“You still think you’ll be picked?”

I pulled my spear up, shortened my grip and dashed towards him.

“Well, without you, uncle would have to have a kid, but we both know that’s easily fixable.”

I punctured the space above his signing hand and was slammed in the side with his mana weapon.

I let my left hand hold my spear and I grabbed his wrist. I pulled the water mana from his skin, making his arm more brittle. He lost control of his weapon.

He slammed his other hand, in a sign, into my chest and I felt a strong force slam into me with it.

I didn’t drop my grip though, I just held on tighter and crushed his now dried up wrist.

He yelled out in pain. Pulled away from me.

I let him go and he stepped back clutching at his wrist.

I gritted my teeth through the pain in my chest and with my left hand I thrust my spear into his chest.

With my water mana condensed as much as possible and moving quickly along the edges of my blade it slid into him with ease.

Some blood spurted from his mouth as he slumped over my spear. I pulled it out, nothing sounded for the end of the fight. I quickly cut off his head.

That resulted in a trumpet sounding off and the two of us teleporting away.

That bastard really thought threatening me would make things better?

I guess this is as good of a chance as any to test what Ylandyr was hinting at.

“Wow Sailhin, I’ve never seen you be that brutal before, who was that?” Dodger asked immediately.

The banner appeared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The score is now 1 - 0

May the next fighters enter the ring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brick went down.

“Just an annoying kid from school.”

“I mean I know you’re not with Winged Mercy, so I figured all elves weren’t the same, but I didn’t know you were that aggressive towards each other.”

“I just wanted to make him shut up and end the fight faster is all. I’m sure it’s like the twentieth floor, he’ll be healed.”

And as if on cue he walked out of the door on their side and sat down in the stands close to the arena floor.

“I guess,” she didn’t seem completely convinced but she wasn’t pushing the matter.

There was a trumpet, it seemed Brick’s fight came and went easily. Dodger didn’t even wait to be asked to enter. She jumped in the second Brick began to teleport. And as

soon as her opponent entered, and the trumpet sounded, the elf was thrown out of the arena ending the match.

I looked at the faces of the elves that weren’t participating, there were two, much older elves and they didn’t even try hiding the scowls on their faces.

There was something odd about the party’s formation. Two clearly older elves, probably with more experience than the others, they should’ve been fighting. Instead, they let Rolym, Ruvenne and the other two younger members fight.

If they were this mad with the results, wouldn’t they have intervened?

“Kill the halfer Ruvenne!” Rolym yelled in common.

Damn, he knows. He must’ve seen Quartz in the labyrinth like I saw him.

This likely on purpose since this is my trial, but what is it trying to point out to me?

Other than my fight I don’t know what it seems to be trying to learn from me. My position as the de facto leader of our little group was simply because I’m the oldest and Paeris wasn’t interested. Also, Dot and Lefty didn’t seem to push back on it.

Then is it my choices surrounding the method to hide Quartz’s identity?

If I had told them that we needed to hide his ears better, if I told them why, Rolym wouldn’t have known for sure.

His hair didn’t do a bad job but if Rolym had seen him earlier, it would only bring attention to his ears more now that he took his hair down.

I looked over at the others and to my surprise, Paeris was glaring at me.

I kind of froze. We’d been friends for years, and I’ve never seen him point that cold of a stare towards me.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

In the background, I heard a trumpet announcing the end of the duel.

He hadn’t ever been that mad at me before. Sure, I’ve annoyed him over the years, but the look that was fixed on his face before he turned away from me was one I’d only seen when his family came up.

There was a ding and a banner appeared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Congratulations!

The floor has been cleared.

The rewards will be delivered at a later time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were quickly teleported back to the safe house. If it was my trial, I didn’t understand what it was challenging me with. It was over, we passed the floor.

“The reason she killed him was because it’s her cousin, I’m sure he brought up their family’s issues.” Paeris said immediately.

I turned on him narrowing my eyes.

“What? Didn’t want me to air your dirty laundry? I was fine when it was just me on the line for not knowing everything but it’s not just me and you now, is it?”

Paeris stood firm.

“Paeris-”

Dot interrupted me, “Your cousin? Your cousin’s in Winged Mercy?! You didn’t think to tell us that?”

She stepped back slightly, her body was tense.

Over Paeris’s shoulder I saw Quartz’s markings light up.

“Family isn’t everything, you should know that, maybe she-” Lefty tried.

“Don’t, she knew her cousin was there, and yet she didn’t ask for help disguising either her or Quartz. If Paeris wasn’t easy to read I’d suspect him too, but what else isn’t she telling us.”

She pulled Lefty away from the others and me.

“Paeris, we swore on Jaichoeubre not to speak of the past here.” I spoke in ijanoin.

“I was fine with that when it was just me at risk,” he replied in common.

I glared but his face didn’t show much emotion. I couldn’t see any trace of the emotion I had seen earlier.

“At risk? What do you mean?” Lefty looked to Paeris.

Paeris didn’t look at him, he kept his focus on me.

“I was fine climbing without an explanation, I was fine leaving my research behind to help you without knowing why we were looking into that stuff. But it’s not just us anymore. I can’t risk us getting into a fight they aren’t prepared for. With so many of us, I can’t let anything hinder my ability to properly support us.”

“You think knowing would help?” I scoffed.

How would knowing the truth have helped the situation. It wouldn’t have changed anything.

His face tensed ever so slightly, his eyebrows moving closer together.

“If you had said something sooner, even just saying that your cousins were there, asked me and Dot to try and disguise Quartz better and even disguise you they wouldn’t’ve known we were here. And I’m sure this will hinder whatever it is you’re trying to do here.”

“You think you would’ve done that without a proper explanation?”

We just met, and there hasn’t been anything that would suggest they would take a request like that seriously.

“If you had asked, I would’ve.” Dot said simply, “I wouldn’t have needed an explanation. I would’ve thought it was just out of concern for him given how stressed Quartz clearly gets about hiding his ears. And if it wasn’t that, telling us the bare minimum and asking for help would’ve been more than enough. I would’ve respected you wanting to keep things secret. It would’ve shown me that you trusted us. But I don’t know what to think.”

I couldn’t see Quartz anymore, Dodger and Brick were standing protectively in between Quartz and Paeris. Though they remained behind Paeris, as expected.

Dot and Lefty were closer to them than me, but they were still separated.

I was alone it seemed.

“How was I supposed to know you’d trust me that easily? That you wouldn’t ask for an explanation. He’s hid his ears relatively well in the past, I had no reason to suspect it wouldn’t be enough.”

“We saw them though.”

Paeris was right… I noticed them pretty easily, even from a distance.

“Just because some other elves might have seen them before and they ignored it leading him to think all was fine, doesn’t mean it would suddenly work now.”

The words ‘You’re normally quite calculating’ burned above Paeris’s head.

Paeris looked up and glanced at Brick.

Was it him?

I glanced back seeing more writing appear.

“That’s why we let you make decisions, they hadn’t steered us wrong in the past. Us never questioning you much should’ve proved we trusted your choices. It’s always been obvious to us that you know more than you’re telling. Well, to be fair we all are hiding something. But before now you’ve been open when it comes to issues involving all of us. It seems in this instance your family has blinded you.”

My eyes narrowed, “don’t bring up something you’re unaware of.”

“If you had mentioned your cousins sooner, it would’ve ended at that. You didn’t pry into our family matters so we wouldn’t’ve pried into yours.” Dot said firmly.

I turned to her, “and yet now you want to?”

“Your cousin knows about Quartz. Knows you’re climbing the tower. I don’t know what to expect once we get to floor forty but if Paeris wasn’t worried he wouldn’t’ve brought it up in the first place. Clearly there’s a lot more to what’s coming up than we know. Hiding things won’t help anyone.” She retorted.

“They’re right.” I looked at Paeris “You’re acting on emotions now. Think about your own situation properly. If your parents let their emotions get the better of them, do you think they would’ve done what they did? Doesn’t your grandfather regret how he handled things with your aunt?”

“Don’t bring my parents into this!” I glared at him and switched back to ijanoin “You don’t know anything about it. Your crush isn’t unrequited anymore and you’ve suddenly grown a spine. I’m sure it helps that his pseudo-sister is nearly twice your size.”

“Don’t bring my feelings for Brick into this. The situation with your parents and your family is completely relevant.”

“The only thing that makes it relevant is that we saw my cousins. Their past has nothing to do with this!” I snapped.

“It has everything to do with it. What your parents did for your uncles-”

“That only worked because they were friends.”

“It worked because they were honest with each other. You’re acting exactly like your grandfather!” That was the first time he raised his voice, but his face didn’t reveal any anger behind it.

Does he think he’s in the right?

“And what’s so wrong with that, I’m the heir. He’s been a great leader for our family.”

“Your Aunt’s death was his-”

I pulled my spear out and pointed at him.

“Don’t you dare.”

Both Brick and Dodger stepped forward, but Paeris held his hand out to stop them.

“He told you before we left. You just didn’t listen to him.”

“You don’t have the right to talk to me about family, you got kicked out of yours. Brick and Dodger are orphans. And given how Dot shaves her beard I’m sure she wasn’t raised by her parents either. I’m the only one with family don’t act as if you know more than me.”

I felt my mana rippling beneath my skin.

“I know you don’t mean that.”

“I have to pay them back for what they did, how could you know what I’m supposed to do!”

My spear was gripped, and the shaft broken. Quartz was now standing in front of me.

“Shut up!” Quartz growled.

I’d never heard him speak in ijanoin, and I’d never seen that anger on him.

“You’re a fucking high elf! You fucked up. You slid by because you’re mixed but you didn’t think I’d figure it out?! Who hates people like me more than anyone?!”

There was an unfamiliar fire that seemed to shine behind those concerningly golden eyes, even his accent was concerning.

“High elves! Sure, none of us are sharing the whole truth, but you not sharing even a sliver of info would screw up my life outside of the tower! For fucks sake!”

He pushed past me aggressively, storming off to the cabin and slamming the door behind him.

“We called you dad because the shokhazh word seemed to fit you, but it seems we were wrong about that.”

The words fizzled above Paeris’s head as he was picked up by Brick.

They all walked past me, and I heard the door close.

I stared at the wall of trees ahead of me.

“I’m not in the wrong,” I muttered.