In hindsight, I should have known that I had never left the maze. One, the trial against the fake Dorian had gone by in a breeze, and I shouldn’t have expected it to be that easy. And two, the floating man had said there would be three tests, the labyrinth being only the first. If I had passed the labyrinth test, why would whatever power in charge have sent me home before I passed the other two?

But at this moment, I still had to pass test number one, let alone tests two and three, whatever those might be.

I begrudgingly traversed the halls of the maze and met with three more dead ends. The longer I walked and the more paths I took, the more the light from the torches dimmed. I felt panic set in as my heart pounded, fearing another period of darkness in the labyrinth and the test throwing me into another cruel “Oh, you made it out!” scene.

Hiss.

I froze, hoping I had just imagined the sound.

Hiss.

There it was again. And that single hiss was soon accompanied by at least a dozen more.

“Nagari,” I muttered under my breath, positioning myself with the spear held firmly at my hip.

Sure enough, a line of Nagari, 14 of them by my count, emerged out of the darkness and slithered toward me from all sides. I attempted to spin around myself and keep an eye on all 14, but I couldn’t keep track of each one as they approached.

Had some of the Nagari somehow made it past the collapsed wall?

My heart plummeted to the depths of my stomach. The Hunters! My worry for them, especially for Drayek, suddenly consumed my thoughts. Were they alright, or were Nagari surrounding each of them, too?

The Nagari drew closer to me, barely avoiding the tip of my spear. My nose burned from the smell of their combined rotten breaths.

Maybe I should worry about myself first, I thought.

My palms were sweating, and I had to further tighten my grip on the spear to keep it from falling to the ground. How could I, an UnMarked, take on 14 Nagari, all of which were well-armed and looking at me with grotesque, anticipatory smiles on their disfigured faces?

Even with fear taking hold of me, which brought on a dizziness in my head and trembling in my limbs, I still stood my ground. Though death was my most likely outcome, I refused to cower before the monsters and give them an easy kill.

The Nagari’s bodies twisted and writhed unnaturally as each of them brandished their weapons in my direction. Their hisses sounded close to laughter–a monstrous, bone-chilling laughter. They were mocking me.

Just as every Nagari lifted their swords, spears, or daggers above their heads in preparation to strike, a blood-curdling cry reached my ears, coming from somewhere down the twisted path on my right. The roaring scream sounded pained, deep, resounding, and sounded a lot like…

“Drayek!” I cried, spinning my body in the direction the scream had come from.

The Nagari froze as scream after scream echoed their way down the path and to our ears. The creatures looked me up and down with their yellowed eyes, and as yet another shout came from Drayek in the distance, they hissed in annoyance with outstretched tongues and curled scaly lips. Then they retreated back into the darkness.

I had no time to consider the strange actions of the Nagari and sprinted in the direction of Drayek’s continued hollering. The torches lighting the walls burned bright again and led me in the right direction.

Once I found him, my breath caught in my throat.

“Drayek, no!” I rushed forward into the corner where he lay.

I threw myself to my knees at Drayek’s side and dropped my new spear to the ground. I went pale at the sight of blood gushing out of a deep wound peeking from underneath a crack in his armor plating. The blood poured down his abdomen and legs, further reddening the fiery-colored rubies on his armor. My hands trembled over his wound as I built up the courage to press my palms against it in an attempt to staunch the blood.

“What happened to you?” I whimpered as I pressed.

Drayek coughed, a fountain of more red spraying from his throat and dirtying his lips. “I was caught from… from behind.” He then uttered a series of profanities to describe the Nagari that had attacked him.

“A healer. We need a healer! Korin!” I threw my head around in a desperate attempt to find the party’s healer but, of course, to no avail.

My bottom lip trembled as I met Drayek’s eyes. The lights were beginning to fade from the brown in his irises.

“Don’t cry, Rayden. Stop it.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

I sniffed and pressed a little harder on his neck. His body spasmed underneath me as he coughed up more blood.

“Listen to me,” he choked. “I have to tell you something before I–”

“No!” I screamed. “No, you are not going to die.”

“Shut up, boy!” Drayek’s face turned a slight gray from the effort of speaking. “You have to know; I am ashamed. I am ashamed of you.”

I froze, but my hands on his wound remained firm. “What?”

Drayek’s breathing grew shallow, but he still managed to meet my eyes. “You will never live up to what I hoped for you.”

Hot tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

“Once, I might have thought of you as my son. But now–”

He choked up more blood, and it violently poured from his mouth. It was almost as much as what spilled from the wound in his stomach.

“Stop talking!” I demanded. “You can tell me what a failure I am once we get you out of here!”

“But now…” he continued hoarsely. “Now, you will never be my son, UnMarked.”

I wanted to scream at him, to pound on his chest and demand he take it all back. His words stung like nothing I’d ever experienced. My chest heaved from my distraught breaths, and I fought to hold back the stupid tears that tried to tease their way out of me. I would not let him see me like this–broken.

“You’re wrong,” I whispered. “You’re wrong about me. I’ll prove you wrong. I’ll prove you all wrong!” I was yelling at the room now.

I remembered all the taunts and insults I’d received from Dorian, his friends, and countless other Edronans. I remembered the Hunters not wanting me on this hunt in the first place. I remembered the scene this cursed maze had shown me of the Hunters and Drayek not wanting me even near them–so much so that they had all been willing to toss me from my own home.

But wait, that scene hadn’t been real….

I threw angry eyes on Drayek’s ashen face, realization hitting me. “You’re not real. You can’t be! Drayek would never say those things to me.”

I ripped my hands away from Drayek’s stomach, but instead of dying, he disappeared completely in a trickle of dim white light.

“I knew it!” I threw myself to my feet and spun around the space, head craned up to the ceiling in search of the depraved person who would put me through something so terrible.

“Is that what you want? For me to not give up? For me to prove my worth? Because, curse you, I won’t give up–I will prove myself!”

The tears were falling freely now. I stopped spinning and let my head fall. “I will.”

I don’t know how long I stood there in silence before a thin trail of yellow light lit up near my feet, then grew toward a path to the left. I wiped a sleeve under my nose and bent to retrieve the spear from the ground. Then I followed the line of light that decorated the floor, hoping its trail led to the end of this dreadful maze.

I followed the light through various twists and turns and avoided thinking about the eerie silence met with only the soft drip of water trickling down the walls as I walked.

There wasn’t water trickling in the cave earlier or in the maze.

I shook away that thought, assuming it didn’t matter, then hunched my shoulders forward and kept walking, making sure to keep the spear held firmly in front of me. The logical side of me knew that those 14 Nagari must have also been a conjuration of the maze, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

I breathed a sigh of relief once I found a wide opening. It stood before me just as the entrance to the maze had before I’d even started this first test. I bolted through the opening and found a large stone chamber. I nearly dropped my spear when I caught sight of Drayek resting against a wall. He sat there calmly, very well and very alive.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out pathetically but still hurried over to him.

“Thank the goddess you’re alright,” I said, settling in beside him and catching my breath.

I froze. “Wait….”

I precariously reached two fingers over to one of Drayek’s hands, then pinched his skin–hard.

“Ow! What the hell, Rayden?”

“Good, you’re real.”

“Of course I’m real.”

Drayek rubbed at his reddened skin and shook his head at me, but I didn’t care. I felt too relieved to see the real and living Drayek.

I made a mental count of the rest of the Hunters in the room. Krato, Maran, and Korin. Maran sat huddled in a corner by herself, her sobs audible as she rocked back and forth on her knees.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she muttered repeatedly. Her neat dark hair had fallen out of its ponytail and clung to her face, wet from her sweat and tears.

I averted my eyes, attempting to allow her some privacy. But I couldn’t stop wondering what could have happened to her in the maze.

Krato and Korin looked worse for wear, as well. Scrapes and bruises decorated their skin, and deep frowns were etched into their faces as they stared at their feet. They sat next to each other, but neither shared a word.

“Where are Marcus and Carissa?” I whispered to Drayek.

He looked exhausted, too. A long cut that hadn’t been there before dug an opening underneath his sharp jaw. His Tier 3 armor was dented and scuffed and had yet to repair itself. The sack of my Tier 1 armor and the spear were missing, but I didn’t care about that one bit. Just the fact that Drayek was breathing next to me satiated my every need at that moment.

“They haven’t returned yet,” Drayek said. “And it’s been a while. I was also worried about your return.” He tilted his head to give me a sideways glance. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

I choked back a sob, remembering the vision of a nearly dead Drayek who had said a multitude of awful things to me. But all I said in response was, “I’m safe. For now.”

“Oh, not again,” Krato grumbled loudly as a wave of blue and gold shimmered into view, then transformed into the visage of the man who had thrown us into the first test.

I straightened up against the wall, pulse thready as I anticipated the man’s next words. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget that he had told us there would be three tests. Not just one.

“Well done on your first test. Lord Solomon is pleased.”

I shifted uncomfortably. The man’s eyes, though blocked partially by his helm, rested on my face. I could’ve sworn he was only talking to me. I caught a flash of blue from his eyes, and I blinked rapidly, thinking it must have been a trick of the illusion. But no…. I leaned in closer. I could see it now, clear as day; the man’s eyes were the same color as mine. The exact same. No one in Edrona had blue eyes like mine. They all had varying shades of brown.

“Test Number Two shall commence shortly. We must now test your resilience.”