means to erase someone? For you to cease to even exist, not just die, but to have your entire existence scrubbed — from the timeline. Every life you’ve touched, every change you’ve made, every love you’ve shared—all of it erased, as though you’d never been.
The words land like body blows. I think of Eira, of the way she smiled when I taught her to shift. For the warriors of the Obsidian Spire who’ve followed me to war, believing in me. Raven’s father, who despite his initial misgivings about our arranged marriage, blessed us.
“But there’s one thing you do need to know,” Pyrion says, with a tone that chills my blood. “This is not like any previous Convergence.
"How so?" Raven says, but I can feel her fear through our bond.
“Trials were previously conducted on single candidates,” explains Lunara. "But you and he, you've done something unique, something I've never witnessed—truly merged magical beings! Your gifts are so intermingled that we cannot evaluate you individually.'
"That's good, right?" Do the old ones / Nope, read their faces.
“It means,” Nethys intones, “that should either of you falter, both of you will be cancelled. Now your lives are tied forever."
The amphitheater goes dead quiet, except for the pounding of my own heart in my own ears. Over the mate bond I feel Raven's shock and fear, but also her resolve. She’s afraid of dying — afraid to be the one who causes my death.
“We’re ready,” she says firmly, and I love her so much in that moment that it hurts me in my body.
"Fine," says Lunara. "The First Trial starts here—the Trial of Truth. You'll come face to face with your darkest fears and most embarrassing secrets. If anybody tries to deceive, he is sure to fail."
The amphitheater melts away to our right, replaced by the gray stone walls of the Obsidian Spire. But it’s not the stronghold as it stands now – it is how it was when I was a child and my father ran a tight ship, with his heir never being allowed to fail in any form.
“Kael” I am called from behind and I turn to find my father walking up behind me. Magnus Rathmore is as tall and broad and harsh as he ever was, with the ash-brown hair I had, the iron-gray eyes and the disappointment that had settled me in those early days.
\\Father," I say, and my voice is not tinged with the old anxiety of yours that always imprisons me.
“Look at you,” he sighs with clear contempt. "Soft. Weak. Letting your feelings override your good sense. Is this what you call an Alpha?"
“I believe it is what you call being human,” I answer, and feel Raven’s warmth across our bond.
"Human?" he laughs harshly. "You're a werewolf, boy. An Alpha. Your loyalty is to your pack, not a pretty girl that's made you forget your priorities."
“That girl raven is not just a pretty face,” I snarl under thunder clouds starting to buzz around my hands. “She’s my mate, my partner, my equal in all the ways that matter.”
"Your weakness," he corrects. The night the rogues came to the Spire when you were sixteen, you froze. Oh, and you saw three of our warriors killed because of your inability to act coherently. And now you have tied yourself to another weakness, to a vulnerability that your enemies can take advantage of.’”
The memory he is describing lands like a punch. That night still haunts me, the moment when I stopped, when I allowed my fear of making the wrong decision to result in good wolves dying in my stead.
“I was sixteen,” I tell her, but the words have no real conviction.
“Being old is no excuse for being a coward,” he snaps. “And here you are now—so infatuated with this girl that now you’re willing to put everyone’s lives in jeopardy for fear of having to make the tough calls needed to protect them.”
“That’s not true,” I begin to protest, but just then the setting changes.
Suddenly I am on the other side of Nyxhowl Territory and I am watching myself make the decision to save Raven's life from inside Darian's fortress. But in this dark interpretation, I can perceive the true cost of that decision—the warriors who died in the attack, the families deprived of fathers and sons, the widows and orphans generated by my selfish desire to salvage the woman I love.
“How many people is she worth?” my father’s voice calls from the shadows. How many lives would you risk to keep her safe?”
"All of them," I murmur, the confession shredding at my gut. “I would trade all of them to save her.”
"And that," Lunara's voice sounds through the vision, "Is the truth of thee most inner part of thyself. When forced to decide between what you want and what you ought to do, you get greedy.”
"No," Raven's voice cuts through the air of condemnation, firm and crisp. “That’s not his reality — that’s his fear.”
The scene changes once more, and I’m watching, through Raven’s eyes, her own challenge. She’s standing in a burning pain-in-your-ass-Itan territory, seemingly helpless as the total of our powers levels entire buildings and kills innocent pack members in the crossfire.
“Behold what thine own mighty hath brought,” a figure that appears to be her mother says coldly. “You wanted all the power to save everyone, but it’s your power that dooms them.
"This can't be real," Raven's voice was adamant, but I could feel her skepticism through our link.
"Isn't it?" the false Lysandra asks. “You’ve killed everyone you’ve used your goddess-blood to help. Kieran is dead because of the fact of what your power caused. These warriors at the mining facility died because Seraphina was attracted to your godly scent. How many more will be killed before you treat the truth?”
"What truth?" Raven inquires, though her voice trembles.
“That you’re not a guardian — you’re a weapon. A death toll in human life you have brought along."
I sense Raven's pain, which travels along our little tie, and then I understand all at once. The trial is not just presenting us its fears — it’s attempting to make us believe in them, and recognize them as an absolute truth.
"You're both wrong,"I tell our tormentors. And it isn't that I'd throw anyone else under the bus because of my love for Raven—it's that I'd throw myself under the bus for anyone for whom I've accepted responsibility, including Raven. And her truth is not that she’s destructive — it’s that she’d sacrifice her own power, her own life, to save people she’s never even met.”
"Let's see it," comes Pyrion's thundering voice from all around us.
Instantly we’re back in the amphitheater, only now there are two pedestals in front of us! Upon one rests a pulsing orb of light—a familiar force, somehow removed from us and rendered physical. And on the other plinth is a figure I know instantaneously with a thrill of joy and terror.
“Eira,” I gasp, when I get a glimpse of my sister, who is held in chains of light and vision, her eyes wide with neon green.
"Choose," Nethys commands. "Take your powers and ascend to become True Gods - beings of such power that nothing can oppose you. Or save the girl, but you'll lose all your powers and spend the rest of your days as mere mortals.”
“There has to be another way,” Raven pleads.
"No such thing as a third," says Lunara firmly. “This is the Trial of Truth in its most basic form—when everything else is gone, what do you actually value?
I eye the orb of power and I can feel it, it’s call to me, to the deepness of my bones. With that power, Raven and I could remake the world, preempt all that we saw as threat, to shield all those we loved by will alone.
But then I glance at Eira, my baby sister who I know taught me that strength without compassion is nothing, who showed me that being Alpha means putting others first, every time.
"Eira," I say firmly, walking towards the pedestal.
"Eira," Raven repeats, her hand clasping mine as we both strive for my sister.
We touch the chains binding her, and when we do, the amphitheater lights up. By the time my sight returns, all three ancient creatures are watching us with looks of surprise, and perhaps something I would like to think is approval.
“No way,” whispers Pyrion. By choosing to save you should have lost your authority. But instead..."
“Your power has not decreased,” Lunara ends in wonder. “By choosing sacrifice over the selfish pursuit of your individual freedom, you have proven your strength and devotion to others is not for yourselves.
“So the First Trial is passed,” Nethys says. “But that second one’s going to press you in ways that at this point seem like a cakewalk compared to what we just did.”
Reality begins to flex and writhe around us, making my eyes water. I can feel Raven's resolve through our link mirroring my own.
“Whatever’s next?,” she whispers, “we meet it together.”
"Together," I nod as the Second Trial begins to materialize about us.
But now that the new reality is falling into place, I come to see with ever more horror that this trial will not be testing our willingness to sacrifice for others; it will be testing our willingness to sacrifice one another.