By the time Elana stopped counting, twelve students had already died. They called it an exam.

It wasn’t. It was a culling.

The Trials of the Royal Magic Academy were designed for bloodshed. Every exam period, students were set loose on school-sanctioned battlegrounds. Each one was unique, engineered to push them to their limits. The victory conditions changed. The brutality didn’t.

Blood was a given. Injuries were expected. Deaths were routine.

And the Third Trial, the semester’s final exam, was no different. She shouldn’t have even made it that far. The others had magic. She had mana stones. And Soren.

They would already have been among the bodies if they hadn’t found their current hiding spot.

Elana stood with her back against Soren’s, one hand clamped against her mouth to stifle her panting. They’d had no choice but to stop. They had been running for too long. And Soren was injured.

Her chest was heaving, and her throat was tight. Her legs were shaky. Weak.

There was nothing left in her but adrenaline and yesterday’s coffee.

If she couldn’t recalibrate and figure out a new plan, they were never going to make it until the end of the Trial. When the final countdown ended, they needed to be standing within the designated end zone’s glowing, clearly demarcated boundaries—a narrow strip of ground on the far side of the abandoned dormitory’s rooftop.

Each Trial ground was unique, and the Third Trial was a sprawling dormitory, part of a decrepit boarding school that had been shuttered half a century ago. It was all cobwebs and broken glass, floors that threatened to crumble under too much weight, and endless hallways filled with nothing but locked doors. And everything about it was designed to force students into frequent, head-on confrontations.

There were six sprawling floors, but only one set of stairs. Only one way to access the roof. She should have known someone would take advantage of that.

Smoke in the air. Blood dripping down the walls. Charred bodies on the stairs—a bottleneck. It had been an obvious ambush, and she’d run them straight into it. Stupid.

She and Soren had barely survived their first attempt at reaching the end zone. They’d managed to escape—by the skin of their teeth—only to be forced to wedge themselves into a cramped janitorial closet. There hadn’t been any better options, or she would have taken them. For the time being, they were stuck there, unable to make a sound for fear of alerting someone to their presence.

He was injured, she was exhausted, and they were both stuck in a closet. How were they supposed to make another attempt at the end zone like that? Not that they had a choice.

Elana closed her eyes, trying to quiet her breathing. Behind her, she could feel Soren trying to do the same. The rise and fall of his shoulders was too fast, too ragged.

A pyromancer’s spell had burned into his abdomen—cauterized, but deep. With his back pressed flush against hers, she could feel the unnatural heat radiating off of him. Shit. She’d known that he was injured, but the enemy had landed a burn status-multiplier on him? No wonder he was struggling.

Normally, even injured, Soren could run circles around her with no effort. But at that moment, he seemed as winded as she was—an idea that made her chest feel strangely tight, but that was something she’d have to examine later. There was no time to dissect that.

She reached for Soren’s forearm, grasping it and forcing herself to tap twice for ‘shh’—part of a silent code they’d long since refined.

Asking him to silence himself when he was injured was the last thing Elana wanted to do, but there was no choice. He needed to get his breathing under control. The hallways were dead quiet, and the smallest noise could get them killed. They would be in a better—and worse—position the second the countdown began and all hell broke loose.

Once the countdown began, any students who hadn’t already claimed ground at the checkpoint would make their last run at it. Elana wouldn’t have to worry about sneaking around them anymore, but they would have to fight through an absolute bloodbath if they were going to make it into the Trial’s narrow end zone before the clock ran out.

Soren returned the grip, giving her forearm a quick, reassuring squeeze. It wasn’t a code. It didn’t need to be. She felt it.

There he was, injured, and still trying to console her—as if he knew that it killed her to give him that signal. The faintest of smiles tugged at her lips. He really did understand her better than anyone.

A few seconds later, his breathing quieted.

They had spent so much time together that reading each other had become second nature. They’d gotten comfortable enough that they didn’t need to rely on words—nor did they currently have the luxury of using them.

As soon as she could, Elana was going to make sure that his wound was taken care of. But first, she needed to get both of them out alive.

She laid her hand over his and prayed he understood what she meant. He just had to hold on a little longer. She dropped her hand.

They’d made it farther than she thought they would, but their options were running out. She had to think. There was a way out. There was always a way. She just had to find it. But if they waited too long—

There was a flicker of movement beyond the door.

Elana froze, listening.

Footsteps in the hallway. It sounded like a group of people, coming up fast.

She reached back to tap Soren’s forearm urgently, alerting him, but she could already feel him moving, reaching for his sword.

His back was rigid against hers, every muscle taut with lockspring tension as he angled her away from the door and him towards it.

Elana inhaled sharply, doing the math.

There was a faint rattle of steel on steel—chainmail. That would be better handled with her artifact than his sword. Except that she was almost certain she was out of mana stones loaded with offensive spells.

“Hey, does this section look a little off to you?” a voice asked, slowing down mere feet away from their location.

The sound of a mage’s staff hitting the floor announced another of the unknown party members.

“What part?”

“This bit. Doesn’t it look like someone just came through here recently?”

What did she have left? Some cloaking spells? Maybe a Petrify?

Elana didn’t want to activate her magic artifact to check. It would risk knocking something over in the cramped closet—like the broom jammed into her ribs—and that would alert them before she was ready.

She’d have to operate on blind faith and move quickly once the approaching party reached their door. If she was wrong—if she couldn’t pull this off—they were fucked.

Elana pushed back against Soren, angling for the front of the closet.

He didn’t budge.

She shoved again, harder.

Move. He needed to move.

But—nothing.

The man was a solid wall of resistance, no doubt preparing himself to do something monumentally stupid and unnecessarily noble.

She grabbed for his wrist, stilling his sword hand. There was no code for, ‘Are you an idiot?’ but she dug her fingers in, screaming it.

The unknown mage spoke again. “I don’t see it.”

”Right there, see? Blood!”

The rattle of chainmail drew closer.

Elana stiffened, resisting the urge to whip around and look at Soren. They were too confined. It was too risky. But he was bleeding? She’d thought his wound was cauterized. Fuck.

Elana clenched her jaw and shoved Soren’s back a final time, but he didn’t budge—even though he damn well knew what she was trying to communicate. That absolutely insubordinate, stubborn ox of a man.

“Hey! You two!” a third voice called from the other side of the hallway. “Get a move on! It won’t matter if we can’t breach the checkpoint on the roof. Hurry up.”

“Yessir!”

As suddenly as the footsteps and voices had appeared, they retreated.

Elana released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Soren sagged against her as the tension left his body. His breathing was still uneven, but subdued.

She smacked his leg with the back of her hand. He was lucky she couldn’t make a sound, that fucking stubborn, self-sacrificing, brick wall of a—

No. Elana collected herself, taking a deep breath. She didn’t have time for that. Later. She could yell at him later. At that moment, they didn’t have time to waste. She needed a plan.

She reached for him again, this time for another coded message—‘time out’—instead of more abuse.

Elana knew her limitations. Direct, head-to-head battles were her weak point. Unlike the students she was competing against, relying on magic wasn’t an option for her. Instead, she needed to rely on artifacts, potions, and Soren.

She was out of potions. Her mana artifact was almost out of spells. And Soren was a flawless swordsman, but a limited mage. He had command of a handful of basic spells, but she couldn’t task him with holding their offense and defense on his shoulders—hell, she shouldn’t have been tasking him with anything at all right then.

He needed to conserve his mana for the sake of his own wellbeing, especially since he was worse off than she’d thought.

How long had he been bleeding? How much had he—damn it, no. She needed to focus.

All told, Soren was more than capable of holding his own—when he didn’t have to protect her. The trial had just required more of that than she’d planned for.

At first glance, the advantage of the Third Trial was that, unlike earlier ones, combat wasn’t an explicit requirement to meet the victory conditions. Instead, its conditions were simply:

1) To survive until the end

2) To be in the end zone when time was called

And, technically, only Elana needed to be in the end zone for both of them to pass the Trial. If she made it to the end, Soren would complete the exam by default, since he was her registered defender.

Elana checked the magic artifact on her wrist. A neat row of numbers glowed up at her. It had been sixteen hours and thirty-six minutes since the Trial began.

They’d received no specific time frame for how long the Trial would last. They would only know it was ending when the thirty-second ending countdown began. It was impossible to predict how much longer theirs would go on for.

She’d already miscalculated once and put Soren in an impossible position. It was a common strategy for stronger teams to stake out the end zone, thinning out competitors as they arrived.

The Third Trial hadn’t been introduced as a battle royale, so she’d expected everyone’s behavior to reflect that. Elana had been careless, assuming her classmates were as disinterested in shedding unnecessary blood as she was. That was naïve of her.

She should have known better. She did know better.

When she and Soren had climbed the last flight of stairs, finally reaching the rooftop doors, the bodies had already been piling up. She hadn’t been able to tell which of her peers were responsible, but whoever they were, they were a gifted pyromancer.

Elana and Soren had spent weeks shoring up his defenses with all manner of potions and anti-status inoculations—and the caster’s spell had still managed to burn through them.

Her jaw clenched. It should have been her, but Soren had thrown himself into harm’s way—again. Always. Every godforsaken time. How many times had she told him that, between the two of them, it was better for her to be injured? She couldn’t compensate for Soren’s physical combat skills, but he could easily make up for hers.

The assets she brought to the table—her magic artifact and her mind—didn’t require her to be in prime physical condition. All she needed to be was alive in order to use them.

Sure, they’d managed to get out of the mayhem in one piece, but the damage was already done. They were down their most powerful combatant. And she had no doubt that that same overpowered pyromancer was still lying in wait on the roof, picking off anyone else who threatened to make it to the end zone.

Elana ran her fingers over each of the mana stones equipped to her magic artifact. She’d started with ten single-use spells equipped, but only five were left. She glanced down, finally taking a mental inventory of which spells were still available to her:

(1) Petrify: transforms any matter into stone for five mins, 1x

(1) Reflect: protective barrier around the user repels any spell back to original caster, 1x

(1) Veil of Silence: soundproofing within a two-meter radius of the user, 30s

(1) Thief’s Shroud: allows user to move without being perceived, 15s

(2) Rush Step: allows user to increase speed x5, 15s

No recovery magic. No offensive magic. Only one buff.

That settled it. There was no way they could fight their way through.

She tapped a message out on Soren’s forearm: ‘Quick. Thirty seconds.’

He relayed it back, and Elana crushed the remaining Veil of Silence spell stone, activating it with a murmured incantation. They had thirty seconds to talk without worrying about giving their position away. They couldn’t waste any time, but—

“You should have dodged!” The words were tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Are you daft? You can fight. I can’t. I’m the only one of us who can afford to take something with a status effect attached.”

They’d already had the same fight a thousand times, but his injuries bothered her no less in that moment than they had the first time.

She smacked his thigh, hissing, “And who gave you permission to get hurt?”

Soren’s deep, quiet voice was as calm and measured as ever. “Duke de Vanquise charged me with your safety.”

“Are you really going to—oh, nevermind that.” She knew, from experience, that that particular fight could go on forever. They didn’t have forever. “Can you still fight?” she asked.

Soren flexed his hand and moved his arm around experimentally. “I think so.”

She couldn’t see his expression, but she could see from the corner of her eye that his range of motion was more limited than usual—and much more stiff.

“I didn’t ask what you think, I asked if you can.”

“I can, my lady,” he said with a little too much conviction.

She clenched her hands.

Soren was downplaying his injury. She could hear it in his voice—he was too unshaken, too unaffected to be believable. If they’d had the luxury of time, she would’ve called him out on it there and then, but they didn’t.

If Soren couldn’t fight head-on—which he couldn’t, or at least, not safely—then the only plan available was her back-up option. Her last resort.

The idea alone made Elana’s stomach churn, but she had to push on.

“Change of plans,” she said, speaking as quickly as she could. “We stay put until the countdown. If we can bar the door, they might mistake this for just another locked door on this level. By now, everyone should know that the rooms are dead ends.”

She glanced at her wrist. Her artifact showed fifteen seconds left of the Veil of Silence. She knew he was going to fight her on the next part—and could only pray it wouldn’t take all their remaining time to convince him.

She cleared her throat, summoning as much authority into her voice as she could. “When the countdown starts, I want you to stay.”

“Absolutely not—”

“I’m your master,” she insisted. She dug her fingers into Soren’s forearm, more desperate than she’d felt in a long time. She needed him to comply. She didn’t have time to convince him. “This is not up for debate.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” he hissed. “You don’t have mana, and you’re not a physical combatant. It’s too risky—”

“I don’t need to fight,” she snapped. “I have pre-loaded haste, reflect, and invisibility spells. I’m going to make a break for the checkpoint.”

“Then use them on me,” he said, with iron-clad, infuriating conviction. His voice was steady and even, as unwavering as ever—as if he wasn’t actively bleeding out. “I can take you.”

Ten seconds left.

“You think I can’t tell when my defender is injured?” Elana stomped her foot. “You can’t carry me across the finish line. The only thing I need from you is for you to stay here.”

“Respectfully, no.” His voice was gentle but firm. “Are you forgetting who you are, Lady Elana de Vanquise? How am I supposed to show my face in front of your father if you risk yourself to spare me?”

Elana clenched her jaw. “You’re being insubordinate.”

He had the audacity to laugh. “I wouldn’t dare,” he said with mock solemnity.

For half a second, she seriously considered whether she might actually be better off not having to deal with his shit anymore. Maybe she should just let him be the self-sacrificing idiot he so obviously wanted to be. It would’ve been easier.

She threw the idea out immediately. She wouldn’t be better off without him—she’d just be screwed. She knew that. She’d done the math before.

Five seconds left.

Elana’s hands tangled in her upswept hair as her thoughts spiraled into abject chaos. Soren was never going to agree. She could feel it in his body language, in the stubborn set of his shoulders, in the tension of his against hers.

“You won’t be able to show your face in front of him if you’re dead either!”

“That isn’t a position you would put me in,” he said, shrugging.

She thought she might actually kill him when the Trial ended. He sounded so dead certain that it made her want to scream, to rip her hair out, to throw an absolute fit—but she settled for pulling at the roots of her hair instead, desperately searching for a solution.

“The duchess called you a master tactician, didn’t she?” he added. “You’ll find a way.”

“Tacticians need obedient pawns, Soren,” she shot back.

How could he have such blind faith in her and, in the same breath, disobey her completely? There was no time left, no back-up plan. She couldn’t protect both of them in a rush to the checkpoint. There was just no way.

Two seconds left.

As if he could sense her dismay, Soren gave her forearm a squeeze. His grip was a steady, familiar comfort—even as his breathing remained ragged, his skin was unnaturally hot, and the scent of iron and burnt flesh hung heavy in the air.

There was a knot in her throat. She knew what she had to do. There was only one way forward.

“If you go, I go,” Soren murmured, this thumb smoothing over her skipping pulse. “So, find another way. I know you can.”

He was the only one who ever spoke to her like that—like he really thought she could do anything. He had too much faith in her. He always had.

Zero seconds left.

It made what she was about to do worse.

“I’m sorry, Soren.” Elana turned around in the cramped space, placing the flat of her palm between his shoulder blades. He went rigid, every ounce of his projected ease vanishing.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I’m my mother’s daughter,” she whispered, hating how the words threatened to catch in her throat. “You know how we favor pragmatism.”

Soren exhaled sharply. “Elana—”

She crushed the mana stone, and the spell in her hand surged to life. “Petrify.”