The Pit
WE PLUMMETED INTO A well of darkness.
The dragons roared in surprise, and the rest of us shouted in dismay. Sparks of light flew past like shooting stars, red, green, blue, black, a trace of purple over there, more lights than I could count. They didn’t show me walls or a floor, though, and mostly just told us how very, very fast we were all falling.
I summoned my serpents, far too fast, and a spear of pain shot through my core. I shoved the pain aside and lashed out at one of the lights. When my serpent touched the flicker, there was a tiny, almost imperceptible change in the speed of our descent.
“The lights!” I shouted. “Touch them with your serpents.”
“It’s working!” Hagar shouted. Our terrible fall slowed, again and again, until we hung motionless in the darkness.
“Do something,” I shouted at the dragons’ leader. “Unless you want to hang here until another team wins the challenge.”
“Something is wrong,” the dragon said. “I detect eyes on us. Someone is watching, waiting. As soon as we do this thing you ask, they will strike.”
“Are you insane?” I shot back. “We’re not going to attack you.”
The dragon eyed me cautiously, and I heard growls from the rest of her team. I couldn’t imagine what they had to discuss. Unless they used their serpents to touch the lights, none of us would ever get out of this pit.
“We feel your allies, Jace Warin. Their eyes are on us, even now. Know that we do this, not to help you, but to help ourselves.” We began to rise slowly at first, then faster. “Remember, humans, you’ve already lost this challenge. No one, not even your families, can save you from what happens next.”
For a moment, I wanted to tell my team to pull their serpents off the lights. If the dragons were trapped in this pit, they couldn’t win the Gauntlet, either. Humans would win, and they’d have a few thousand more years to pout over their loss.
But that would let the traitors win, and I could not abide that. My team would win the Gauntlet, somehow, and we’d use that victory to show the world what the Inquisition was up to.
Somehow.
As we climbed toward the surface, I pondered the challenges that still lay ahead. The obstacles we’d faced so far were strange. Making us choose our allies was clever, because it also chose our enemies. Forcing us to work together proved that we could cooperate. But dropping us all in a pit didn’t prove anything new.
That was disappointing. I’d honestly held out some hope that these challenges would prove to dragons and humans that we could work together. It was pointless for us to fight over the future when we could ally to make the world a much, much better place.
“We don’t have to be enemies,” I said. “I get that you want to win. But don’t you see how much easier this would be if we worked together?”
The dragons all laughed like that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
“That’s what I’d expect an abomination to say.” Trulissinangoth chuckled. “You’re the reason we dragons must seize control of the Grand Design. My people won’t stand by and let the soul eaters return.”
While that nickname certainly had a more sinister implication than Eclipse Warrior, the dragon’s derisive tone told me it wasn’t meant as a sign of respect. Even the dragons had been poisoned against the very people who’d saved them all.
We finally reached the surface, and the floor reformed under our feet. In the same moment, the walls that had formed the second silo vanished and left us standing in a circular arena.
With a horde of constructs rushing toward us.
An equal number of humanoid and dragon constructs swarmed across the stone floor. They all held weapons that flashed from the light of a fire that blazed above us.
“Let’s see how well you fight,” Trulissinangoth snarled.
And then the constructs were almost on top of us.
“Defensive wedge!” I shouted, and my team formed up in front of me. Eric took the lead, with Abi and Hagar right behind him. Clem took a position on Abi’s left, while I took advantage of the cover my friends provided to activate the vessel that held my Borrowed Core technique. I reached out for the nearest rat or other small creature and found—nothing.
The dragons had already engaged the humanoid constructs that charged toward them with cool, calm efficiency. They’d summoned their fusion blades in the blink of an eye and used them to hack at their enemies. The constructs that got anywhere near the Shambala team were torn apart so quickly it was hard to see which of the dragons struck the killing blow.
My team, on the other hand, had their work cut out for them. Eric’s attacks were clean and precise. His fiery fists punched through the chests of onrushing constructs, shattering their bodies and sending gouts of jinsei splashing into the air.
Abi’s defensive technique drew constructs toward him, and away from Eric’s blind side. His enhanced defenses allowed him to weather his enemy’s blows, while sparing the rest of the team from their attacks.
Hagar’s blood threads burst away from her aura to ensnare targets who evaded Abi’s technique, and Clem used her tempest kicks to unleash wave after wave of jinsei that blasted constructs on her side across the arena.
I strained my senses in a desperate search for anything I could latch onto. The Borrowed Core needed to find a bond soon, before the jinsei in the vessel was exhausted. If that happened, I wouldn’t be able to use the technique for the rest of the challenge, which would prevent me from using any of my other techniques. I needed the Borrowed Core to fuel everything else, but for it to work, I had to find a suitable core.
And then, I realized they were all around me.
I forged a connection to a downed construct. Its broken body couldn’t fight, but the artificial core
