I think I can speak for both Yaira and me when I say we were beyond lost. The situation exceeded any and all expectations we had for the night. It already started with what can only be described as deceptive, and then it turned out to be outright confusing.

According to some laughing voices, we had passed the first test. Which begged the question, since when were we taking part in any kind of test? And, of course, the fact that it was the first test meant that there was at least one more of them.

I was slowly regaining my sight and realizing that it didn’t matter at all. I was in a sea of people filled with faces I had not seen before. My other senses were overwhelming me. There was food with so many spices that my eyes were beginning to tear. The shouts had never stopped, and I would be covering my ears if not because I was using my hands to support me on the floor. I was kneeling, and even then, I strongly believed that the moment I raised a single hand, I would bend over.

“Our challengers have beaten the infinite net of illusions, proving that they are fair contestants in our house. Flash question and answer round!” The host seemed too excited that we were there. “Yes! You with the pipe.”

She took two deep puffs while observing us. It almost seemed like she wanted to use the smoke to, somehow, pry our secrets out of us.

“Only a few of us have ever managed to beat this test. Out of all the winners, I can’t think of anyone who did it in such a short amount of time. How did you do that?”

Knowing that I was part of the few who had managed to escape that trap felt good, but didn’t help our cause. I might have stared at that woman for too long—long enough that even the noises around us died.

I cleared my throat in an attempt to formulate some answers. Anything but the truth would do for me, though I highly doubted they would just believe any random idea.

In other circumstances, someone might have said I played dumb and tried to stir the topic somewhere else. Honestly, I just asked the question that was being played on repeat in my mind. I had to know.

“What are these trials for? Where am I?”

The subsequent puff of smoke made it clear that I had not given an acceptable answer. And I completely understood why.

“And where is Makka!” Yaira interrupted with an accusation.

In that moment, you could have heard a pin drop. Everything was so silent that, for the first time in a few hours, I became aware of how agitated my breathing was.

I looked at Yaira, and she looked at me. During a few tense seconds, some of the dinner attendees—the top brass, if I had to guess—exchanged some whispers. They looked and pointed at us, their faces angrier with each passing second.

“Makka was a necessary evil.” Someone eventually broke the silence. “We initially planned a different ending for him. Let's just say that we were convinced to try a different approach.”

“What have you done to him!?” It was my turn to interrupt the conversation.

“Nothing much, really. You have convincing friends, so he's still alive and in our custody. We only wanted you to begin with,” his finger pointed straight at me, “so we wanted Makka to lure you out and, frankly, get rid of you.”

What? He's just telling me they kidnapped Makka to get an opportunity to kill me?

“Oh! Don’t look at me like that!” He said condescendingly. “I was under the impression that Yaraq made it clear. You. Do. Not. Belong. Here.” I was stopped from protesting by a stern finger. “It would seem, however, that you have dangerous friends, and they have bargained your way in.”

“Friends?” I said with one eye closed and a raised eyebrow.

“That’s what you take out of everything I’ve said?” He shook his head. “I’ll answer the question you should have asked instead! Bargained, you say? Yes, bargained!” He started a monologue, switching from a high-pitched voice that was supposed to imitate mine, and his own.

“They came in strong, demanding that you were accepted! But how could that ever happen? You are an outsider; you haven’t passed any of our rituals! They smiled, and I think that’s what they wanted. Your friend, they perfectly set us up: well then, why don’t you make him go through the trials?”

I was staring at the man, whose name I still didn’t know, trying to decide if he was being serious or trying to pull our leg. The only reason I was inclined to trust him was that the rest of the room was nodding in silence, as if it were obviously true.

“He will go through the trials! Our leaders announced in unison. But not the ones for new-joiners, no. He will face, at the risk of death, the trials for ‘the next generation’.

“And here you are! Both of you,“ he said while sticking his tongue out and looking at Yaira. ”The odds said you should be a cold body by now, yet, somehow, you have managed to survive. So!” He scared me when, announcedly, he clapped his hands. “Is it clear now?”

How could any of that ever be clear? I had just heard a bunch of nonsense, which did nothing to explain my situation. Just that my life was on the line for a series of tests because my friend had arranged it like that?

“Makka did all of this for me?” I tried to bring the topic back to Makka.

“Mak-Have you even listened? I said powerful! Dangerous! Rich! The top echelon!” He made me doubt if he had actually said all of that. “You are here because Drak’oora Layan pulled a few strings and called in some favors! But don't blame her for not telling you; the first test can only be taken by those who don't know they are being tested.”

Now the story suddenly clicked into place. All of it. It was probably a combination of several factors that led us to this awkward situation.

First, when she initially refused to help us, she was most likely hoping that we would give up and let Makka die. Of course, that had never been an option for us, not even when she said no.

Seeing that we did not desist and that we even tried to enroll other Drak’oora, she must have seen what our next movement would be. Honestly, we would have charged blindly against the whole town if we had to. That meant an early and quick death.

Between losing us directly without ever standing a chance or giving us the opportunity to maybe prove ourselves and rescue Makka, Layan chose the second.

“I have nothing to do with you getting there. And you will come back alive.” Spare paraphrased Layan’s words before we parted. “That old woman… We should have been more suspicious when she explicitly said she had nothing to do.”

That we should have…

It was not time for remorse. Retrospectively thinking about what should have been or not is a dangerous game to play, one filled with regrets.

“Then what about Makka?” Yaira took the words out of my mouth.

“I swear… Makka this, Makka that! Fine! If you pass the tests, he is free to go; otherwise, you'll join them. Now le-”

“Enough!” The woman with the pipe, red-faced, exclaimed. “What underhanded trick did you use to escape?”

I took a deep breath, trying to regain a bit of my own inner peace. The situation was out of control, but I had to remain cool and centered.

“Weirar says he did not escape,” the unmistakable voice of Drak'oora Weirar explained for me, one again referring to himself in the third person. “There was no trick; they didn't escape. Tarar found what was wrong in that world and rooted it out.”

I had not seen him before, and even now when I followed everyone's gazes, I still couldn't find the figure among the crowd of people. But he was right. In a poetic way, he had expressed exactly what I had done.

“Now, the question is, how has Tarar done such a thing?”

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Everyone turned back at once to stare at me. It was clear that I couldn't go any further without providing an answer.

“Honestly, at first we were completely lost in that realm of lies. We were chasing a fire, a flame dancing far away from our reach to the rhythm of a ghostly wind.” They were entranced, looking at me as if I were a teacher giving a master class. “I think I almost died when I slipped of the face off the cliff, but Yaira saved me. I’m not sure if that would have also spelled disaster in real life, and I don’t want to find out.

“We walked longer than we should have, and we failed to notice. Every time, it was colder. The wind whipped harder. We just wanted to give in to the warmth of that flame. And that’s when it kicked in, nothing was real.

“When I enter communion-” I finally got the part they wanted to hear. But I couldn’t give it away too fast; I had to mask the lie between layers of truth. “-She speaks to me.”

There was a roar as I revealed the only part of the story I felt could be announced. Some gasped, but most just called me a liar in a deluge of really imaginative curses.

“She spoke to me, and She guided me to the core of the formation. When I reached that point, I just knew I had to strike with all my might to get us out of there. I did, and we were freed.”

I witnessed the commotion rise to a disorganized group of animals trying to shout one over the other. I wondered if some wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to step it up one more notch and start a battle right there.

“That is unfortunate,” Weirar’s voice somehow managed to suffocate all the other voices. “If that’s your current ability ceiling, then Weirar is afraid you will not be able to advance to the last stages.”

It was weird how the voice of someone who held an important position just managed to make the rest go silent. Not even ten seconds after he had spoken—an eternity by my standards—had anyone dared to speak.

Neither did I. I didn’t feel the need or urge to say anything. If that’s what he wanted to believe, then I was more than happy to roll with his version of the events. Of course, at some point I would prove him wrong, as I was not intending to die on this hill. Revealing my ability was the price I already knew I’d have to pay.

Finally, after some more seconds that could only be described as confusing, the host and announcer who had explained to us what was happening took the lead.

“For your next test, you should first replenish some energy and nutrients. Please join us for this dinner.”

The crowd mechanically parted, as if they had known from the start that this would happen. There was now a corridor separating the two sections of the crowd. The host grabbed us by our arms and made us advance under the watchful eye of absolutely everyone gathered.

There were two empty seats at the end and empty dish placed right in front of them. The seat must have been connected to the formation that reactivated life in the crowd, because only when we sat did they go back to having discussions and eating.

To be honest, if it weren’t because I was seeing a cobweb of Ink threads coming and going from the many tattoos, I would have said that we were still trapped in the formation. But we were not.

It didn’t take long for a random person to come with three dishes. I looked at Yaira and Yaira at me. We were two people, and they were bringing three dishes. The math didn’t add up, and we already suspected why.

“You can choose one starter,” the host announced from a table rather close to ours. “As you are two, which was not in our plans, you will have to share it.”

Perhaps there was some hidden logic based on the ingredients. We could choose between a tempting lettuce salad, showcasing fresh greens tossed with an assortment of vegetables; a light pasta dish, where perfectly cooked noodles were enveloped in a herb-infused sauce; and a toast featuring layers of caramelized eggplant and juicy tomato slices.

If there was, I ignored all of that. I just saw, literally, that only one of the three dishes didn’t have a formation. Of course, I couldn’t just pick the right one without doing a proper act first.

“We should think carefully about this, Yaira.” I tried to open my eyes wide without being too obvious, and I probably failed miserably at it.

“Yes, there must be a reason we can only pick one of them. Can we inspect them?” She asked the waiter.

We had to guess it was affirmative when he handed us the three dishes and left. So we just took them and started bouncing ideas around and brainstorming about what could be wrong.

Maybe the food was poisoned, and if we chose incorrectly, we would die. Or maybe it was the other way around, and the next test required that we eat a particular set of things to be kept alive.

“Or maybe there is a formation somewhere in these dishes?” I suggested after we had already said a few things.

Sure enough, there was a formation hidden on two of the dish’s bottom—the salad and the past—right where you wouldn’t search. Once we found them, it was trivial to justify our decision.

They let us eat the toast—which didn’t last long—without so much of a word. We weren’t told if our choice had been right or not, but the test continued when they brought us three more dishes.

Once again, we had to choose only a single dish, with a slight twist that didn’t make it any harder for me. This time, only one of the dishes had a formation, and it had been hidden differently. Instead of being carved into the plate itself, they had camouflaged it on the meat.

Normally, I supposed, the difficulty came from not knowing if there was only a single formation or if you had somehow missed the second one. The actual challenge, however, came with the desserts.

“And once again, you have to choose one.”

I was staring at three threads of Ink, each from a different dish. My true sight wouldn’t work so easily this time. We didn’t need to exchange any words to start looking—or faking, in my case—for them.

“Makka would be laughing at us for struggling with this, wouldn’t he?” I bitterly smiled as we looked at the formations.

The formations themselves weren’t complex; just some glyphs and formations that I could perfectly read. The issue was that their interpretations were nothing short of riddles.

“[Run, Flee, Escape], [Power, Control, Absolute], [Ink, She],” I read the first one out loud.

“[Use, Dominate], [Power, Control, Absolute], [Ink, She],” Yaira read the next one.

“[Balance, Equal],“ I read the first part of the last. ”[Power, Control, Absolute], [Ink, She],“ Yaira finished without even looking at the formation.

I don’t like this, I confessed to Spare. Ideally, I would also tell Yaira, but there was no way to do so without raising suspicions. This makes reference to the origin of Ink, does it not? If we should let it be free, dominate it, or reach a balance.

“Yes,” Spare answered. “This is not a test of power, knowledge, or persistence. They are testing your conviction and culture, assessing if you are a good match for the traditionalists.”

Am I a good match? I asked myself. If by traditions we mean the old ways, and I suppose freedom or balance with Ink, I am aligned. But is that the kind of tradition they uphold?

“That might have been the case a long time ago, but I don’t think that is the case anymore. Their leadership defines where their interests lie, and I would say Weirar does not strike me as someone seeking balance.”

I was about to continue my conversation with Spare, but Yaira forced me to look at her by grabbing my face and making me turn. Admittedly, she had probably tried to get my attention a few times already, and I had ignored her.

“Do you trust me?” She was so serious that I could only nod once. “I can’t explain why right now, but we have to eat [Use, Dominate].”

That idea was, somehow, repulsive. That was the complete opposite of what I had set myself to accomplish. It went against all my beliefs. But I had to agree with both Spare and Yaira. They sure didn’t want to let Her go free. I was hoping for balanced politics, but deep inside me, I knew it was not true.

“I think you are right, Yaira.”

We both nodded and each took one of the two pieces of fruit on the dish—a ripe, juicy peach and a crisp, sweet pear. Never in my life had I chewed so slowly as I was doing at that moment. Perhaps if I chewed enough, to the point that everything was made into a smooth puree, nothing would happen to us.

Yet another time, our eyes crossed. We swallowed.