Hector bit his lower lip. Had he crippled her by leaving her in that fort?

  What would have happened if he hadn’t done that? Would there have been a way to defeat that void worm? The Hive Queen had said something about a Guardian coming to deal with them, but would they have survived until such a creature arrived?

  He didn’t get long to dwell on it.

  Three individuals materialised from the gloom ahead. Quiness stood with her usual rigid posture. Beside her, a scout, one of many he’d seen running errands for Raquel. The man wore light red robes and had bandaged hands that seemed there for protection rather than injury. His brown eyes, clear even in the flickering torchlight, tracked Hector as he approached.

  Hector nodded at him before turning to Raquel.

  The young lord stood with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his attention fixed on something in the air ahead. Hector followed his gaze. What could hold the man’s full attention like that?

  Then he glimpsed it. A wall of light stretched between the trees, translucent blue and shimmering like heat rising off summer stone. It rippled. Pulsed. Waves of luminescence rolled across its surface in slow, hypnotic undulations, each crest bright enough to cast faint azure shadows across the forest floor before dimming again.

  “So you see, my lord—” The scout turned back to the barrier and pressed his palm flat against it. The surface shimmered at his touch. A pulse of light radiated outward from the point of contact, spreading in concentric rings before he pulled his hand away. “You can’t go through it at all. I don’t suppose—”

  The man paused as Raquel held up a hand, finally turning to nod at Hector. Then Raquel raised his other arm. A screen was projected in the air in front of it, glowing softly.

  “My quest seems to be reacting to something.” Raquel’s eyes narrowed as he read. “It says that there’s a blue shimmering wall... and it seems to be—” A curt smile came to his lips. “I see.”

  Clearly, being near the barrier and the arrival of Hector had triggered something.

  Before anyone could speak, the wall of light rippled.

  Not the gentle undulation from before—this was violent, sudden, a shudder that ran through the entire barrier like a struck drumhead. The blue deepened to brilliant white at its centre, and from that brightness, a beam of light lanced upward, punching through the canopy with a sharp crack of displaced air.

  Wind roared through the trees.

  Branches groaned and swayed, leaves tearing free to spiral wildly around them. Hector’s torch guttered, nearly died, then flared back to life as he shielded it with his body. The light from the barrier intensified—too bright to look at directly—and within that radiance, a shape coalesced.

  A woman.

  She flickered into existence like a reflection settling on disturbed water. Robes of pale silver draped her translucent form, their edges dissolving into motes of light that drifted lazily upward. Her features were serene, ageless, her eyes twin points of soft luminescence that swept across the four of them with distant interest.

  The wind died as suddenly as it had come.

  Leaves drifted down around them, settling on muddy earth and armoured shoulders. Then the holographic woman spoke. “Ah, finally, the Jacaranda has arrived.” The woman’s eyes fixed on Hector. A soft smile curled her lips. Had he just stumbled into some kind of trap?

  She knew his name. Or at least his last one.

  And by the looks of it, she differed from the holograms they’d interacted with so far. Much more akin to the old man they’d spoken to before in the Earthen Mole cave, the owner of this trial realm.

  “What is it now? Cat got your tongue?” She tilted her head to the side, letting out a soft tut. “Though I suppose a family such as yours wouldn’t much look to an old woman like myself.” Her smile widened, almost teasing. “Though I must say, it is curious to see one so young out on a jaunt such as this.”

  “You know my family?”

  The words left him before he could think better of them. Though family wasn’t exactly the right word. Sure, he was—at least as far as his mother had claimed—a Jacaranda. But he had no knowledge of who they were or what they did.

  The woman nodded. Her attention didn’t shift from him for even a moment.

  “I’ve had dealings with Jacarandas in the past. Xavier being the most interesting of those encounters.” A wistful note crept into her voice. “That man, I swear—if it weren’t for my husband being as strong as he was, I may have ended up a Jacaranda myself.”

  “Your husband?” Hector’s brow furrowed. Why had she mentioned him? Or at least—who was he to be stronger than a Jacaranda? From what Hector had gathered from his interactions with these ‘ghosts’ so far, people held his supposed family in quite high regard. “Who was he?”

  “He was the one who made this trial realm that you and your—” She paused, turning to Raquel and his two companions. Her crystalline gaze swept over them with detached curiosity. “Are these your slaves?”

  Hector’s heart dropped in his chest like a weight. What was this woman doing, calling a great house member his slave?

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  His eyes snapped to Raquel. The young lord’s expression had gone carefully neutral—thankfully, he seemed not to have taken offence to the insult—and he bowed to the holographic woman with practised grace.

  “I have no knowledge of these Jacarandas you speak of, Miss.” Raquel’s voice remained measured, diplomatic. “And we are not this boy’s slaves. We are...”

  He grasped at the air as if searching for the words.

  “Companions,” Hector spoke up.

  Raquel nodded. “Companions.”

  As if having her question answered had been enough, the woman turned back to Hector. Raquel, Quiness, the scout—all of them ceased to exist in her attention.

  “So. Not your slaves.” She tapped a translucent finger against her chin. “That means whatever planet my husband has left this trial realm on is not one owned by a Jacaranda. Curious.” Her eyes sharpened. “Your mentor, boy. Who are they?”

  She was asking a lot of questions.

  The other holograms had said a word or two and been done with it, seemingly not wanting to overstep some boundary. He’d gotten the implication that they may have even feared them. Surprising, for what he’d come to understand were little more than echoes of the dead. But she seemed almost alive. Not a recording, the way his mother had been. Nothing like a ghost at all.

  She was feeling like a real person.

  “I have no mentor, per se, miss.” Hector chose his words carefully. “The closest thing would be Instructor Kambel from my dojo.”

  She cocked her head again. “Dojo? What is a dojo?” Confusion flickered across her features before hardening into something sharper. “Are you not part of any celestial academy, boy? Surely the Jacarandas would not let their descendant loose within a cluster with no guidance.” Her tone grew more insistent. “Who are your parents?”

  Now, that was asking a lot.

  He wasn’t sure of his mother’s name and doubted this woman would know his father. So he tried to think. He couldn’t give her a fake name, but perhaps a change in direction would be more amenable to her.

  “Ma’am, I know not my mother’s name.” He straightened his posture, hoping he was coming across as formal and polite as he thought he sounded. “But I fear we are getting a bit caught up in the weeds. While I appreciate the information you’re sharing, and wish to delve further into it. Would it be too much to ask for you to explain what’s going on with this barrier?”

  The woman blinked. As if she’d remembered something.

  She glanced back to the shimmering wall, now returned to its blue, blocking their passage.

  “Ah, yes. It was to be triggered once the quest was complete, but it seems you completed it via a non-standard route.” Her gaze drifted upward, scanning something invisible in the air above them. “An interaction with Minerva...”

  She fell silent, reading.

  Then her expression soured.

  “How on earth did that thing get a void worm in here?” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “My husband was not careful enough in his selection process, it seems.”

  She fell silent again, and for a moment the only sounds were the distant chirps of crickets and the soft hum of the barrier behind her. Then she shifted her attention back to Hector.

  “I’m sorry to see that a void beast had somehow infiltrated the trial realm.” She placed a hand on her chest, her expression earnest—if a little forced around the edges. “I assure you, this was not how these things were supposed to go. And I assure you, the casualties caused by this incident are a deep sorrow to me.”

  She glanced back at Raquel, her crystalline eyes narrowing.

  “Either way, you are to be rewarded for your success. And compensated for the oversight of me and mine.”

  She raised her hand.

  Light gathered in her palm like pooling water. Soft at first, then brightening until motes of luminescence began drifting free. They floated toward Raquel, lazy and unhurried, spiralling through the air before settling against his bracelet with a soft chime. The device pulsed once, twice, absorbing the light.

  More motes broke away from her form. These drifted past them, weaving between branches and around tree trunks, disappearing back down the muddy path toward the distant glow of torchlight. Toward the caravan.

  “I have given several of your people who’ve contributed the most a few hundred points,” the woman said, lowering her hand. “As well as tickets for participation in the Ascension Tournament. It does not make up for your losses, but I hope their entry will provide them opportunity to excel where others have failed.”

  She shifted her focus back to Hector.

  “Whilst I wish to compensate you further, I fear the rewards from a trial realm like this are far beneath a Jacaranda.” A note of apology entered her voice. “Perhaps the martial items will be of use to you, but no cultivation technique can match that of your family’s. So, I will instead offer you four more tickets to the Ascension Tournament, to give to whomever you wish.” A smaller smile returned now. “Make use of them well. And I look forward to speaking to you again.”

  A pause.

  “I didn’t get your name.”

  And there was the problem. Whilst he’d told Raquel to call him H, he couldn’t very well do the same for someone as strong as this, and who seemed to have more information on his family. Information he’d prefer the Flamelights didn’t know.

  His mind stalled.

  It was pointless hiding his name. Jodie’s face had already been revealed, and Wymon knew who he was. Finding his name would just be a matter of course for a member of a great family.

  “My name is Hector Jacaranda.”

  The words felt heavier leaving his mouth than they should have.

  The woman nodded, something like approval flickering in her crystalline gaze. “A good name. A strong name.” She straightened, her translucent robes rippling with the motion. “Well, Hector Jacaranda—I have no doubt you shall make your way quite high within the tournament. I look forward to seeing you on the winner’s platform, where hopefully we can have a more...”

  She glanced around the forest, her eyes surveying the dark canopy above them.

  “...a proper discussion.”

  Her smile softened. “I bid you farewell.”

  Her form shimmered.

  The light that comprised her flickered, destabilised—and then she came apart. Motes of luminescence scattered like dandelion seeds caught in a sudden wind, drifting upward through the branches before winking out one by one against the dark sky.

  Behind where she’d stood, the barrier rippled.

  A high, sharp sound—zzzzip—cut through the night as the wall of blue light began sinking. It descended into the earth like water draining through packed sand, its glow dimming as it went. In seconds, nothing remained but the faint shimmer of disturbed air and the path ahead, now clear.

  Hector let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

  And then—

  RRRRROOOOAAAAARRRRR.

  Distant. So distant he could barely make it out, more felt than heard—a vibration in his chest, a tremor in the earth beneath his boots. Something massive. Something far away.

  But not far enough.

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