Sol had woken up to complete darkness again. The only light seeps through the cracks in the door. He fumbled for the gas lamp on the bedside table. The flint sparked until the flame caught. Flickering against the stone walls, the amber glow was weak, but it was enough. The broken clock on the wall still read the same time: 3:40, when his eyes landed on it. The hands hadn't moved once since his arrival. He stared at it for too long, until it felt like his own heartbeat was caught in the useless gears.

  His limbs tingled. A crawling numbness prickled beneath his skin, fading just as quickly as it came. He flexed his fingers, watching the faint tremor in them.

  The light in the halls seemed muted, casting long, unnatural shadows in the space. It was somehow emptier than it had been. The workshops were closed. No hammers rang, no sparks showered the floors how they always had. The workshops had reminded him of underground city with the ambience and the noise that accompanied them. Now there sat an eerie stillness. It did nothing to calm him after the prior events. Sound was a proof of life, silence signified death.

  Now there was only the echo of his own steps.

  Sol brought some breakfast for himself, eggs and toast, with some stale vegetables on the side, before slipping into the dark corner of the room. When he took bite, the food tasted just as bland in evidence of it's appearance. He chewed without hunger, drifted along his thoughts. Somewhere in the room, a door shifted, letting in a whisper of wind. It sent a shudder through his body.

  The people around him spoke in hushed tones. words feeling weighed down by this strange atmosphere. They sat in the dining space too, but their voices were a hum in his mind. Broken men and women, wrapped in their bandages and shame. Defeated participants. Their gazes flicked to him once, then away, as if looking at him too long might curse them with the fight they'd lost.

  Mattheos entered the area in all his grand presence. The people greeted him. He said nothing, only nodded to the respect offered before then crossed the floor and took the seat opposite Sol, much to his surprise.

  He nervously continued to eat, foot tapping on the ground in nervousness. Why was he here? Should he speak? Questions continued to rise in his mind and the silence stretched. Sol wondered to himself for a moment, and chose to open his mouth to those dumb questions.

  "Did you sleep well?" Sol ventured, breaking the silence.

  Mattheos lifted his cup, considered it briefly, then answered, "As well as one can, given the circumstances."

  Sol nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. He chewed, swallowed, tried to anchor himself, but the memory of blood, of a cold body, of his hands shaking, rose unbidden.

  "The trial... today—do you think..." He faltered, then forced it out. "Do you think it'll be harder?"

  Mattheos answered casually, without a second thought, "Don't think too much about it. I have promised to defeat you and I will."

  Sol smirked faintly, masking the quiver in his chest. "As if I will let you," he challenged back.

  "That," Mattheos said, "is precisely what matters."

  "Mattheos. You are a knight. What could you want from the Trials?" Sol asked. You have everything anyone could ever want is what he didn't say.

  "Everything," he replied. "You mistake position for possession," Mattheos continued. "I don't have all that I could ever want. Nobody does, as a matter of fact."

  What?

  Sol frowned. "People bow when you enter a room." What more could you possibly want?

  "They bow before the House of Veranth," the knight replied, "Not me."

  He finished cutting his food with careful. Only after setting the knife down did he lift his eyes to continue, "Every generation must prove it still deserves to exist. My name does not exempt me, it obligates me."

  "You could fail and still live," Sol said quietly.

  "Live as what?" Mattheos leaned back in his seat. "A Veranth who proved unworthy under the full light does not remain a Veranth in any meaningful sense. I won't die, not physically atleast."

  "Even if you have to kill to live?"

  "Isn't that what it is all about?" Mattheos questioned in return.

  Right. Sol didn't want to think about his prior trial again, but it slid back into his mind. He was no different.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "And you?" Mattheos asked at last. "What do you want from the Trials?"

  Sol’s gaze dropped to his hands. He hadn't expected to be questioned by the knight. It made anxiety well up inside him.

  "I don’t know," Sol admitted. "But if I stop moving, I will erase others alongside me." I will kill them alongside me.

  "Then we are alike in one aspect," Mattheos added, rising smoothly from his chair, "Neither of us is here by choice."

  Mattheos left without another word. He offered no farewell. Sol's fingers lingered on the cold metal of his gun. A promise. A lifeline. For them, he thought. Even if he fell, even if his hands trembled, he had to keep standing.

  Sol sat very still. Then, he remembered his promise to his friend.

  For them, he thought. I have to keep standing. Even if I fall.

  Sol then stood up after the older boy had left, leaving his half eaten breakfast behind. The battle was to commence Midday, when the sun would be the highest. Ironic, since the sun is hidden from the view of Solthar.

  He headed off to the competitors' prep spaces. Maybe, I could visit the medical bay for a check-up? He wondered to himself. Maybe someone could explain why his body felt so strange. The numbness has begun to reach his mind. The hallways warp, pipelines curve, and it made Sol grip his head, again. The headache he had dealt with yesterday, began to crawl back. Not again!

  Two Cathedral guards blocked his path. "Final participant, you are to attend the Sun's blessing," one announced.

  He halted, hand wrapping around his gun should they attempt something. He recalled what had happened last night, but the man he encountered before had a different stature compared to the two before him and voice did not match.

  Yet, they were all in cahoots, no one here could be trusted.

  "It is necessary?"

  "It is mandatory to attend," the man responded, "before the victory match."

  He nodded, choosing to follow them, but not letting his guard down.

  He was led into a tall, narrow chamber lit by shafts of amber light through stained glass depicting the Trials' past 'champions.' It gave it a brief slide of his gaze, seeing the painted glass shimmer under the dim sunlight. Then it fell on Mattheos, who was already there, standing with his attention before the altar.

  His scarlet eyes flicked to Sol once, unreadable.

  "We meet again," Sol commented, and was only met with a silence.

  The air shifted in room as the priest began to chant, flames before him rising and reacting to his words. Sol felt a faint vibration through the floor, as if something was humming in sync with the words. The chant rose, and flames danced in response. His fingers itched for something tangible, anything to anchor him, but the floor beneath him seemed to slip slowly.

  He turned to look around and caught Mattheos frowning, yet Sol could not tell whether it was in disagreement or concentration. His brows furrowed together, and Sol chose to observe the priest instead.

  "When the Sun reaches its zenith, judgment shall be passed."

  Sol left the blessing chamber after the echo of the last chant faded, and the torches flickered into calm once more. His footsteps sounded wrong to his ears, like they weren't quite touching the ground, or perhaps he was not walking right. Sol did not think much, considering it to be his lack of sleep.

  He found himself making his way towards the workshops, hoping to find any anchor. Perhaps, he could have a chat with Ava.

  By the time he reached the workshop quarter, the scent of alloy and machine oil had already pushed back some of the haze in his head. The workshops were deserted, yes, but Ava's bay was half-lit, filled with the carved silhouettes of her mini gear pieces suspended by chains from the ceiling.

  Ava noticed him before he spoke. She didn't smile. She didn't tease him. Her eyes tracked him the way a mechanic tracks a device that's beginning to malfunction.

  "You look like hell," she commented. It didn't hold any judgement, just her observation.

  Sol tried to answer, but the words were jagged in his throat. What came out was fractured glass coughed onto the floor. "I just... needed... a place that isn't that room," he replied as he leaned against the counter's edge, forcing his palm flat to keep himself steady and kept his head low.

  "Second trial, was it?" Ava spoke after a long silence.

  Sol's jaw tightened. He couldn't say it. He couldn't say she died because of me or I didn't stop her or I saw myself in her blood. Neither did Ava push. Instead, she returned to her tools, tightening a gear—keeping herself busy—sliding a wrench back into its slot, and finally spoke without turning.

  "I didn't pass my Trial either."

  Sol blinked at her, the words slowly registered through the fogged mind of his.

  "You... participated?" He asked, dumbly.

  Ava let out a breath that was neither bitter nor proud.

  "My opponent disarmed me and split my arm open from wrist to elbow. I should've been finished." she said. "But I didn't die."

  Ava being alive should have brought him relief. It didn't. It only sharpened the dissonance twisting in him. He gazed at the wrappings around her arm, it was surprise she was still moving it around without wincing with each pull of the muscle. It should have reminded him of endurance, of resilience, of hope. But it didn’t. That was how she was.

  "You're not the first to walk out of a Trial alive and feel dead anyway," she said. "But understand this: living through it doesn't make you weak. It makes you stronger in other's eyes."

  Ava didn't pity him. She didn't reach out to console him, because there was no such concept where all they learned was survival. She kept her distance like someone who understood him just enough, all that was necessary to be understood. Like in gears, where tinkering with the wrong place, unnecessarily, could break what was left of it.

  "You didn't kill her," Ava continued. "She made her choice."

  The sentence didn't land as comfort. It cut instead because she knew, and that was exposing the knot in Sol's thoughts.

  Sol's fingers tightened on the counter. "But I didn't stop her," he retorted. "I saw her fall and all I could think was—why wasn't it me?"

  Ava exhaled slowly. "Because you're not done yet. You survived, and it was never your fault who dies or lives." She turned back to her workbench and began adjusting the alignment of a suspension gear, each click of metal on metal grounding the space with its mechanical clink.

  "Sol," she continued without looking at him. "People like us... we don't get to choose clean endings. Only the Gods do."

  The Gods.