A growl.
Slowly, Yiran peered out.
Revenants.
Red eyes, gaping black holes for mouths, slithery seaweed-like hair. One moved its head in Yiran’s direction.
His heart skipped erratically. The dummy sword in his hand whirred in response. Was he supposed to channel his magic into it?
Sensing his hesitation, the Revenant crawled closer.
Yiran shifted back.
Wrong move.
The whole group descended on him at once. Deformed creatures snarling and screeching, gray flesh growing and shrinking in blobs around their bodies. There was something grotesquely human about them, like body parts made and remade in the devil’s honor.
They weren’t real. But the fear crawling under Yiran’s skin, the sweat beading across his forehead, the tremor in his legs as he pushed himself to take a step—that was all real.
Heat fanned out in his veins like a nascent flame. He slashed at theRevenants, but too many were coming at him. The horde of pale, sickly bodies was crushing him. He opened his mouth and let out a scream.
Light burst forth. Bright, fierce, and strong. Yiran stared in shock. The light was coming fromhim. He couldn’t tell where the crimson glow started and where his weapon ended.
The Revenants flew off, thrown by some force.
But Yiran had no time to feel victorious. His chest seized; his breathing turned ragged. Broken capillaries splotched on his arms and chest, forming a mottled reddish pattern that made his skin look diseased. Crimson light was still spilling from his hands like rays of the sun.
“Stop!” someone shouted. It sounded like Rui.
The dummy sword disappeared. The Revenants and the maze vanished. The lights came on.
“Stop!” the voice shouted again.
But Yiran couldn’t stop. Energy radiated from his body. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing in air or fire.
“Yiran!Stop it!”
“I don’t... know how,” he rasped. He tried to tell his hands, his body to stop. But they didn’t listen. His insides were on fire. He was just sohot.
He staggered back, a sudden realization hitting him: if he didn’t find a way to end this, he was going to destroy himself.
16
Yiran
A fist crashed into his sternum.
Air gusted out of his lungs. He fell to the ground, gasping from the shock of the blow.
Rui stood over him, breathing just as heavily. “Are you all right?”
“You hit hard.” Yiran panted.
“If you sayfor a girl, I’ll hit you again.” She sounded a little hysterical herself. She crouched down to examine him. The red splotches on his arms and torso were fading. “I hit you to disrupt your breathing pattern to stop you from channeling,” she said.
“Quick thinking... thanks.” He rubbed his chest, trying to calm down.
They sat side by side, backs against the wall—Rui with her knees drawn close, Yiran with his legs spread out—catching their breaths.
