“I—Dante, I can’t do it.” I’d almost lost consciousness at the sight of how much blood we’d lost on our climb, at the pain lancing through my fingertips, my palms, even now. The idea of cutting off my partner’s limb, the idea of causing such misery over something as foolish as these Trials sickened me to my very core.
But he would do it. He hadn’t even hesitated.
I looked back at him as he stared at me, wide eyed but prepared, resigned. It was incredible, the faith he had, the desperation to continue along this path. True, it was what he’d been raised to do, but most people still would’ve balked at the thought of losing a limb. He hadn’t.
So no, I didn’t have the strength to do this, but perhaps I could draw a little from him.
“Are you sure?” I asked one more time, and he nodded immediately.
I sighed and peered over the edge of the platform. I took my time examining the various blades sticking out of the cruel climbing wall. Once I found one heavy and sharp enough, I spenta good ten minutes wrenching it free of its place embedded into the wall, sliding it back and forth, yanking at it with my enhanced strength. The sharp edge of it cut into my flesh and I cried out more than once as new pain plunged through the numbness, spiking bone deep.
Once I’d extricated my chosen blade, I turned back to him. He was waiting, clearly doing his best to appear calm, but I could see the dreaded anticipation in his eyes and the tension in his jaw against the pain.
My muscles were groaning, my fingers numb, my hand slipping in my own blood around the hilt of the blade, but I pushed all the pain aside and focused on him, on my partner.
“I’m going to—”
“Just do it, Adrian. Please, don’t tell me when.”
“Okay,” I replied with a nod. “I just wanted you to know that I’m going to do everything I can to cut it completely off with one—”
I swung, putting the full force of my enhanced strength behind the motion.
Dante screamed, and his arm, just above the elbow, dropped to the floor below with a sickening thump.
My gut twisted as I glanced down at the fallen limb.
“Adrian,” he panted, his voice was weak but urgent. “Quick, the rings!”
My head shot back up. The rings shone with a blinding white light. I plunged my arm through mine just in time to receive my brand. Dante screamed again. His own ring had cauterized his wound. The scent of burning flesh almost made me empty my stomach.
Dante swayed. His eyelids fluttered.
“Shit!” I cried and launched myself toward him as he lost consciousness.
The platform wasn’t wide enough to accommodate someone laying down and the way Dante was already swaying as he passed out informed me he was going to miss the mark anyway. So I slammed into him, wrapping my arms around him as we sailed over the edge of the wall. I turned to shield him from the impact as we struck the cold hard floor far below. Gasping in the breath that had been knocked out of my lungs when we’d hit, I pushed him off of me. He slumped to the side, unaware of the fall. I continued to sputter and cough against the pain that wracked my back from the landing. My fingertips and feet throbbed from the horrors of the climb but I turned and crawled toward Dante. I grabbed his shoulder and turned him onto his back, looking down to where his left arm had been.
The stump where his arm ended was still smoldering from the cauterization. The whole chamber smelled like burnt flesh. My lip curled as I fought to catch my breath, looking down at my own bloody hands. I needed to try to help him. Somehow. There had to be a way to help him. But he still hadn’t stirred. Something was wrong. We’d been branded. We’d done it. So why did this feel like failure?
“No,” I muttered. “No, no, no. Dante, please wake up. Don’t do this to me again. Please be okay. Please—”
I ran my bloody hands over his chest, his face, and paused.
I could hear something. It was faint and far away, but there was a sort of thrumming. I frowned and glanced around. But we were still the only two in the room. Even the metal tubes, which always appeared once we were branded, were nowhere to be seen. I exhaled, tears of frustration coming unbidden to my eyes.
“Where are the tubes?” I shouted, looking around, fury and panic rising within me. “Why haven’t they come for us? What more could you possibly want from us?”
I fisted my left hand and pounded the bloody stone beneath me, whimpering in agonized rage.
“You wonder why we no longer worship you in the lower rings?” I croaked, voice shaking. “This cruelty. This contempt. Is it truly any wonder?”
The thrumming grew louder until it was like a drum pounding against my head. I covered my ears to muffle it but to no avail. A guttural scream of frustration broke free from my throat. I reached down to shake Dante awake, to carry him if I had to, but that’s when I felt it. The faint beating of his heart, the pulse at his wrist, it was perfectly in sync with the thrumming beat.
I looked down at my hand wrapped around his wrist. I could feel something there. Little strings, some thin, some thick, some corded, some hollow. Blood and veins. And if I closed my eyes and took a breath, I felt the muscle covering them and the bone beneath.
Scrambling to my knees beside him, I reached for his other arm, the one I’d cut off at the elbow. I felt the layers there, just the same as I had with the other, almost as if brushing my fingers along the tissue. But the unnatural ends of the bone, muscle, and veins was akin to the throbbing in my fingers.
I probed the cauterized skin, and gasped. New skin grew over the wound as I held it. I blinked, in awe. Was I…healing him?
