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“No.” He shakes his head. “There’s no one. How is this possible, Seren? You’re a Sidus. I’ve seen your powers.”
Guilt seeps into my chest at the look on his face. I knew I was eventually going to tell him. But so many things have happened since then that it became something I would do later.
I guess later is now.
“I didn’t know if I could trust you,” I tell him. I wince when I hear myself say it out loud, especially when he has trusted me this long with his. “But the truth is, I have both Sidus and Caligo powers. Just like you.”
He snaps his mouth closed as he nods his head quickly. “Yes, I mean… I just?—”
“Never met anyone else like you?” I finish.
“Yes…” Oryn gives me a strange look.
“I understand. I never thought there was anyone else like me, either. But I’m glad I have. It’s nice not to feel so alone.” I give him a soft smile, one he slowly shares with me.
“Let’s keep moving,” I tell him and turn to inspect the rest of this obstacle.
With the vantage point, I am able to spot the end of it easily. We move through the rest of the green stairway maze without much resistance.
Once we’re clear of it, we come to a long tunnel with a roof overhead and sides that encase it. There is a slim stone path through the center of it. But the path doesn’t reach across to the sides, and it is only held up by its connections to the end of the tunnel and the start of it where Oryn and I stand. There doesn’t seem to be any other way around it, and should either of us fall, we most definitely will be falling to our death.
Oryn steps up beside me, swallowing hard when he sees it. “We should be able to just walk across it. The path isn’t that thin. It’s wide enough for one person to walk on at a time.”
But it’s not the path that I am worried about. The guards would never have something as simple or easy, and I have already sensed them.
Oryn moves to step forward when I reach out to stop him.
He begins to explain. “I’ll go first to check?—”
“No. Look.” I tip my head toward the shadowed sides.
He turns to scan the area. “I don’t see—” The shadows move slightly. “What are they?”
“Guards,” I reply.
Oryn’s head whips to me. “How are you so sure? They could be beasts or rebels.”
A shadow slashes out at us before retreating, and I raise a brow at Oryn. “Rebels don’t have Caligo abilities.”
Oryn frowns as he looks to them. “Why are they doing this?”
“They don’t want me to continue on in the competition,” I tell him truthfully.
“I think they’re doing it forallcontestants, not just you.” He gives me a sympathetic look meant to alleviate the worries he thinks I have. But he has no idea what the guards are truly like, nor how far they are willing to go to see me fail.
“Go first then,” I tell him, ready to prove my point.
He pauses. “What?”
“Go first.” I dip my head toward the thin path. “Use your Caligo abilities to keep you atop the path. Be quick about it, and you should have no problem.”
“I’ll prove it to you.” He moves onto the path, his shadows coiling out of him to act like a rope to tether him to the path. They move along with him as he walks forward.
The guards’ shadows don’t move an inch, not until he’s near the end, and then they make a feeble attempt to slash out at him.
Oryn turns to me at the end of the path, a wide smile on his face. He thinks he has just proven his little theory, but he hasn’t seen mine come to pass yet.
The minute my foot hits the path, shadows from both sides whip out to slash and attack. Oryn looks on in horror, but I am ready for this.
