Aurelia stood completely still, staring at the boar. It wasn’t moving anymore. The massive body lay motionless in the grass, spikes shattered in a dozen places, blood soaking the ground beneath it in a widening dark stain.
Cassian’s final strike had torn straight through the last of its defenses. The force of that flaming kick had broken the armor and finished what neither of his friends had managed alone.
The beast was dead.
She turned slowly toward him. He lay several meters away, the flames gone now, eyes closed, body completely still.
"Cassian...?"
She rushed to his side and dropped to her knees, one hand on his shoulder. "Cassian, wake up."
Nothing. She shook him gently. "Come on..."
Still nothing.
Her eyes dropped to his chest. It rose and fell in a slow, shallow rhythm.
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. "He’s alive..."
For a moment she just sat there, glancing back at the dead boar. Minutes ago that creature had seemed unbeatable. Her ice had barely scratched it. Zayd’s sand hadn’t been enough either. And somehow Cassian had broken through where neither of them could. She still didn’t understand exactly how.
A groan came from behind her. She turned. Zayd was stirring, his face twisted with pain.
"Ugh..."
"Zayd!"
She hurried over. He tried to sit up, and the moment he shifted his injured arm his whole face tightened.
"Ah!"
"Don’t move!"
He looked down. Blood still ran freely the sand that had armored his arm through the fight had faded completely, leaving the wound bare and raw underneath.
"It’s not that bad."
"You almost lost the whole arm."
"...Okay. Maybe a little bad."
Aurelia tore a strip of fabric from her own sleeve and bound it tight around the wound, her fingers careful even through the exhaustion clearly dragging at her.
"You don’t have to do that."
"Yes, I do."
"You’re just as tired as I am."
"I know."
"Then why are you still standing?"
She paused halfway through tying the knot. "Because someone has to."
He didn’t have an answer for that. She finished tying it off. "There."
He flexed his fingers experimentally. "Still works."
"Good."
He got to his feet slowly, legs shaking for a moment before they steadied under him. Then he looked over at Cassian. "We need to wake him up."
They crossed over together. Zayd crouched and tapped Cassian’s cheek. "Hey. Cassian." Nothing. "Wake up."
Still nothing. He glanced at Aurelia. "He’s completely out."
"Maybe we should let him rest."
"We don’t have time to."
"What?"
He pointed off through the trees. "The Selection."
Her eyes widened. She’d nearly forgotten entirely. The first stage was still running, and they still had to reach the yellow tree before the hour ran out.
"How much time is left?"
"About ten minutes, if I’m guessing right."
Her eyes went wide too. "Ten?"
"We spent too long fighting that thing."
He looked at Cassian, then down the path ahead. "The tree can’t be far now. If we leave him here, we could still make it in time."
"We’re not leaving him."
He glanced down at his ruined arm. "With this?"
"We don’t have a choice have you forgotten the rules? If even one of us is missing, all three of us fail."
He sighed, already resigned. "Fine."
Together they lifted Cassian between them. Aurelia took most of his weight; Zayd supported him from the other side with his good arm, Cassian’s head lolling against her shoulder, both arms hanging limp. He still hadn’t opened his eyes.
"Ready?"
She nodded. "Let’s go."
They walked on together. The forest had gone strangely quiet around them, their own footsteps the only sound left in it. The trees loomed enormous overhead, blotting out nearly all the light that had made it this far in the first place.
"This place feels different now," Zayd said.
"What do you mean?"
"I don’t know." He glanced back the way they’d come. "It’s just too quiet. Even for this forest."
She listened, and he was right. No birds. No insects. Nothing moving through the brush at all. Nothing.
"Maybe the boar scared everything else off."
They kept walking. After a few minutes Aurelia’s arms had started to ache in earnest. Cassian wasn’t heavy, not really, but after everything that had already happened, even his weight felt like too much. Her shoulders burned.
"Switch with me," Zayd said.
"You can’t use that arm."
"I can still use the other one."
"You’re hurt."
"So are you."
"I’m not bleeding."
They carried on without another word. Then
Crack.
Both of them froze at once. A branch had snapped somewhere behind them.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes."
They stood perfectly still. Nothing happened. The silence stretched long enough to ache.
"Probably just another animal," Zayd murmured, not sounding at all convinced of it.
Aurelia scanned the trees around them. "I don’t see anything."
They waited a while longer. Still nothing came.
"Let’s keep moving."
A few minutes after that, Cassian finally stirred. Aurelia froze mid-step. "Cassian?"
His fingers twitched. His head shifted against her shoulder. His eyes opened slowly, the whole world swimming in and out of focus above him.
"...Aurelia?"
She smiled, relief breaking through her voice. "You’re awake."
He blinked hard, trying to clear the haze. "What happened?"
"You beat the boar."
"...The boar?"
"Yes."
He looked around and saw Zayd’s bandaged arm for the first time. "What happened to you?"
"The boar."
His eyes went wide. "I-I beat it?"
Zayd nodded slowly. "You saved both of us."
Cassian looked down at his own hands, his mind still thick and hazy. He remembered the boar charging Aurelia. He remembered hitting the ground hard, the impact driving the breath out of him. Everything after that was simply gone a blank white space where a memory should have been.
"I don’t remember any of it."
"You were unconscious," Aurelia said carefully.
"Then how did I even use my ability?"
Zayd glanced at Aurelia before answering. "We don’t know."
"You don’t?"
He shook his head. "One second you were flat on the ground. The next there was an explosion, and you were standing over it."
"And when I looked again," Aurelia added, "the boar was already dead."
Cassian stared between them both. "So I really did that."
"Apparently."
He looked down at his own leg. "But I don’t remember calling my flames at all. Not even a little."
Zayd said nothing to that. For once he had no explanation ready to give.
Cassian pushed himself upright, testing his own legs. "Whatever happened, we can’t stay here."
"The Selection’s not over yet."
"Then let’s finish it," Aurelia said.
"Together," Cassian agreed.
They walked on, Cassian managing under his own strength now exhausted, unsteady, but refusing to be carried another step. The forest grew brighter the farther they went, thin paths of sunlight finding their way through gaps in the canopy at last. The air warmed by degrees.
Then Cassian went still. "Wait."
Aurelia stopped beside him. "What?"
He pointed. "There."
Between the trees stood a massive tree, its leaves burning bright yellow against the dark of the forest around it, like something lit from within.
Zayd’s face broke into the first real smile he’d managed all day. "The yellow tree."
They’d made it.
Cassian let out a long, ragged breath. "We actually did it."
"We still have to reach it," Aurelia reminded him.
They started walking toward it together. But the closer they got, the stranger the air felt around them the silence thickening further, the wind itself seeming to hold its breath.
Cassian slowed his steps. "Why’s it so quiet?"
No one answered him.
Then Aurelia stopped dead, her eyes going wide. "Guys..."
"What?"
She pointed toward the base of the tree. Someone was standing beneath it tall, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned, black-haired. The same man Cassian had crashed into before the Selection had even started.
His back was turned to them. He hadn’t moved at all.
Cassian frowned. "It’s him..."
The man’s head turned, slow and unhurried, until his eyes found Cassian’s across the clearing. For a moment neither of them said a word. The silence between them felt deliberate chosen, the way a held breath is chosen.
Then Cassian noticed something scattered across the ground at the man’s feet. His expression changed all at once. "...W-what is that?"
Aurelia looked down. All the color drained out of her face. Zayd followed her gaze a half-second later and went just as pale.
Several shapes lay in the grass beneath the tree. At first glance they might have passed for stones.
Then Cassian understood exactly what he was looking at.