Maphen led the way, and the rest of us followed, our relief at defeating the most recent challenge overcome by curiosity at the new path that awaited us. Of course, Tamra and Aldric weren’t far behind my headstrong friend, leaving Holry, Orm, and myself a few paces back. Our seventh member wasn’t Orm’s female twin, much to his obvious displeasure, but Iles, a girl I didn’t know well because she had kept largely to herself during our time together in the Crim. She was with us now though and had gripped my wrist strongly when I had pulled her over the lip of the pit, showing with action if not words her desire to be here.

The lot of us soon reached an archway, which put me in mind of the entrance to the Tower despite this portal being much smaller and having no mysterious fog obscuring it. The foregroup of Maphen, Tamra, and Aldric pressed inward, and the rest of us followed close behind. I was keeping my eyes on the floor to see if there were any traps like we had faced during our climb, and I noticed Iles doing the same. It wasn’t the pain I was necessarily worried about but how the Tower instructors would judge us for the misstep. The woman with raven hair had said she had watched each of us enter the Tower, so surely the same thing was happening now. She had also said that she hadn’t been impressed with any of us, which meant I needed to try much harder than I had against the demon.

My inspection was interrupted by a murmur starting among my companions, and a quick look up revealed why: in the round room we had entered, there were six pedestals, similar in design to those that held up the ceiling in the chamber we had first awoken in but not nearly so big and only as tall as my chest. Atop each were various items, and it was these my Tower mates were spreading out to examine more closely, some making excited noises as they did.

“Careful,” I warned, trying to speak loudly enough to be heard by all. “These things may trigger more traps.” Most everyone was too engrossed to notice me, and I cringed when Aldric scooped a fine sword of silver with copper edges from its resting place. Thankfully, no fire engulfed him for the act, but Tamra was nearly as bad, sucker punching him in the gut. He bent over her fist, which let her easily remove the sword from his hands. She cut a few arcs through the air with it, looking immensely pleased with herself as she did.

I scanned around, doing my best to catalog the other items and who was gravitating toward what. This had to be another test of sorts, probably tied to what we chose or how we ended up using what we picked. Skinny Orm had walked past an equally skinny glass dagger and was peering at an unmarked bottle of blue liquid. Holry had picked up a round shield, and Maphen was beside a pillar that strangely seemed to have a scrap of paper on it.

“Sett,” Tamra said, pointing with the stolen sword in my direction, “you should grab that spear.”

Polearms were not my weapon of choice, but I was comfortable enough with them. Also, the fact that half of the items were weapons struck me as rather ominous, so I covered the steps that separated me from the yet unclaimed spear and plucked the wooded haft from the soft cream cushion it rested on. The metal point was attached to the smooth, chestnut pole with a band of darker metal that seemed well forged. I didn’t spot anything magical about the spear, unlike a few magical weapons we had been allowed to handle in the Crim, but I supposed it would be too much too soon for us to receive such blessed tools on our very first day.

“This shield is odd,” Holry commented, drawing eyes from a few of us. She indicated a section that was cut out, like a slice from a pie with a rounded inner point. I agreed with her, as I didn’t see much purpose in a shield giving you less protection.

“It’s for the spear, I think,” a wispy voice said.

I turned like Holry did to see that it was Iles who had spoken. While her words may have been soft, there was an inquisitive gleam in her eye, like she wanted to see if she was right. “You should give it to him,” Iles said, pointing to me.

“Why would I do that?” Holry balked. “We’re each supposed to get something. That’s the point of this room, isn’t it?”

“No,” Maphen said from where he stood. His attention was on the small piece of paper, but it was clear he was talking to us. “Only six items for seven people. Someone is supposed to get left out.”

“The Sacred Aspects can’t bless us all,” Tamra mused. She was watching a second archway that led off of our room, spinning the sword in her hand, clearly eager for something to use it on. Aldric, I noticed, had made it over to the dagger pedestal, looking decidedly put out to be relegated to something a fraction the size of his original prize.

“Only one person,” Holry said, tying the leather straps of the shield to her arm as if to emphasize that she would not be giving it up. “Not two because we decided to give somebody more than their share.” So often Holry had been the one to lighten the mood of a class or training session that had grown too grim, but I could tell that our short time in the Tower had already hardened her spirit. Her joke earlier at my expense had been crass, not clever, and the determination I had seen from her when she had jumped into the Tower entrance now seemed like a brittle thing, barely holding her together.

“It’s fine,” I said, tossing the spear through the air toward her, which she caught without trouble.

Holry gave me a surprised look but didn’t waste any time trying to fit the shaft into the missing portion of the shield. The weapon slotted right in, putting a smile on both her face and Iles’s, I saw.

“Gifts when its not even All Saints Day?” Holry said to me with some of her old cheer. “If you wanted me to sing your praises, all you had to do was ask.”

“If everyone is ready,” Tamra said before I could respond, “might as well get a move on.”

“Yes, let's,” Maphen said, his eyes no longer on the paper. Though he was agreeing, I could tell his words had put Tamra’s back up, which I counted as a shame. They were both quite skilled in their own ways, and I was sure they could benefit from knowing each other.

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“Want to try some of this,” Orm surprised me by asking at my shoulder.

He was holding the bottle with the blue liquid toward me, and while I wouldn’t have minded gaining an item after giving one up, I had never drunk anything of that shade before and doubted he had either.

“What do you think it is?” I asked before committing.

“Has to be Alchemist made,” he said in a low voice, like he didn’t want the others to hear. “It’s cold to the touch, so probably –”

“Quiet,” hissed Maphen, and we all did just that, for a moment anyway.

“Look you,” Aldric said, “heretic or whoever you are. You’re not the leader here, and we’re not going to listen to you. So you can just drop the whole act you’ve got shoved up your ass –”

“Don’t you hear it?” Maphen asked, looking from Aldric to the rest of us. “Something’s coming.”

I tilted my head. I did hear something – a skittering sound, like claw on stone. My gut clenched. I hadn’t forgotten the death that the huge, pale demon had visited upon me on the road to getting here, and if the raven-haired woman was to be believed, the end of our lives was something we would be experiencing with regularity. However, that didn’t mean I would welcome it, and from the wary looks of my Tower mates, I didn’t think they would either.

The archway Tamra continued to watch was the obvious point of entry for whatever was approaching us, but I didn’t see anything in that direction, just an empty hall into another room it seemed. What’s more, the closer I listened, the less sure I was that the noise was coming from up ahead.

A scream sounded behind me, and I spun around to see a child-sized red demon latched onto Iles’s back. Its jaws were buried in her neck, and as I watched, the creature yanked its head back, a gout of blood fountaining from between her shoulder and jaw. Iles fell sideways, and the demon sprung away, shoving her body toward the ground.

Its bounding leap was straight toward me, but Holry made it there first, swatting it sideways with the shield. There was a clang as its small body hit the metal, but I didn’t see it knocked away. Instead, with a flash of dread, I realized its claws still held onto the lip of the shield, and over Holry’s shoulder, I saw the creature’s long-nosed face, teeth dripping with blood, appear above the rim.

“Get off!” Holry shouted at it. She tried to bring her spear to bear, but with it slotted into the shield and the small demon so close, the weapon was rendered useless. Her attempt to shake it free was also ineffective because, even though the creature was less than half the size of any of us, it likely had the strength of a full grown man packed into its small frame, if not more.

Aldric rushed in from behind, stabbing down, holding the glass dagger in a two-handed grip. Unfortunately, either the beast’s hide was too thick or Aldric had attacked at the wrong angle because the knife shattered on impact, causing Aldric and not the demon to cry out, some of the flying shards cutting into his skin.

The creature cackled at the failed attempt, leaping over the shield and onto Holry, grabbing hold of a chunk of her long hair. Strangely, the beast looked at me with its putrid yellow eyes as it easily slit her throat with a long nail, like it was mocking how I stood there, motionless, itemless. Holry coughed wetly, grabbing hold of her neck, and I saw blood leaking between her fingers as she stumbled. She only managed to stay upright another moment before falling atop both the shield and spear she carried.

The demon had abandoned her before that though, just like Iles, bounding toward me again. It was only a small distance away, needing only one more leap to reach me, when, surprisingly, it shot backward. Aldric had been chasing it with nothing more than his hands balled into fists and was just as shocked as I to suddenly have a face full of demon instead of me. The small creature spun in the air, whipping a claw hand in a wide arc, right across Aldric’s eyes. Aldric screamed, much like Holry and Iles before him, dropping to the floor on his knees. The demon let out a chittering laugh, dashing to the side, and out of my view because I could not seem to look away from the ragged mess that had become of Aldric’s face: whitish bone showing through a deep cut on his cheek that was soon covered in bubbling blood, and a gash so deep through one eye it barely looked round anymore.

Acid leapt up my throat, and I fought the overwhelming urge to vomit. I had seen my share of bloody noses and broken limbs on the practice field, and even experienced the terrible agony that had preceded my death, but seeing a friend in such pain was another thing entirely. With effort, I jerked my head away from the horrific sight; he would be healed, they all would, and the demon was still loose. We were also still being evaluated I was sure, and I would impress none of the Tower teachers or masters with my actions thus far.

I spotted the demon again, which was dancing back from Tamra’s well placed slashes, and discovered that the twin was still standing close to me.

“Orm,” I said, doing my best to think quickly. “Why don’t you –”

What stopped me short was that the bottle I was going to tell Orm to throw was now empty. Worse, skinny Orm was clutching his throat with his other hand, his face turning a decidedly unnatural color of purple.

“What in the name of the Saints…” I swore.

As I watched, frost started to appear on the skin of his neck and then even his fingers, as if it was traveling from inside his flesh outward.

“Not a blessing,” he managed to whisper in a puff of white breath. Then, he fell back, hitting the stone floor with a thud. From the color and his description, I had thought the liquid might be some sort of captured ice spell, and it seemed I was right. But by him consuming it, he had frozen his throat shut, suffocating to death. I wasn’t sure if I pitied him more, Iles, Holry, or still moaning Aldric.

Looking at those we had lost, I noticed something much worse than their injuries, which immediately shouted out: “They’re not healing! Not like in the pit!”

“Shit,” I heard Tamra shout. “Shit, shit, shit!”

I knew I shouldn’t, but my eyes continued to ricochet between the grievous wounds of four who were down. Would they be healed once the red imp was defeated? Or in this trial were those who failed left to truly die in order to thin our numbers further?

A scream from Tamra snapped my head up. She wasn’t wounded, Aspects be praised, just frustrated as her sword blade failed to connect with the cackling creature. She blocked its return attempt well enough, but a demon would never tire, and Tamra certainly was, her red hair sticking to her cheeks. Maphen was circling around the small creature, saying something that I couldn’t hear. Whatever his plan, my bare hands would be little use, as Aldric had proved, so I dashed over to where Holry lay. Getting the shield off her arm would take too long, but gripping the haft of the spear and keeping it parallel to the floor, I was able to gradually snake it out from underneath her.

There were only the three of us now, and it was time that I finally did my part or die trying.