“There it is,” Lance called, disbelief tempered by determination as he moved closer to the outlined shape. “You’ve given it form.”
"Now we've got to coax it toward the orb." I reached out and retrieved the glass ball.
Lance nodded.
His steps were quick and precise as the forest closed in around us. Every movement screamed determination as he focused on the glittering figure outlined against the haze. He was already moving forward after it, and the Stalker had nowhere left to retreat. Lance continued forward, forcing the creature toward me and the orb waiting in my hands.
"Now," Lance commanded as he ran forward, and the creature gave chase, bolting away from where it had been only moments before.
I held the orb aloft, feeling its cool surface thrumming with an energy that seemed to multiply with the proximity of the Stalker. I touched the runes, and the orb opened on command.
Come on.
Cornered and with nowhere left to flee, the invisible Stalker found itself trapped between Lance's relentless advance and the ancient trees that formed an impenetrable wall behind it. The creature's panic was palpable now—I could feel its frantic energy thrashing against the water droplets that still clung to its form, making the rainbow prisms dance wildly in the filtered sunlight.
Lance continued his methodical pursuit, each step calculated and precise, his battle precognition allowing him to anticipate the creature's desperate attempts at escape before it even made them. The Stalker tried to dart left, then right, but Lance was already there, blocking each route with the fluid graceof someone who had seen the moves play out seconds before they happened.
Inch by inch, the creature was forced backward toward where I stood with the orb raised high. The glass sphere had begun to glow with an inner light, responding to the proximity of its intended prey. I could feel the magical pull growing stronger with each passing moment as the Stalker drew nearer.
It edged closer to me, no longer by choice but compelled by the orb's inexorable power. The magical vessel's grip tightened around the stalker's essence, and I watched in fascination as it began yanking the invisible form forward with increasing force, drawing the stalker toward its crystalline prison like iron filings to a lodestone.
With a quick clapping sound, the glass orb sealed itself and the stalker within it.
"It's done."
At Lance's voice, I met his eyes—and quickly looked away. There was too much in his gaze: wonder, confusion, admiration. I couldn’t risk what he might see if he kept looking into mine. My need for him, the desire coursing through me, was just too much to hide.
“Three captures,” I said, pivoting. “The trial is complete.”
As we headed back toward the mouth of the Wilds with our three captured creatures, I felt a strange mix of triumph and anxiety.
Lance's unexpected kindness and the vulnerable glimpse he'd offered into his past left me reeling with complex emotions I couldn't untangle. The encouragement I felt at his gentleness warred with surprise at discovering this hidden depth beneath his warrior's facade, but beneath it all ran a current of deep unease that made my chest tight.
I didn't want to know this side of him—this unexpectedly good, achingly human side that contradicted everything I'd beentaught to believe about Arthur's knight. I desperately didn't want to hear about the brutal childhood he'd endured, the hunger and desperation that had shaped his early years, or the life-changing moment when Arthur had pulled him from that darkness and given him purpose. Because knowing these things humanized them both in ways that made my mission infinitely more complicated.
When Lance was just Arthur's ruthless sword hand, just another enemy to deceive, my path forward had been clear. But this man who spoke with quiet pain about his past, who showed unexpected kindness, who looked at me with something approaching genuine care—this version of him threatened to unravel every certainty I'd carried into Camelot. And if Lance could surprise me like this, what other truths about Arthur was I willfully blind to?
Not to mention how the Invisible Stalker had taken on my real form right before Lance's eyes—now my disguise and my reasons for being here felt more fragile than ever.
Ahead, a ravine carved a jagged scar through the forest floor, a narrow log bridge spanning its width. Slick with moss and rain, it looked completely treacherous. But when I glanced to each side, there didn't appear to be anywhere else that we could cross.
I hesitated, my eyes flicking to Lance. His gaze was focused and steady, but I could see the calculation in his posture.
"It's the only way forward," he answered my unasked question.
I took a deep breath and nodded, watching as he started over the log. I followed carefully, boots pressing into the damp bark slowly. The orbs within my satchel bounced against one another, the sound ominous. If we accidentally broke the orbs, the creatures we'd caught would be released, and the trial would be forfeited—something I couldn't afford.
So, I inched along the log behind Lance as carefully and slowly as I could.
But thenithappened.
My foot slipped, finding only empty air where solid wood should have been. The moss-slickened bark gave way beneath my boot with a sickening slide, and suddenly I was falling. Time seemed to stretch, each heartbeat thundering in my ears like the war drums of a distant battle. The world around me moved with dreamlike slowness—the gnarled branches above, Lance's startled shout, the yawning darkness of the ravine below.
Desperation clawed at my insides as my body twisted helplessly through the air. Every instinct screamed at me to reach out, to grab for something, anything that might arrest my fall. But even as terror flooded me, another part of my mind remained coldly focused on the orbs. I had to protect the orbs.
With a wrenching motion that sent fire through my shoulder, I yanked the leather pack away from my body, holding it out to the side as if I could somehow shield it from the impact that was surely coming. The precious glass spheres clinked against each other inside the satchel, their delicate surfaces all that stood between success and catastrophic failure. If they shattered, if the creatures escaped, I would fail this trial.
At the exact moment that the world tilted, my arms flailing and grasping at nothing, I saw his hand. Lance caught my wrist, his gauntlet locked around me like a shackle. For a single, terrifying heartbeat, I dangled over the chasm, my life suspended in his grasp. Then I was moving forward, toward the cliff face, on top of which Lance was standing.
