“Team Twelve,” he acknowledges with a slight nod that somehow manages to seem condescending. “The Mirrored Maze presents unique challenges for your particular... composition. Shadow abilities will be both an advantage and a liability within. Choose your projections wisely.”
The warning feels pointed directly at me, though his expression remains professionally neutral. Behind him, other Hunter officials prepare to open the Maze entrances, their silver-emblazoned uniforms creating a coordinated display of power and authority that smells like steel and barely contained violence.
“You have sixty minutes to reach the center and retrieve your team token,” Malcolm continues, his cultured voice carrying easily in the crisp air. “Extraction points are located throughout the Maze for those requiring emergency evacuation, though using one results in automatic trial failure.”
“And the creatures?” Iris asks, her normally confident voice slightly strained with worry.
“Various shadow-sensitive species,” Malcolm replies, his gazeflicking back to me like a predator marking its prey. “Specially selected for their ability to detect and respond to shadow anomalies.”
Of course they fucking are. My bound shadows press flat against the ground, recognizing the threat in his words and trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. Whatever monsters populate the Maze, they’ve been chosen specifically to react to Ascendant shadow patterns. Between specialized Hunter surveillance and shadow-sensitive creatures, Malcolm has created the perfect trap.
“Teams, to your starting positions,” calls Professor Winters from the control platform, her voice amplified by magic that makes it echo strangely. “Trial begins in three minutes.”
As Constantine moves away to join the other instructors, he pauses beside me. The morning light catches the red in his hair, making it look like controlled fire. “Trust your training,” he whispers, his voice low enough that only I can hear. “Both kinds.”
The simple acknowledgment of our secret preparation gives me unexpected courage that flows warm through my chest. My bound shadows pulse once in response, maintaining their modified patterns while drawing strength from both the blood binding with Bael and the shadow-fire training with Constantine.
Our team takes position at the Maze entrance—a crystalline arch that shimmers with enchantment and gives off a low humming sound like a tuning fork. The surrounding air tastes of ozone and possibility. Beyond it, mirrored corridors stretch in multiple directions, reflecting endlessly into themselves until perspective becomes meaningless. The effect is immediately disorienting, designed to confuse and separate teams from the moment they enter.
“Stay in diamond formation,” Marcus instructs as the countdown begins, his voice carrying military precision. “Dawn at point, me at rear, Lightbringer, and Castellanflanking.”
I nod, taking the lead position despite my misgivings. My bound shadows extend slightly, testing the Maze’s energy before we enter. They report back strange distortions—magical currents designed to separate shadow from caster, amplify emotional responses, and detect irregular shadow patterns. The very air inside the structure feels hostile.
“Thirty seconds,” Winters announces, and I can feel my heartbeat in my throat.
“Whatever happens in there,” Iris says quietly beside me, her empathic abilities probably picking up on the team’s growing tension, “we stick together, right?”
“Right,” I agree, though something in Marcus’s expression—cold calculation barely masked by professional cooperation—makes me doubt our team cohesion will last long once inside.
“Trial begins NOW!”
The crystalline arch flares with a blinding light that makes my eyes water, and we surge forward into the Maze as one unit. The moment we cross the threshold, the atmosphere changes—heavier, charged with anticipation, as if the very air is watching our movements. The temperature drops several degrees, raising goosebumps along my arms despite the protective uniform. The air smells different here — metallic and sharp, tinged with something that reminds me of blood and old magic.
Mirrored walls stretch in every direction, our reflections multiplied thousands of times, each slightly different from reality. In some, my shadows appear completely normal; in others, they writhe with autonomous movement; in the most disturbing, they form wings that stretch from my back, revealing what lies beneath my careful bindings. The sight makes my stomach lurch with fear and recognition.
“Illusions,” Seraphina warns, her light aura flaring defensively and casting rainbow patterns on the mirrored surfaces. “The mirrors show fears and possibilities, not reality.”
“This way,” I direct, my bound shadows reporting a path of lesser resistance to our left. The magical current flows like an underground river I can sense through my feet. “The magical current flows toward the center from this corridor.”
We move forward in diamond formation, each watching different angles as the mirrored passageways twist and merge in impossible configurations that make my head spin. Sound behaves strangely—our footsteps sometimes silent, sometimes echoing as if in vast caverns. The air carries a metallic tang, like the aftermath of lightning strikes.
The first attack comes without warning, silent as death. A section of mirrored wall suddenly liquefies with a sound like breaking glass, and something lunges through—a creature that appears to be made of living shadow, its form constantly shifting between wolf, serpent, and something with too many limbs that shouldn’t exist. Crimson eyes fix on me specifically, a hunting predator recognizing its designated prey. The smell of decay and ancient darkness rolls off it in waves.
“Shadow wraith!” Marcus calls immediately creating shadow barriers to block its advance. His voice carries genuine alarm for the first time since I’ve known him.
My bound shadows react instinctively, wanting to form the defensive spikes Bael taught me, but I force them into normal extension patterns instead. The pendant against my skin burns with the effort of maintaining the illusion under direct threat, the crystal growing hot enough to brand.
The shadow wraith howls—a sound like wind through broken glass mixed with human screaming—and launches itself at our formation with impossible speed. Seraphina sends a blast of light energy that would normally dissolve shadow creatures, but this one simply absorbs the attack, growing larger and more substantial as it feeds.
“It’s feeding on our abilities,” Iris realizes, her empathicprojection doing nothing to slow the creature as terror bleeds from her in waves. “The more we use, the stronger it gets!”
She’s right. My bound shadows report the wraith absorbing energy from each of our attacks, specifically resonating with shadow manipulation. This creature has been designed to target me—to force increasingly desperate shadow responses until I reveal abnormal patterns.
“Fall back!” Marcus orders, creating shadow steps that lead up and over a mirrored wall with practiced efficiency. “Defensive retreat to higher ground!”
We follow his lead, scrambling up the shadow stairs as the wraith surges after us with a flowing grace that defies physics. At the top of the wall, we find ourselves on a narrow crystalline bridge spanning a chasm filled with a swirling mist that smells of sulfur and old bones. Below, shadowy shapes move within the fog, suggesting more creatures waiting to emerge.
“The token chamber should be in that direction,” Seraphina points toward a central spire visible in the distance, her voice steady despite our circumstances. “But this bridge leads the opposite way.”
