Page 73 of On Burning Paths

I feel my magic rush up under my skin, as though begging to be used. After drinking the Veridra juice, it has felt as close as ever. More powerful, even. Although it might just be in my head.

Now, I tip my head up and look around, trying to figure out why Thorian has stopped us. The crystals still sparkle overhead in an array of beautiful colors, reminding me of Ivor. But when I lean to the side, peaking out from behind Fenric, I see what’s stopped us.

A dead end.

My heart leaps into my throat, and I feel Talon’s hand against my back. A comforting touch that I lean into. They all know just how to make me feel cared for.

"We'll have to turn around," Thorian says, but instead of rearranging, we just turn in the opposite direction, so Talon is now leading.

And then the whole cave moves.

It isn't like anything I've felt before. It’s not a tremor, nor a rumble. The entire structure groans from somewhere deep inside itself, a sound so low it's less heard than felt, vibrating up through the soles of my boots and into my bones. The walls shudder. Dust cascades from every surface at once, filling the air instantly, turning the torchlight a thick, choking amber.

Then the crystals come down.

They fall like glass rain, heavy and sharp, some of them the size of my fist, cracking against the cave floor and shattering into fragments. One catches my arm and I feel the sting of it, the warm trickle of blood running to my wrist. Fenric covers me before I can react, curling his body over mine, and I hear the impacts landing across his back, hear him absorb them without making a sound.

The shaking intensifies. Somewhere above us, something shifts and cracks, and a section of the ceiling gives way, chunks of rock hitting the floor with impacts that shake the ground beneath us all over again. One of the stalactites comes down whole, spearing into the cave floor three feet from where Talon is standing, and the sound of it is deafening in the enclosed space.

Dust floods my throat and I clamp my mouth shut, pressing my hands over my mouth, trying to breathe in small controlled pulls through my nose while the cave continues to tear itself apart around us.

The moment the shaking stops, and the crystals have stopped raining down on us, I straighten up. “Thorian? Talon?”

“We’re here,” Thorian says weakly, coughing and lifting his head.

“What happened?” Fenric asks, his arms still around me, even as I stand.

“I’m not sure,” Thorian says, “but we should get out of here before it happens again.”

We start moving, this time with Fenric at the back, his hands on me, and Talon and Thorian ahead, but after just a minute more of walking, Thorian stops.

I crane my head around Talon's shoulder to see past him, and my stomach drops.

A wall. Solid, flat, unbroken stone, stretching the full width of the passage.

I stare at it, trying to make it make sense. We came from this direction. I'm certain of it, certain enough that I'd stake my life on it, and I realize with a cold lurch that I may be doing exactly that. I look back over my shoulder, then forward again. The torchlight throws the same shadows, illuminates the same walls, the same uneven floor. Everything looks exactly like it should.

Except there should not be a wall here.

"Did we get turned around?" I ask, though I don't believe it. I don't think any of us believe it.

"No," Thorian says. He places his palm flat against the stone, like he's checking that it's real. "This is the way we came in."

"Then why is there a wall?" Fenric asks from behind me.

Nobody answers, because none of us have an answer. The cave that let us in has simply, quietly, decided not to let us out.

“Let’s look for another way out,” Thorian suggests.

So we do. But each time we turn and walk, we run into another dead end. Time after time, we take new paths, turning and retracing, only to find a solid wall blocking the path out.

“What the fuck?” Thorian growls. “What kind of trial is this? Being blocked in?”

“So, you’ve never faced something like this before?” I ask.

Thorian hesitates. “I thought we would be fighting our competitors.”

Talon groans, “So, that’s a no, then.”