Sorn awoke with a start. The room he found himself in was unfamiliar, and the air was almost suffocating. Thick mist filled the room, causing Sorn to be unable to see much of anything. The last memory he could grasp was of falling into a dense fog, and then he fell unconscious. He immediately stood up, suddenly worried. How much time had he wasted in sleep? He bit his lip in frustration. A flood of weariness pressed down on him, but when he shook it off, trying to focus his mind on the goal.

The good news of this situation was that all his previous fatigue was gone. The constant strain of recent adventures late into the night had left him exhausted. He let out a slow breath, piecing things together. Perhaps this was an intentional reset point. This conclusion made the most logical sense to him, as nothing else could explain his sudden loss of consciousness.

His thoughts turned to the present situation. Lyra, the second oldest of the Council, was a woman shrouded in secrets. She had shared victory with Varian in the last Tournament, the two of them bound by an alliance. Normally, this would concern Sorn, but Oden told him that many rumored that the two recently were in a state of discourse. This theory was supported by Lyra’s choice to vote against Sorn’s execution in the trial. She was still full of contradictions. The woman was born of the Outskirts, unbound by clan, yet she was gifted with such talent that it had brought her to the Council, an honor even clan elites could only dream of.

The “Silent Chord”, as she was often called. It was said she wielded music like a weapon. Sorn’s fingers reached instinctively to his neck, finding the pendant there. He held it in his palm, feeling the small circle of ice he had acquired from the previous trial. He gave it a tentative shake and then heard a sound.

This was unusual, as in the previous stage, the pendant made no noise. Now, an unnatural buzz violated his ears. It invaded his head, filling his mind with a thousand rushing thoughts, each one colliding with the other in a chaotic storm. Sorn immediately crouched, his hands pressed to his skull as though to hold it together.

The mist had begun to thin. Something unusual stood at the far end of the room. He could not see it clearly, but it was there. His heart hammered in his chest, as he could no longer keep listening to this buzz. He stopped shaking the pendant, and the buzz cut off immediately, filling the room back with silence. Unfortunately, the mist grew thicker in response, obstructing his vision as it reverted to its original state.

Sorn reached out, and he could now barely see his hand cutting through the murk. Then he started to walk in the general direction of that strange thing he’d seen before but to no avail. He couldn’t find direction in this unsettling chamber.

Seeing no other choice, Sorn steadied his breath as he prepared himself for the upcoming endeavor. His fingers, slick with sweat, grasped the pendant once more. He began to shake it, pushing aside the gnawing strain that tore at his mind. Then, he saw the shadow. It was tall, perhaps as tall as Bjorn. Its shape was vague, a shifting mass of black and indigo. Even standing so close, Sorn's mind, unsteady from the strain, couldn't quite lock its form into focus.

Then the figure snapped its fingers.

The buzzing stopped instantly, and the room fell into an immediate stillness. This time, the mist remained in its thin state. Sorn stood in the sudden silence, struggling to recalibrate his senses.

Now that his mind was a little more clear, he could see the figure properly. It was not remotely humanoid. There was no face, nor any other discernible features except for a long, twisting mass of tendrils spiraling from its top. Its arms were unnaturally thin and branchlike, with long brittle fingers attached to its wrist.

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The creature moved aside without a sound, revealing what was behind it.

A Rabball was encased in a jagged prison of ice, perched delicately atop a podium of stone. The creature’s round body gazed upon Sorn innocently, two black dots looking back at Sorn’s pupils. His mind, still reeling from the aftershocks of the pendant’s effect, struggled to register the sight. Everything felt surreal, like a fever dream he could not wake from.

He stepped forward, toward the Rabball. But before he could reach it, something blocked his way.

Another podium. A circle of ice, a larger version of the pendant around his neck stood before him. He stared at it, confused, trying to make sense of this place. And then, without warning, the figure was beside him once more.

A cold sensation brushed against him. The figure’s misty fingers passed straight through his head. He couldn’t move after that moment, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how desperately he wanted to.

This is freezing, being frozen, being turned to ice, everything is so numb, my bones are chilled, my muscles are petrified, my skin is falling apart, everything is heavy, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe—

He could breathe.

The freezing grip that had seized him released as suddenly as it had come. The numbness melted away, leaving behind only a strange, disorienting absence. Sorn stood there, his heart hammering in his chest. The cold had vanished without a trace as if it had never been there in the first place. It felt wrong. Everything in his body told him that the experience had never been real at all, and while he remembered the event, he could not properly recall or understand it.

His gaze snapped to that thing standing motionless beside him, its hand still pressed flat upon the top of the podium. It gave Sorn no attention or recognition. Sorn hesitated, then mimicked its gesture. His hand hovered over the icy surface, unwilling to go through that feeling, whatever it was, again.

Another shadowy figure, an exact imitation of the first, materialized beside the Rabball. Without warning or hesitation, the figure jammed its fingers into the Rabball’s head. The Rabball suddenly shrieked and Sorn recoiled, as the sound reverberated in his mind. It was the same as before, a sound he’d hoped he’d never hear again. The sound emitted by the first pendant he had acquired in the previous trial.

Then, the figure removed its fingers, and the Rabball ceased its screech. It sat in that same spot, once again staring at Sorn.

The shadow beside him stirred.

“To pass… you touch…. when glow…”

The words were slow and disjointed, as though the creature had never learned how to speak properly. It was both unnatural and unnerving.

The large pendant glowed again. Sorn reached for it, his hand hovering for a moment before he pressed it. The screeching sound filled the room as he shut his eyes tight, fighting the rush of panic that tried to claw its way up from his gut. Ten long seconds passed. Then, the sound stopped.

Sorn turned toward the shadow beside him.

“Do you truly expect me to keep doing this?” he asked, frustrated.

But the figure remained silent. Sorn wasn’t sure it had even heard him, or if it even could hear. It stood there, still and faceless, a being of emptiness.

The large pendant flared up, a light blue glow encased around the podium. This time, Sorn braced himself. He would not flinch. He stood in front of the podium defiantly, no longer willing to participate in this sick game. To his surprise, instead of the insidious touch of the figure’s fingers, there was nothing.

Sorn opened his eyes.

The room had changed. The mist was gone, and the shadowy figures had vanished. The only things that remained were the podiums and the Rabball still trapped in the cage.

The pendants of ice, which had hung heavily around his neck, were also gone. The absence was a small relief from the overwhelming feelings stirring through his soul; an aftereffect of the strangest trial of them all. He glanced to the left and saw a pair of doors in a corner of the room.

As Sorn ran towards the doors, he tried to make sense of the trial. What had he been meant to prove? Was it a test of empathy, perhaps? To see if one could put another’s suffering before their own? It was still so peculiar, and so many parts of it didn’t make sense to him.

He didn’t dwell on it long. The doors stood before him, waiting. He pushed open the doors and stepped outside.