The unlucky girl screamed, clutching at her charred face and falling free of the wall. I clung to the stones with all my might, taking the brunt of her butt on my right shoulder as she plunged past. My right foot slipped off its slanted perch and my heart raced, but I held tight. The one below me wasn’t so lucky, and a second scream joined the first for a brief moment before two commingled thuds told us they’d stopped falling.

“Saints!” someone cursed. “Blessed shitting saints!”

Someone on the ground below sobbed out screams of pain, but the other one was silent.

“They told us,” I said, trying to sound calm and commanding. “This isn’t just a jaunt for fun. We have to be careful.”

“Did they die?” a timid boy in the other line asked.

“Use your ears, Orm,” Aldric said. “You don’t scream when you’re dead.”

There was a faint glimmer from below, and the screaming faded to a whimper. Another, brighter flash bounced off the walls, and I heard a sudden intake of air from someone who hadn’t been breathing a second ago. Then, faint, muffled sobs as the girl who’d had her face burnt off and then probably broken her neck came to terms with what had just happened. I hadn’t seen any other people down there in the brief light – apparently here in the Tower they could heal us without even stepping into the same room.

“Tamra? Holry?” Sett called down. “Can you move?”

“Yes,” came the broken reply. “Give me a moment.”

“Be quick,” I said. “That won’t be the last surprise.”

I edged upward on the handholds, approaching the spot some two meters above where the flame had been. I really hoped that it was a set trap and not some roving kind of magic, because I really didn’t feel like dying again today. Once I judged I’d reached the spot where the girl ahead of me – Tamra I thought – had gotten blasted, I carefully reached up with one arm and waved it at the wall, hoping to trigger the mechanism. Sure enough, there was a click, and I hastily pulled my hand back as the billowing fire lanced out from the wall. I heard someone giving a shrill, scared laugh and sincerely hoped it wasn’t me.

“It’s all right,” I said. “No one’s hurt.” As soon as the flame stopped, I waved in the same spot again, and nothing happened. “Looks like the trap takes a bit to reset,” I told them. “We’ll have to set it off and then climb past while it’s cooling off.”

“Go on, then,” Aldric said.

I bit back what I really wanted to say and instead simply responded, “Better to get a sense of how long it takes first. I’d just as soon not get it in the crotch on the way.”

“Who even are you, anyway?” the boy said. “Wander in from a heretic camp and decide to have a go, did you?”

I weighed for a moment whether it was worth dying in a fall just so I could pound him on the way down. Me, a heretic? One of those faithless cowards who ran and hid in the Wilds to avoid the call to the Tower? The sneering boy was asking for a beating, and I was more than happy to deliver… but not right now. My waving hand triggered another click, and fire lit the square pit once again. Looking past it, I saw that we still had another fifteen meters or so to go.

“All right,” I said, ignoring Aldric’s deadly insult for the moment and clambering upwards as quickly as I could. Once I was clear of the trap, I looked back down, directing my voice at everyone else. “I’d say that was ten seconds. Not too hard to manage. Tamra, Holry, once you get back up to where your left hand is on the rock that curves out around both sides, wave your hand until the fire triggers and then climb past as quick as you can. You lot on the other side probably have your own coming up, so be careful.”

Sure enough, Sett encountered another fire trap not three meters higher, but he was being careful enough that he managed to trigger it without getting baked. Theirs had a shorter reset time, and the quiet boy Orm got his foot roasted, but he had enough grit to hold on and wait until the glow of healing enveloped his foot. They kept climbing.

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When I judged we were less than two meters from the top, the handholds ran out. Try as I might, scrabbling there in the pitch blackness, there was nowhere to go. Frustration welled in my gut. Were they going to make us climb this far only to fall right near the top? I thought of the raven-haired teacher and imagined breaking her nose with a quick strike of the palm of my hand. These Tower folk were monsters.

“Um,” said Sett somewhere to my left.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me too.”

“You sound closer than before,” he said.

I realized he was right. My handholds had been trending gradually leftward for the last ten meters, and apparently his had done the same going to the right.

“Reach out sideways,” I said, doing the same. Our fingertips just barely brushed, and an idea sparked in my mind. There had been an extra handhold angled oddly right near my feet… yes, there it was. “I’m going to reach out my hand,” I told him, “and you’re going to use it as a foothold.”

“That sounds like a bad idea,” he said calmly.

“It is,” I said, “but we’re right near the top. I’m well-braced on both feet and my other hand. If you push off hard, you might be able to grab the lip up top and pull yourself up.”

“Might,” Sett said. “Or the top might be a hand’s height taller than you think, and I might miss and fall.”

I ground my teeth. He was right. “I’ll do it, then. You brace and boost me.” I really didn’t want to do that, but if I knew Sett half as well as I thought…

“No,” he replied. “You’re the heavier one, and you’re stronger besides. It should be me.”

I smiled in the dark. “If I’m wrong, next rematch I’ll fight with my right hand tied behind my back.”

“Shut your mouth,” he said mildly. “When I beat you, it’ll be fair and square.”

“Any time, fellas,” Tamra said dryly. She’d caught back up to us and seemed to be in good humor despite having just died. Holry, who’d only broken a leg or two in the fall, had been quiet the whole way up despite her off-color jokes earlier.

We jockeyed for position, with Sett reaching out and feeling for my hand and telling me to lower it so he could get a good step-off, and me digging the toes of my boots into the crevices below and tensing every muscle I had. We only had one shot at this, and if it went badly, it would quite likely go badly for both of us.

“Say when,” the unflappable boy said. I’d never understood how a poor, scrappy nothing kid like him could be so tough.

“Ready, steady… go!” I said. His booted foot landed on my cupped left hand, and I strained with all my might, heaving upward. He was smaller than me, but he sure didn’t feel light at the moment. My back muscles screamed, and I could feel the fingernails of my right hand loosening as they clung to the nub of rock that was keeping me alive.

Then the weight was gone, and Sett was laughing. The sudden removal of his bulk unbalanced me, and my left foot slipped off its perch, followed by my right. “Sacred Ones preserve me,” I gasped, suddenly hanging from a single handhold, my feet scrabbling at the slick wall.

“He’s gonna fall!” someone below me screeched. Even as she said it, I knew she was right. I was strong, and I’d trained hard for the last three years, but my fingers were slipping, and gravity didn’t care how hard I could punch. I’d have to kick away from the wall so I didn’t knock anyone else off. I thought about my head caving in as it hit the stones fifty meters below and cringed, knowing I’d remember it all. I can’t do this again! Not yet!

And then two hands fastened on my wrist from above, hauling me upward. “Get your feet under you,” Sett gasped. He’d reached back over the edge and latched onto me less than a second before my hand would have come free.

I flailed with feet and free hand until I found the highest handhold and pushed myself upward. There was a scary moment when I tried to crest the uppermost ledge – Sett had extended himself beyond it all the way down to his ribs – but once my hands were on the ledge, he let go and hoisted me up by the belt instead. I was glad for the very first time in my life for my rich clothes as I scrambled to safety – I was pretty sure nobody else in our little group even had a belt.

I wanted to lay on the blessedly flat floor and gasp, but Sett was already reaching down for his mates, and I couldn’t very well let him do it all. They were already inclined to mistrust me. Hauling Aldric up over the edge cost me a little pride, but I promised myself that he’d get his reckoning soon enough. Within moments, we were all up onto the ledge and laughing about our success. They’d put us in a pit and tried their damnedest to kill us on the way out, and we’d beaten them. It felt good. It felt for a moment like I belonged.

That moment faded as I realized they were laughing with each other, not with me. They didn’t know me; they didn’t like me. Even Sett, as calm and even-handed as he was, almost certainly preferred the company of the classmates he’d known for years over mine. He’d have reached back down for any of us.

I stood quickly and took stock of our situation before anyone could notice my awkward silence. Turning away from the pit behind us, I saw the faint outline of a hallway. There was light up ahead, and I’d never been happier to see it.

“Come on,” I told the others. “We’re not done yet.”