I turned in a small circle but I was closed in on three sides and there was no way back up to the tube. The only way to go was forward.
I started walking.
But only a minute or so in, I stopped. It felt pointless, too easy—wrong.Half of the people who competed in the first Trial failed. I couldn’t imagine that would happen if all they’d had to do was walk straight down a narrow hallway.
I looked around again. I couldn’t see where I’d begun and there was no exit ahead of me. The walls didn’t curve. There were no turns or offshoots, no forks or paths to choose from. The only way forward was that solitary narrow hall which seemed to go on forever.
Frowning, I approached one wall and examined it. There were no markings, not even a scratch. There wasn’t even anindentation where the material met its mate. It was just one solid piece from floor to ceiling. I sighed. What was I supposed to do?
When I closed my eyes, something faint, almost imperceptible, tugged at my senses. A feeling in the pit of my stomach, behind my navel and right above. A tugging sensation. Like a sewing needle pulling along the thread.
I glanced down but saw nothing there. I placed a hand gently over my belly button and closed my eyes, seeking the strange sensation again, trying to understand it.
It grew stronger, more insistent, pulling me onward. I took a step. Then another. But the pulling ceased. I opened my eyes, and the same kind of whooshing from back in the tunnel filled the narrow hall. I whirled around to the wall behind me. A door had opened, having appeared out of nowhere.
After only a moment’s hesitation, I stepped through it.
On the other side was another hallway much the same as the first, but this one shot off in a different direction. I followed it for a time, waiting to discover if that tugging sensation would return. It had to be what I needed to follow and the reason so many other participants had failed. If I hadn’t stopped walking to think, I would never have felt it at all.
But I didn’t feel it again. Not for a while. So long, I almost considered turning back until I reached a fork in the path. The narrow hallway split into two directions, one running at a ninety-degree angle to the left, the other veering slightly off the straight path toward the right. I stared at the options, eyes darting back and forth between them.
There it was. The tugging. Stronger this time and pulling me toward the right. I veered in the correct direction and kept walking.
The phenomenon vanished again about thirty feet down the alternative path, right as the wall beside me slid open withanother whoosh. I charged through to the other side without pause.
This hallway set off in yet another direction still. I started down it, pacing myself and waiting for that same pull. But I journeyed for a good five minutes and it didn’t come back.
After a few more minutes of wandering straight down that hallway, a light appeared up ahead. The brighter glow of another opening, the word ‘exit’ scrawled above it in red block letters. For a moment, elation shot through me. I’d done it! I was almost out. Then I stopped and stared at the gateway.
Something didn’t feel right. It was a door; it was an exit, but the pull remained absent. Perhaps this was the end, though. Perhaps I’d done whatever was needed to pass the first Trial and that was why the sensation was gone. Maybe most people never felt that faint tugging at all. Maybe that was the whole test.
I took a tentative step toward the exit.
Wrong.
I froze. It was the same as before, a voice speaking to me from within my own mind, the same thing I’d experienced when I’d pressed my hands to the Oathstone. But this time, it wasn’t my voice. It was sharper, more furious, and undeniably male.
I blinked and eased back. Turning, I squinted into the dimness behind me. Was someone there?
Then, I felt it. The tug, weaker than the last but present all the same. It was pulling me back. I followed its guidance and stepped back down the hall. The feeling grew with every inch along the path I’d already walked. I trudged on until that familiar whoosh cut through the silence again and I looked up to find that another opening had been cut into the solid stone wall.
I smiled and slipped inside.
Brightness assaulted my retinas the moment I entered this next room. I shielded my eyes and peeked through my fingers. Everything was that same cold, smooth white with the iridescentglow. I could see the ceiling now, only five or so feet above my head and inlaid with brilliant, buzzing light fixtures set at regular intervals in neat rows of three. The carpet had been replaced with the same smooth material as the walls and the walls themselves were arranged in a familiar shape: a dodecagon, just like Sanctuary itself.
Every side contained a door. Twelve of them. Each closed and waiting for me to choose the way forward.
I closed my eyes and took a breath but felt nothing.
I sighed and tried to fight down the rising tide of panic growing within me. I could do this. I’d done it already.
Hands dropped loosely to my sides, I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. I exhaled, long and slow, and closed my eyes again. I concentrated on nothing but that feeling, that faint tugging at my core, the very center of my being.
There.
It pulled me at an angle, leading me left. I turned slowly, eyes still firmly pressed closed in fear of breaking the connection. Only once the invisible thread pulling me forward felt taut, straight, did I open my eyes again.
There was a door directly in front of me. I took a hesitant step forward, bolstered by the sensation building as I approached. This had to be it. I marched forward and flung the door open wide.
