Chapter 13: Shadows and Sparks
The storm had passed.
For now.
With Nysera's warning still fresh and Mihai's words echoing in his mind, Andrew spent the next week in the barracks—not training alone, not retreating into silence—but with the others.
It started small.
He repaired broken swords, helped new blood control mana flow. He trained silently beside Kaelira until she started matching his strikes, sweat pouring from her brow, her fire magic rippling with new strength.
By the third day, even Serin—the noble alchemist who once called him "a walking curse"—sat beside him during strategy drills.
Not everyone trusted him yet.
But they were watching.
And trust doesn't come from words.
It comes from choice.
At sunset, the champions gathered in the courtyard. A moment of peace before the next trial—one none of them had yet heard the details of.
Andrew sat beneath an old tree, Ashren laid flat across his knees. He wasn't meditating. Just listening.
Kaelira approached, her voice uncertain.
"You're different from him," she said. "The one in the visions. The one from the stories."
Andrew didn't look up. "He's still in there. But I'm not his future. I'm my own."
She nodded, quietly.
"I think that's what scares the council most."
Far below Caedros, beneath stone and mana-forged iron, it stirred.
Locked in obsidian, sealed beneath the roots of the world, a god-forged being began to awaken.
Once called Thal'Ruun—the Arbiter of Balance.
One of the old guardians that watched over the veils between life and death. Between past and present.
And it had felt the Endblade's return.
It did not see Andrew.
It saw disruption.
It saw chaos.
And it would rise if the balance tipped too far again.
Its first whisper echoed into the ether, unheard by mortal ears:
"He lives. The mistake returns."
The next morning, horns rang across the capital.
The final trial before the tournament's closing arc had been declared:
The Descent.
A plunge into the Labyrinth of Stonewrought Depths—where mana storms tear the air apart, illusions twist the mind, and nothing is as it seems.
Only five may leave.
The others must fall.
And for the first time since the tournament began…
Andrew didn't feel alone.