Chapter 41: Entering The Chamber [2]
A slow warmth spread up through my palm from the cover of the book. It climbed my wrist by degrees, past my forearm, into the space behind my collarbone.
My mana channels caught it a beat later. A thin steady draw started somewhere below my sternum, small enough that I barely felt it.
I didn’t move my hand.
Kira stayed at my back. The dagger was still in her free hand at her side. Her breath came shallow behind me.
The seam under the Manual started to glow.
A soft gold line lit up along the hairline crack, faint at first, then brighter. The glow spread from the point where the Manual touched the door, working its way up toward the top of the panels and down toward the floor, following the seam in both directions at the same time.
The symbols on the door caught the light.
They lit up in a slow cascade, band by band, the rows glowing gold from the seam outward toward the frame. The alphabet I couldn’t read. The wrong-angled wards. The random scratches. Every mark on both panels came alive in the same soft gold as the seam.
Kira drew a breath.
The Manual under my palm was hot now.
I lifted my hand.
The seam split.
The two panels drew apart with a slow deep rumble that came up through the floor into my boots. The gold in the symbols dimmed to a low glow as the door opened. Cold air spilled out from the gap in a soft rolling wave that carried nothing with it. No smell. No sound. No dust.
The gap widened until the two panels sat flush against the frame on either side.
I looked through.
The inside of the door was black.
Not dark. Black. The kind of black that ate the torch light in my other hand before it could travel a metre past the frame. My flame threw its full orange glow into the opening and the opening drank it whole. No walls. No floor visible. No ceiling. No sense of the depth of the space past the door at all.
The System chimed in my ears and a blue panel unfolded in the corner of my vision. Except it wasn’t blue.
The border of the box glowed a soft, steady gold. The first to ever appear for me
[GOLDEN CHOICE ACTIVATED]
[This is a legacy trial. The chamber past the door holds a challenge that has waited a long time for a candidate.]
[CHOICE A: Pass and accept the Legacy of the Forsaken. Alone. Reward: A-Rank Class Scroll.]
[CHOICE B: Fail the Legacy of the Forsaken. Reward: Death to everyone in the chamber.]
[CHOICE C: Pass and reject the Legacy of the Forsaken. Alone. Reward: A-Rank Class Scroll.]
I read the panel twice.
Then a third time. My throat had gone tight.
Choice B didn’t say Death to myself alone. It said Death to everyone in the chamber. The chamber. Which meant if Kira walked through the door with me and I failed whatever trial waited on the other side, she died. If I walked in alone and failed, she stayed on the outside and lived...whilst I died.
The word Alone appeared in both the win conditions. The System had told me twice in a single panel that only one person went through the door.
Kira was already stepping forward beside me.
I caught her hand.
"Kira. Stay out. Let me enter alone first."
She stopped. Her fingers tightened on mine.
"What. Why?"
"Just stay."
"Ash." Her voice sharpened. "I’m not letting you walk into a room full of nothing on your own. I’m coming with you."
"You’re not."
"I am. If something happens in there, you’ll need cover. My dagger works from range. I can hit something you can’t reach. I’ve been useful in every fight since we got here and I’ll be useful in this one."
"Kira."
"No. Ash, I don’t care what you say, I’m—"
"Please."
She stopped.
She read my face across the small space between us, and whatever she saw in it made her mouth close for a second.
Then she shook her head.
"No. I’m coming with you."
She turned toward the door.
I sighed internally, already regretting my next action. I struck her at the base of the neck.
The edge of my hand came down on the soft spot behind her jaw.
My attack had enough force to drop her unconscious without lasting damage. Her body went slack against my arm before her boot finished its step.
I caught her before she hit the floor.
"Sorry."
I lowered her into a sitting position against the wall beside the door. Her head tipped forward onto her chest, then to the side as I eased her against the stone. Her hair fell across her cheek. Her fingers were still curled around the dagger at her side, and I didn’t take it from her. If something came out of the passage while I was gone, she’d want it in her hand when she woke up.
I set the torch on the floor beside her within reach.
Her breathing was steady. Slow. She’d wake up in ten minutes with a stiff neck and a very bad mood, and I’d rather have her furious with me at the end of this than dead.
I straightened.
The panel was still in the corner of my vision, the gold border pulsing softly.
Three options. Two of them ended with an A-Rank Class Scroll and my name walking back out through the door. One of them ended with a body count.
Accept the legacy or reject it. Both won the prize.
Which meant the trial wasn’t the reward. The trial was the trial. The Scroll came for surviving whatever the room did to me. The choice between accept and reject was whatever waited on the other side of surviving.
I took a slow breath through my nose.
Then I stepped through the door.