Page 149 of The Amber Sunburst

He’s also not unhappy to be leaving. He always thought there was no escape for him—in every future he could imagine, he fell like Icarus and either kicked to try to stay above the waves or just let himself drown—but he never considered that maybe he could just float. And maybe he’ll be able to do that, sailing into the unknown.

When they reach the Main Building and spot the aforementioned Priestess, Lazarus remembers that there’s still a long way to go before he can float.

He needs to make it to the surface first.

45

ALEXANDER

The Priestess in charge lines them up in an arbitrary order that she has written on a parchment. Lazarus, Zeno, and Eudoxia are herded somewhere to the beginning of the line while he and Kallias are around the middle, separated only by that young Cohort Leader who abandoned his team in the first Trial.

Alexander scowls pointedly and the boy smirks back, the little bastard. Before Alexander can rapid-fire some devastating insults, the line moves forward.

He holds his breath as they cross the border out of the Academy. Even though he knows they won’t trigger the alarms, it’s still a relief when they pass it.

Step one, completed. Exit the detection zone.

There is no chatter at all in the line and the heavy silence makes Alexander want to itch off his own skin. Plus, he misses Kallias—he is, indeed, only a few feet ahead of Alexander, but it’s still too far. At this point, anywhere outside of Alexander’s arms would be too far.

They reach a newly made, musty tunnel in the ground and after a long time trekking through it, they come to a stop in front of a metal door with a fancy-looking lock. It’s covered in some kind of wrap made to look like marble, a stark contrast to the dirt it’s embedded in.

Kallias looks back to give him a curt nod.

Let’s do this.

Alexander nods back.

The Priestess opens the door to reveal a narrow and curving hall that, once he enters it, is completely suffocating. Directly to his right is a metal wall, and a foot to the left are numbered doors starting at forty-seven and descending from there.

Eventually the line curves into a full circle and every Auxiliary stands in front of a door, himself at nineteen and Kallias at seventeen. A robotic female voice echoes off the metal walls seconds after everyone stops moving.

“The Trial begins with a choice. Pick wisely.”

“Well, that’s really specific,” he mumbles, but no one is close enough to hear. Zeno would have laughed. And, great, now he misses Zeno too.

The door in front of him clicks and slowly swings open. With that, he focuses in. Whatever decision he’s about to make could make or break everything.

What awaits him inside is not what he expected. He was ready for a crazy trolley problem, but instead there’s a table with six different weapons on it, half of them bronze and half of them steel.

On the steel side is a handgun, a taser, and knuckle dusters. The bronze side, a sword, a spear, and a crossbow.

Okay, well, clearly there’s a theme here: old school versus new school.

Practically speaking, the taser would be the best. It would knock out but not maim anyone who tries to pick a fight with him. Obviously no one is going to choose the handgun because if the pattern holds, the Guardians aren’t going to let anyone die. Which means the gun has to be full of blanks.

He reaches for the taser, but stops himself. What about the Minotaur?

Whether it’s a fifteen-foot bull or something else, Theseus killed the Minotaur with a bronze sword. What if the Guardians are testing their knowledge of the myth, or of how much of the hint they understood? What if the monster can only be defeated by bronze?

And with that, the modern weapons feel out of the question. He investigates the bronze trio. It’s not very hard to pick one.

Alexander is a king. And a king doesn’t shoot from afar, doesn’t throw unwieldy blades. A king goes out swinging.

He grabs the sword.

The moment he does, the other weapons flicker like they’re glitching, and then disappear. He instinctively reaches out to where they used to be, and, to his surprise, he can still feel them there. That answers the very first question he had after stepping into the Republic.

He didn’t teleport from the coast to the city, nor was he hallucinating. It’s perception that they toy with here. Before he can appreciate it, the female voice comes back.