Crow’s voice moved almost without his thought; escaping as a wordless croak. Ethi gave it no answer, merely met his eye with a cautious and almost hesitant stare.

Sound behind him spun Crow, bringing him about to face the remaining enemy. A whistling by his ear was the only warning of the spear’s flight.

It struck home in her chest, metal prying apart meat and sinking in almost a hand. The sight left Crow paralysed, and as he stood slack Ethi rushed in to seize the weapon once more. She pulled it from her enemy’s chest with barely a tug, dragging the girl to topple forwards.

Crow eyed her as the sand drank its fill of blood.

“What are you doing here?” He demanded, steeling himself by sublimating confusion with anger. Remembering the look in her eyes as that spear had leapt for his own neck, it wasn’t hard.

“I’m helping you,” The girl snapped. She stepped away from her felled enemy, lip curling at the pooling ichor that sought to wet her feet.

Crow stared as a light shimmered across the fallen mystic, then a moment later she was gone. Only a quickly smothered dry patch in the crimson lake left trace that she’d been there at all.

“Why?” He asked.

Ethi gave no more answer than she had earlier.

“Where’s Eden?” She demanded.

Stomach dropping with the mention of his teammate, Crow turned to the spot he’d last seen the boy. The sight of him moving was no comfort. Every twitch seemed ragged and strained.

“Are you alright?” He asked, kneeling down beside him. Unity turned over slow and sluggish, eyes hazy.

A slurred mumble was the boy’s only answer. Crow turned him over as he moved to lift him, then gasped at the sight his displacement revealed.

Blood dried and clotted atop the pale ground; hard and blackening in some areas, vibrant and flowing hot in others. He couldn’t gauge how much there might have been, didn’t want to.

“You didn’t bind his arm?”

Ethi’s voice pitched high with surprise. It burned Crow’s face.

“I…” He trailed off, realising there was no excuse for slipping on something so important. Worse was the knowledge that Unity had. Unity, whose mind always seemed a dozen steps past all others. Unity, whose arm Crow had idiotically dismissed by his word.

Unity, whose directions he’d been following thoughtlessly.

Tearing fabric brought his mind back to the present, and Crow turned back to see Ethi dragging the strip from Unity’s shirt. Her hands were deft as a dealer’s and swift as a bullet, trailing the white energy of her speed enhancement.

She bound Unity’s wound tight, strangling it dry and pinching veins shut within the arm. The entire process took under a second.

“We need to hurry,” She said, turning to him. “I know where we need to go to reach the second stage, but dozens of contestants have already made it there.”

Without another word she stood, keeping hold of Unity’s arm and straining to pull the boy up. Crow stared dumbly as the white of her magic slowly bled, speaking only as it turned fully crimson and she hoisted the boy effortlessly over her shoulders.

Crow seized her arm, finding himself indescribably numb. He cared not for the urgency, nor even the terrifying dwindling of his magic reserves. Only the truth.

“Why are you here?” He asked, trying to bite his voice steady. “I need to know.”

Ethi met his gaze, and Crow saw something soften in her eyes. Instantly the pale magic dissipated around her, leaving the girl to grunt and buckle under Unity’s weight. He quickly stepped in to support it.

“Fucking magic of mine.” She muttered, nodding a silent thanks.

Crow didn’t reply, simply stared and waited. Ethi took only a moment to continue.

“Because trying to stab you in the back left me feeling like shit, and I know you have your own reason for competing just like I do… So I’m here to help you.”

“And you think I’ll just trust you?”

She looked away, hands tightening around Unity’s wrists and hair falling to obscure her face. Crow didn’t need to see her expression.

What on Mirandis could drive someone to such determination?

Crow already had his answer. He’d had it for months.

“Lead the way,” He said, “I’ll take Unity.”

Ethi’s pace was impressive, even without magic to aid it. He kept up effortlessly all the same. Even burdened by Unity’s weight, each of Crow’s strides covered twice or thrice the ground of Ethi’s.

It was only by actively checking himself to keep from making them even more numerous that he allowed the girl to match him at all.

It could be worse. At least Unity’s in no fit state to keep us from carrying him now.

They covered in seconds more ground than Crow and Unity had in minutes earlier, pace as steady as the rhythmic beat of Crow’s heart.

Around them the battles had begun to die. Smoke and steam thinned in the skies, screams quieted and softened. It was a simple matter to avoid the dwindled conflict by ear and sight.

The grace of their passage didn’t last long.

“We’ll come to a giant pair of doors.” Ethi told him, the weight of her words overcoming the tedium of their slowness. “Hidden between dunes. You won’t see them until we’re within a few hundred yards. Neither will anyone else, which is why we’ll need to be more careful approaching them than we’ve been so far.”

Crow was too tired to question the exit being hidden, too weary of overstaying his few minutes of magic for anything but action. With a nod, he redoubled his pace.

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The girl hadn’t been lying. Whatever dregs of enemy mystics had remained in the stage were surely gravitating towards the exit, for every fifty paces seemed to thicken the signs of conflict.

It was only when they topped a dune that Crow saw its extent.

A hundred mystics fought around the great steel construct; doors built on levitating hinges, swung open to reveal a cascading torrent of light filling the space within their frame. Even from a furlong, Crow could smell the reek of magic built around it.

The scent was tinged by acrid smoke and the silicate burn of sand. It brought his focus back to the battle unfolding at the base of the exit.

“How do we get through that?” He asked, staring at the flashes and detonations leaving one scar after another in the desert.

“Quickly.” Ethi breathed, taking off into a run without another word. Crow followed after, keeping an eye on the girl as a thought suddenly occurred to him.

A key was needed to gain entry to the second stage. He had one, and he’d made sure Unity’s was safe and secure, but Crow had no idea whether Ethi had acquired her own. And if she hadn’t, luring him to the exit with her and regaining his trust would present her with a great opportunity.

One that her speed would be perfect to exploit.

He pushed the thought to one side, but didn’t banish it. There were far more pressing dangers, ones he and Ethi were growing nearer to by the pace. But he wouldn’t be fool enough to let his guard down twice.

There were no gaps in the crust of warring mystics, at least none big enough that he and Ethi would have any chance of slipping by unhindered. Crow braced himself as they neared it.

Magic flew in all directions around them, churning up the ground and boiling it sterile. It came in every form; fire, lightning, rock-hardened sand or simply broiling energy, all were made projectiles. Crow kept his head down, fighting to avoid pinching his eyes shut in fear.

He pushed on, Ethi beside him and Unity across his back. Each second brought a torturous leap to his heart from one near-miss or another, every heartbeat he grew more certain they would be stuck down.

Their progress, he knew, was born from luck. Or that a young boy and girl with a wounded teammate were of little concern measured against the many active combatants to target.

Whether either or both, Crow murmured a silent prayer to the Teary Eyed Goddess for twisting the fates so.

It turned to a curse in his mouth as he caught a flash of light from one side.

He leapt forwards, flattening himself against the ground and feeling Unity tumble from his back to stop ahead.

Crow had only a single thought to spare worrying for the boy as he scrambled up.

Eyes moving wild and fast, he desperately tried to pick out their attacker. A few heartbeats of searching revealed none of the hectic mass of conflicting mystics were even looking at him, and he felt his breath settle- realising it was no more than a stray shot.

A familiar cry set his blood boiling once more, and Crow whirled to the sight of Ethi sliding and rolling just as Unity had- a mystic pursuing her with speed no human muscles could produce.

He reached the girl before she reached Ethi, striking her ribs from the side and laying her against the ground.

The girl’s strength wasn’t even close to his last enemy’s, nor was her toughness. Crow felt a stab of guilt at her rasping breaths and bloodied cough.

A roaring assailed his ears, low and hollow, soft yet loud. Crow recognised the sound of burning gas just in time to throw himself from the path of a head-sized sphere of flames. It burned ten yards ahead before fizzling out like a candle in the wind.

His dodge had left him prone, his stumble back up terrified. Crow turned to see a girl fleeing from him, hair whipping behind her and hands still smoking where they’d sprouted fire.

Not going to engage without a landed sneak-attack?

For a second he considered chasing her, dismissing the notion. Time took priority. With barely more than a minute of magic left, it superceded even a secure back.

He quickly found his teammates, cursed at the sight of mystics battling around them. They wove around his fallen comrades almost without seeing them, eyes kept high. Focus reserved for those enemies that still stood.

The problem of getting by them without drawing their attention solved itself. Before Crow could even find a solution, their stumbling, clumsy battle drove them back along a dune and cleared the path for him.

Ethi had been thrown back near to where Unity lay, perhaps four yards from him. They seemed a mirror of one another; backs flat, hair strewn about and blood scabbing across them as they shifted and twitched in an enfeebled misery.

“Are you conscious?” He asked, kneeling down by Ethi and bathing her in a scrutinous eye.

The girl’s injuries were deceptive, looking worse than Unity’s yet lacking the terror of bloodied drool and glazed eyes. Her answer came quickly, though in a tone made rough by pain.

“I am.”

She coughed, spewing spit as her chest heaved convulsively. Crow found himself checking, once more, to ensure the spittle was pale rather than red.

“Can you move?”

Crow turned to Unity as he asked, seeing the boy climb, grunting, onto his knees. Face knotted with effort, eyes hard with annoyance. It was some kind of relief at least.

“I can’t.” Came Ethi’s voice, ringing loud in Crow’s ears and putting an end to the good news. His eyes ran over the skirmishing around them, heart sinking as he realised how thinned the masses of mystics had become.

“Alright.” Crow answered, hearing his own voice as a muffled echo behind the thunderous sound of his thoughts.

There was a way to win, and he would find it. There had to be.

Crow thought more, then more still. Every second he burned away in consideration brought an agonised twist of panic to the fearful knife in his gut, every unexpected sound scattering his wits and shifting his gaze in a paranoid terror.

Without slowing himself to the point of losing all hope for victory, there was no way to carry both his teammates. He had little enough time with his magic that he’d surely run out trying, and with only his exhausted muscles alone her weight might well flatten him beneath.

“We need to leave her.” Hissed Unity, speaking quickly, urgently. Dazed fatigue still clear in him even as he managed a moment of lucidity.

The realization that his teammate was right chilled him. It surely showed in his eyes, for Ethi’s grew wide and panicked as she met them.

“No.” She breathed. “No please. Crow, I came back for you. I came to help you!”

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, dropping his gaze and grunting as he rose to stand beside Unity.

A hundred paces from the doors, perhaps thirty seconds of magic. Enough time if he wasn’t attacked, not even close if he was.

“Crow.” Ethi cried, her voice giving way entirely to weeping. To his surprise, it only hardened him.

Does Galad cry, wherever he is? Does he weep and plead for my help, just as she does?

He didn’t know, yet the very thought was reminder enough.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He shifted Unity’s limp form, pulling him over his shoulders one final time- making his choice and burning the bridge behind him.

“Fuck you.” Ethi hissed, sorrow and fear turning to toxic bile on her tongue. To Crow’s amazement, she began to writhe where she lay. Hate giving strength where fear had failed her.

“I came back for you, you fucking bastard. I trusted you!”

He met her accusing glare once more, finding a sudden fire behind his voice.

“You did.” He said, then took off in a jog, screamed curses chasing in his wake.

Ethi had trusted him, just as he had trusted her. And Crow saw now that it had been both of their mistakes. Unity seemed an obvious danger, with his twisted jokes and cruelty, but in the end it should have been obvious that he was never the real threat.

For it was Crow who’d had too much to lose.

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Udrebam Sieve Advertisement Poster, Location: Udrebam.

Circa 1,195 I.E.