I blinked, vision blurring with suddenly moistened eyes. Releasing the sheets and turning my head slowly, I lifted my arm. There, solidified and permanent, was the tenth ring branded upon my skin, just above my elbow. I held my arms out and stared down at them. All ten. Five on one side, five on the other. The mark of success. I was the first in thousands of years to complete all ten Trials.
So why was I back here, in my old room at my family’s ancestral estate?
The thought entered my mind before I could guard myself against it.
Was it all for nothing?
I waited. I almost expected her to answer and wished she would. I didn’t dare close my eyes, knowing that, if I did, I would only see her falling. Staring straight up at me as she disappeared, thinking that one word so loud it echoed in my mind over and over long after she was gone.
Betrayal.
I leapt from the bed and rushed for the banners. With an angry, gut wrenching roar of defiance, I ripped them off the walls. Then I threw the lamp, shattering it against the far wall. I tore apart the books, shattered the desk, and ripped open the pillows. Like a savage animal, I destroyed everything I could see. Chest heaving, tears streaming down my face, I didn’t stop screaming that one, endless, wordless cry as I did my best to bring an end to everything I'd known before.
“Enough,” a voice suddenly spoke. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Fists clenched at my sides, I searched for the source of the sound. Suddenly, the room around me flickered and then vanished entirely. I found myself in a room that was entirely white. Pristine white tiles covered floor, wall, and ceiling, buzzing lights flickered overhead, and a nondescript raised bed sat in the middle, sheets and pillows as crisp and white as the room around it, though they were currently shredded and tossed all around the room. A white banner was torn as well and glass from a simple lamp lay shattered in a corner. But it was all bright and foreign. Not a trace of green or gold anywhere.
I backed against the wall behind me, twitching when the cool tile pressed against my fingertips. This wasn’t my room. This had never been my room. But it had looked like it. And it had felt so real.
There was a whooshing sound and one of the walls slid upwards in a way that was eerily reminiscent of the first Trial. Blinking away the memory of that cold, quiet maze, I let mygaze settle on the man who'd entered from a nondescript hallway outside.
He held something strange in his hands. It was square and glowed a soft blue, exactly as the rings from the Trials had always done before we'd reached them.
I pressed myself more firmly against the wall at my back. Every instinct within me was screaming that this was wrong. It was all so familiar and yet entirely new at the same time. We didn't have tile like this in Sanctuary. We didn't have mechanical beds or glowing tablets. This place was not home. But then where was I? Was I still in the tenth?
The thought had me clenching my jaw so hard my teeth ached. My eyes darted around in search of that cursed pit. Was she still there? Somewhere at the bottom where I could find her again, undo what I'd done? How deep was the abyss? If I could pull her back, I would. I'd do it all over again and dive in myself as I should have done the first time.
"I'm a coward," I muttered, staring at the blinding white tile before me.
There was no pit here, not even a hint of that clawing darkness.
"I wouldn't let them hear you say that," the man responded, as if I'd been talking to him, without so much as glancing toward me. He continued tapping his fingers on his glowing square, paying absolutely no attention to my fear, paranoia, or regret. He stared down at that tablet as if he was reading something there. With his jaw set in a firm line and his narrowed eyes locked on the strange object, it was as if I wasn't in the room with him at all.
Keeping my distance, I allowed myself a cursory examination of him, focusing on getting my bearings rather than the echoes of her voice in my head. He was tall, incredibly so. I was easily six feet but he towered half a foot over me. And he was all leanmuscle and smooth movements, the lethal grace of a predator. He had thick brown hair that poured from the top of his head in unruly curls, falling around his ears. His eyes were the same rich brown with an amber ring around them that made them look like molten honey and reminded me of her as well. Her eyes had been amber, but not just a ring around her iris. They'd been bright and rich and sparked when she was angry with me.
“Who are you?” I spat.
Finally looking away from the object in his hands, my mysterious visitor glanced up to meet my gaze. He blinked twice before letting his eyes rove over me fully. He took a moment for his own examination before he spoke again.
“My apologies,” he said.
There was something of an eerie quality to his voice. It wasn’t yet deep but it was commanding, consuming, as if it were something so powerful my ears were never meant to hear it. I flinched without realizing it and tried to take an involuntary step back, away from him. I bumped into the wall behind me once more and clenched my fists. He noticed and frowned. Then he paused in the center of the room as if to give me space.
“I'd hoped a familiar setting might give you some comfort when you woke,” he told me. Then he tapped on his device and my destroyed bedroom blinked back into existence just long enough for him to give a pointed glance at the destruction I'd caused. “Apparently, I was wrong.”
Another tap and we were back in the white room. I just stared at him, uncertain of what to say, uncertain of how to even comprehend what was happening in front of me. For a single heartbeat, I thought I might still be asleep, dreaming of a strange world and a man with even stranger capabilities. But he remained before me, watching me with his head cocked slightly to the side, as if I were no more than a perplexing curiosity for him to examine. With the buzzing lights overhead, the cool draftblowing over my skin from an unseen vent, and the rapid beating of my own heart, I couldn't deny this was no dream at all. This was reality. Or some new form of it. So, after a moment of silence in which all of these thoughts and observations ran through my wildly confused mind, I repeated my initial inquiry.
“Who are you?” I asked again, my voice firmer, more commanding.
“Ah yes, you did ask that, didn’t you?” he said, almost amused.
He tucked the magical tablet between his arm and side as he rocked back on his feet, watching me. Clearly, he was in no hurry to tell me who he was or to alleviate any of my anxiety regarding this strange experience. In fact, he seemed intrigued by my every reaction, watching me so intently I began to feel deeply affected by his eyes on me.
“Do you plan to answer?” I snarled, glaring at him so he might see the irritation his attitude was provoking.
He looked up at me, smiling now.
“I amKleio,” he told me.
