Calla sauntered up, wearing a sleeveless tunic made of shimmering turquoise silk—wildly inappropriate for battle—and loose pants dyed in irregular stripes of green and bronze. Her arms were bare except for a few bracelets. I noted the leather braid that shimmered copper and gold; I wore its match, and my heart warmed. Her muscles flexed as she stretched.
“That’s what you’re wearing as armor?” I asked.
“Well, I’m dressed to die fabulously,” she said, tossing her skyblue hair back. “Though I’d prefer not to. That would really ruin my look.”
Quinn trailed after her, arms crossed, brows raised. “Great Nuwa, you do realize this isn’t a fashion contest?”
“Everything’s a contest,” Calla shot back. “You’re just losing yours.”
Quinn looked at me, then at the Arena gates in the distance. “Still time to fake an injury. I could push you down the stairs.” He grinned.
I shook my head. He sighed dramatically. “Fine. But if you get impaled, I’m not dragging your corpse back. That’s where I draw the line.”
I chuckled, but then Blake strode up. He was silent but radiated authority, cutting like a blade through the gathering. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, skin heating at every memory.
The controlled and confident way he moved made my pulse quicken. The sharp lines of his armor caught the light, but it was the calm certainty in his eyes that sent heat pooling low in my stomach.
He looked at me, and the world constricted. His lips quirked, just for me, before the warm Blake I knew slipped back behind the stern mask of the Ambush Master.
A subtle ripple moved through the air, as if the very atmosphere had been stretched too thin, distorting the fabric of reality itself. The space around us seemed to shimmer for a heartbeat, and then, without a whisper of sound, the Diviner materialized in our midst. Her flowing crimson robes glowed as though woven from the essence of starlight, shifting between this world and another.
The air grew colder, and a faint hum vibrated through the ground beneath my feet. Her presence seemed to warp everything around her, as if the world bent to accommodate her power. She gazed at us from her featureless mask, seeing everything while revealing nothing.
“It is time,” she declared, her voice sending a ripple through the air as she lifted her hands to the sky. We gathered in a circle, our tygers standing silent but alert beside us. Blake took advantage of our movement to step to my side, his presence grounding.
Magic crackled in the air.
With a fluid motion, the Diviner raised her arms higher, and the sand beneath us began to shift.
From the ground, the tip of a giant plant poked upward and blossomed.
A huge lotus flower, its petals shimmering in hues of gold and silver, unfurled slowly like a living creature. The air turned rich with the scent of the lotus, sweet but not overpowering, and filled with an ancient energy that thrummed through my bones.
The lotus floated inches above the ground, its base large enough to hold us all. It glowed faintly, the light reflecting not just the beauty of the flower but also something deeper—something divine.
“The lotus’s roots are deep in the muck of the earth, yet its beauty rises above it, untouched by the filth,” the Diviner said, her voice quieter now, reverent. “It is both earthly and heavenly, representing the balance between the mortal and divine.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes from the flower. Its presence radiated serenity, but there was power beneath it, a strength that hummed through the air like a low, vibrating note, always present.
“The lotus is holy,” the Diviner continued, her voice smooth as silk, “because it is a symbol of balance. It carries the weight of the earth in its roots, and yet its blossom reaches for the heavens. So, too, must you find your balance in the trials to come. Remember, beauty comes from the dirt, from the hardship beneath. Do not fear the muck. You must rise above it.”
There was something strangely comforting in the idea of the lotus, both connected to the world and yet somehow free of it, balanced between heaven and earth.
It wasn’t just a flower. It was a promise.
The Diviner gestured for us to step forward. Blake moved beside me, and I followed, feeling Flame’s presence at my side as she eyed the lotus curiously. Kingsolver padded forward silently, his sapphire eyes reflecting the light of the flower.
Blake’s hand brushed mine lightly as we stepped onto the first petal, the surface cool beneath my feet despite the glow it emitted. I could feel the slight tremor of energy beneath the lotus, like I was standing on the edge of something vast and untouchable.
The petals shifted beneath us as the rest of the warriors took their places. Once we were all gathered, the Diviner whispered a word too soft to catch and the lotus lifted. It rose slowly at first, the petals spreading wider and furling upward to keep us inside as we ascended.
My breath caught as the ground fell away beneath us, the Arena shrinking as the lotus carried us higher and higher into the sky. Someone took my hand—Blake, I realized, who still looked composed, but was going green round the edges.
“Scared?” I asked.
“I really do hate heights,” he whispered. “Will you please hold my hand?”
I laughed. His lips tilted upward as I closed our palms against each other.
