“I shall be going with you.”

  The voice came from the side, and Hector turned, frowning. Who would be so bold as to volunteer themselves for something that could probably be a suicide mission?

  His stomach lurched with surprise as, a few feet away, Quinness stood with her hands clasped in front of her, looking out over the battlements at the approaching horde. Thin strands of blonde hair whipped across her face, and she turned to Hector, combing several of them behind her ear.

  He supposed he should have expected as much. What were the chances of an heir of the Flamelight family letting them run off with something that could potentially amount to thousands of points? If Hector were in Raquel’s shoes, he’d have put more than a few eyes on an item like this.

  “The Lord has tasked me with ensuring that you survive.” Quinness bowed slightly.

  The motion gave Hector a clear view of the sword at her waist. Intricate designs ran along its surface—patterns so detailed they couldn’t have been cheap to make. Etched with care that spoke of either artistry or function. Possibly both.

  Was it a mana armament?

  Surely not. Even a great family wouldn’t give their maid a mana armament.

  Red battle robes, accented with black, flapped in the wind as Quinness straightened, meeting his gaze. Her eyes were steady, revealing nothing of what she thought about her orders; part of Hector expected she didn’t actually care. She was Raquel’s sword, and that was that.

  Hector nodded at the woman. If she was here to watch him or help, it wasn’t too important. With another body around, that was one more card he had up his sleeve.

  “Well, if we survive this, I’ll have to ask you to pass on my thanks.”

  As she nodded, Hector turned and adjusted the egg under his arm. It rested as comfortably under his arm as the hard crystal surface allowed. He hadn’t realised it at first, but the shell was far from fragile. If anything, it was harder than even the Void Singer’s egg—something that was tough even when compared to ordinary stone.

  Out across the battlefield, the bugs continued to surge forward. Shouts echoed around the battlements as men lined up against the short walls, bows drawn. Arrows nocked. Ready.

  Hector gripped the wall, trying to psych himself up to jump. Planning his advance. It was one thing to hope for the best, but he needed an out for not only himself but the two who were accompanying him.

  Though if he were honest, nothing would work perfectly. Anything he came up with might not even survive reality.

  “I suppose I should curse you out before I die.” Lincoln laughed shakily, gripping his spear tight. An odd war of confidence and fear raged through him as he shakily mounted the battlement’s edge.

  “If it helps your nerves,” Hector said, making to climb up himself.

  “Quinness!”

  The shout pulled his attention backwards.

  Hector looked down. A girl stood in the courtyard below, with features that matched Quinness’s almost exactly—same bone structure, same sharp cheekbones and the same blonde hair. An ice-blue whip hung at her side, leather coiled and secured. Everything in her bearing spoke of nobility, from the tilt of her chin to the expensive cut of her red battle robes.

  Hector was sure he recognised her.

  His gaze shifted. Off to the side, Wymon stood shouting at a cluster of mercenaries, gesturing sharply toward the stairs. “Get your butts moving!”

  Ah, that’s where Hector had seen her. She was the girl who’d been with Wymon at the Hilda Festival.

  Which made her…

  The girl stared up at Quinness, her brown eyes boring into the woman as their gazes met. Yet Quinness seemed utterly uninterested in the girl shouting for her. Her expression remained blank. As if she weren’t even talking to her.

  “Sister...” The word came out strained, as if lodged in the girl’s throat and struggling to escape. “Be careful.”

  A moment of silence stretched between the two of them.

  Mercenary groups continued rushing past the girl—some heading for the walls, others racing toward the black worm situation. Following the path of the crowd, Hector spotted Jodie slamming a worm’s head into a wall. The creature’s body went limp, skull crushed. She dropped it and moved on to the next one.

  “I always am.” Quinness’s voice carried no emotion as she spoke. She then turned back to Hector, inclining her head, ready to leave.

  Hector climbed onto the wall. Part of him hoped Jodie would be fine. Though she’d probably be more than capable of handling this minor threat. If anything, behind these walls—as long as the bugs didn’t pull anything else crazy—would be safer for her than out there.

  He glanced at the approaching horde one last time.

  Then jumped.

  Air rushed past his face. The ground rose to meet him. His knees bent on impact, absorbing the shock, boots sinking slightly into the mud. Manageable.

  Beside him, Quinness landed in a crouch, robes settling around her. Face blank. Like the fall hadn’t even been a step.

  Lincoln hit the ground a second later with a grunt. His knees buckled, and he stumbled forward, catching himself with his spear. “That height is a strain on my legs,” he wheezed.

  “Suck it up.” Hector adjusted the egg under his arm.

  Then all three of them broke into a sprint toward the incoming swarm.

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  —- —- —- —-

  Mirae frowned as Drion and Noelle walked through the shimmering doors of the tower, the light they stepped into absorbing their figures before their silhouettes completely disappeared.

  The man was, in a word, useless. Uselessly strong. He’d lorded over them like a tyrant, asking the mercenaries he’d assembled to solve the riddle for him, apparently not wanting to waste his own brainpower on such a task. He was disgusting, and the girl, Noelle, who tagged along with him, was equally annoying.

  Mirae’s purple eyes moved to Emela, standing at the bottom of the steps, Brom next to her, his long sleeves sagging at his side as the two chatted. Nyx was still behind the tree line, hiding at the back of a tree. Mirae had suggested she come over after Drion had left, and once a few more mercenaries had entered the tower.

  She didn’t want to risk her safety after all.

  Below, clusters of mercenaries shifted and murmured amongst themselves. Their gear told the story of what they’d just survived—scuffed leather pauldrons with exposed stitching, iron chest plates that bore dents from almost being crushed by a stone giant, and weathered bracers that would cost more than a few points to replace.

  One man’s breastplate sat crooked on his frame, the straps clearly replaced with ripped sheets of fabric, a ripped tunic perhaps, that didn’t quite hold the weight properly. A woman beside him adjusted her vambrace; the leather cracked along the edges where the dye had taken on a dull green from the grass.

  Their voices carried up the stone steps in fragments.

  “—don’t see why we should continue following these people—”

  “—got paid for this, didn’t we—”

  A burly mercenary wearing a rough leather coat spat to the side. “Paid to escort the Frostkeep. Not have him slaughter us at his leisure.”

  His companion, a wiry man whose chest plate hung loose over a thick tunic, scratched at his stubbled jaw. “Tower’s open now. Riddle’s solved. We should just wait out here until that lot figures out how to get us back to the sanctuary.”

  “Then you’re staying in this forest alone, yeah?” The burly one snorted. “Good luck with that. What are you going to do if another one of those constructs pops up?”

  The wiry man’s hand dropped from his face. He glanced toward the tree line, then back at the tower’s entrance, its doors still rippling with that strange iridescent light.

  A third mercenary—a woman with short-cropped hair and a dented shoulder guard—stepped closer to their group. “We go now, or we don’t get paid at all. You think that Drion bastard remembers who did what? He pays the ones who are standing at his side at the end of all this.”

  That seemed to settle something. The burly man rolled his shoulders, his ill-fitting armour creaking. “Right then.”

  They moved as a unit of three, boots scraping against the white stone as they climbed. Another group followed moments later—two women and a man, their gear just as patchwork. One had wrapped fabric around her vambraces where the original leather had torn away.

  More mercenaries broke from their conversations, the reality of the situation settling over them in the perpetual daylight. Pairs and trios formed, moving with the resigned determination of people who knew hesitation only made things worse. Iron clinked against iron. Leather groaned. Someone’s sword belt needed fixing halfway up the steps, forcing the mercenary behind him to pause with a muttered curse.

  Several nodded at Mirae as they moved, as if thanking her for something she hadn’t even done. No, that was the honour of the young girl standing beside her. She turned to Pippa, who squirmed under the gazes of several mercenaries, Kar’s journal clutched in her grip.

  Mrs Strongmail, who stood next to Pippa, rested her hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, my dear. You shouldn’t act so shy. You’re a cultivator now, remember?”

  Pippa shot her mother a glance, frowning, and Mirae held back a chuckle. It was nice seeing them like this, especially after such a tense fight. It was almost as if the trial realm wasn’t trying to kill them, at least in this brief moment.

  As the two continued to chatter, Emela and Brom walked up the steps, pausing as they saw Mirae. They then moved closer, and Emela let out a shaky sigh.

  “Thank you for that,” Emela said, her head jerking to the side, at the now-ruined piece of land that had been their battlefield. The guardian’s corpse lay there in a humanoid clump of metal and wood.

  “Think nothing of it.” Mirae smiled. “I didn’t really do much, to be honest. It’s more of those guys,” she said, gesturing to the two puppets standing behind her, their pale light glowing softly. “They were the ones who really held it off while you got your bearings, so I don’t really need much of the thanks.”

  “While that may be true,” Brom said, stepping forward with his characteristic smile—Mirae didn’t dislike it per se, especially now that she’d seen how close he was with Emela, but there was still something that wasn’t quite right with him. “I’d say your constructs are quite marvellous. If you would care to share how you made them, I would reward you quite handsomely.”

  Emela shot her brother a look, one that spoke of him clearly overstepping there. Brom squirmed under her gaze and let out an awkward chuckle. “Or if it’s a family secret, I don’t wish to overstep my bounds.”

  Mirae was thankful for the look that Emela had given her brother. It would be difficult to reject a noble in normal times, let alone now, in a trial realm where there were no prying eyes to dissuade them from robbing others. And Brom was most certainly a level or two higher than her when it came to cultivation, not that he’d necessarily win in a fight against her, but these mercenaries probably wouldn’t let the person hiring them come to any harm.

  At least, the ones still obsessed with coin wouldn’t let him come to harm. As for the others, her mind moved back to a few minutes earlier when they still hadn’t figured out the riddle. Before Pippa had come to the understanding that it related to a star map Kar had talked about in his journal. Back then, Drion had become frustrated, lashing out at his hired personnel.

  He’d even gone on the attack, killing a mercenary so fast that the man hadn’t even gotten the chance to react. It was cold and calculating, and scared the pants off everyone there. She wasn’t sure if she could even stop Drion if he wanted to kill her, and thankfully, the man hadn’t.

  It was a wonder Nyx had even survived. Perhaps if he were actually trying to kill her, she would be dead. That meant throwing her off the cliff might not even have been a way of disposing of her. He just wanted to teach Emela a lesson. Whether Nyx survived, he didn’t care.

  “Are you alright?” Emela asked, bringing Mirae back from her thoughts.

  “I’m fine. Shall we head in then?”

  “You’re still going in?” Harry asked from the side, scratching at his hair. His red locks scrunched up beneath his fingers, and he frowned. “Are you sure you want to continue with this trial with your brother trying to kill you like that?”

  Emela looked at him, and Brom frowned and spoke. “He wasn’t trying to kill her.” Though Mirae heard none of the confidence in his voice that was usually there.

  Brom clearly understood that whilst Drion may not have outwardly tried to put his sister in harm’s way, he definitely wasn’t doing her any favours by throwing her into the front lines, claiming she should prove herself. At least, that’s the thinking that she ascribed to the man through talking with Nyx.

  Emela nodded at Harry a few seconds later. “I will be.” She turned, glancing at the two girls who now stood at the bottom of the steps, talking to each other.

  They seemed to get on rather well, though it was a relationship that seemed strained by something—perhaps the difference in social class. After all, one of them was definitely a noble. She carried herself with an air of slight arrogance, as if she was proving something to herself, or someone.

  “Those two still need me to lead them going forward,” Emela continued, “and there’s no other way to get out of this place without completing the tower. There’s been no rumours of anything that can contact the outside world either, so the way I see it—” She rested her hand on her hip and puffed out a breath that moved her fringe. She reached up and pulled at her braids. “I have to keep going forward, if not for myself, for Nyx.”

  Then, Mirae smiled as she reached out and rested her hand on Emela’s shoulder. “Actually, about that,” her gaze flickered to Brom, who stood there and raised an eyebrow, his interest clearly piqued at what she was about to say. “Would you mind giving us a moment?”