If I ever find the sadist who designed these Trials, I’m punching them right in the existential. We’re barely out of the carnivorous garden, limping on splints and wolf-pelt bandages, and already the world’s shifting again. Now the path twists through a jungle so dense it feels like the air is conspiring to choke us. Every leaf glistens with probably-poison dew, every shadow a mugger in waiting. Elen and I move in single file—her limp’s back, my ankle’s a sack of gravel, both of us so wound up we’d spot a threat in our own reflections.

  She’s behind me, careful with every step, the rope between us a lifeline woven from wolf sinew, wire, and mutual trauma. I lead with my knife out, senses buzzing like I’ve mainlined raw caffeine. Every swing aches; every reaction is a fraction too slow. Elen’s breath hitches when the trail slopes—her leg’s mostly healed, but she moves like she’s waiting for it to betray her.

  Our gear is a joke. My “canteen” is a cleaned-out lizard bladder. Elen’s knife is half jawbone, half charity case. My boots are more patch than leather, laced with cactus fiber and bad decisions. We’re holding it together with spite and some very questionable knots.

  The jungle thins, and up ahead a cluster of candidates waits—six of them, spaced like chess pieces. Their eyes track us, cold and calculating. The rope between Elen and me is more than a tool; it’s a statement. We’re a team, even if everyone else sees us as baggage.

  We step into the clearing, and silence slams down. Lucius, Alaric, Caden, Miranda, Darius, and one kid I don’t recognize—definitely not noble house stock. The tension is thick enough to choke on. I spot scars, missing fingers, the haunted look in Miranda’s eyes. These are survivors, not friends.

  Miranda gives us a slow once-over, her gaze landing on our grubby gear before curling her lip in a smirk. She leans toward Caden and “whispers” just loud enough for us to hear: “Some people just can’t let go of the buddy system. Maybe they’re hoping for a two-for-one elimination.” Her voice is honeyed poison—the kind of mean-girl venom you’d expect at a noble house gala, not in a death jungle.

  Elen breaks the ice, voice flat. “Thirty-five days until the next door. If the pattern holds.”

  Alaric grins, but it looks painful. “You two look like you’ve been through hell.”

  Elen shrugs, flicking her thumbnail against her tooth. “Been there. Got the limp to prove it.”

  Lucius stalks forward, arms crossed, sneer dialed to eleven. “Crimson and Viper. Cute. Didn’t peg you two for the codependent type.”

  I let my knife dangle, just enough teeth in my smile to warn him off. “Not all of us are lone wolves, Lucius. Some of us believe in strategic alliances. You should try it—beats talking to yourself every night.”

  He scoffs, jaw tight. “Only the weak rely on others.”

  My hand tightens on my knife, but Elen steps between us, posture ironclad. “We made it this far as a team,” she says, tone icy. “Let’s see how far you get solo, Lucius.”

  He flicks his gaze over me, dismissive. “I’d rather be alone than slowed down by liabilities.”

  I almost bark back, but Elen’s glare keeps me steady. This is how it starts: the subtle digs, the shifting alliances, the strong circling, the weak getting edged out. Elen’s eyes narrow, and I feel the rope between us tighten. Now it’s not just for safety—it’s a dare.

  The group fractures almost immediately. Miranda and Caden peel off together, their laughter sharp as knives. I catch snatches—barbs about who’s “dead weight,” who’s “playing dress-up,” who’s “one bad night away from eating their own boots.” Mean-girl energy, dialed to eleven. Alaric hovers at the edge, testing loyalties, nudging Darius like they’re co-conspirators at a masquerade ball.

  Elen and I orbit the group’s periphery—never quite insiders, never total outcasts. Honestly, I don’t care. Popularity contests aren’t my thing—especially when the losers end up fertilizer.

  Kraven doesn’t rise to the games. When Miranda aims a snide “Crimson, Viper, and their pet ghost” in his direction, he just grunts and sharpens his knife, the patience in his silence somehow more menacing than threats. The others steer clear. Elen rolls her eyes, but I notice she stands a little closer to him after that.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Little by little, Kraven drifts into our orbit—not quite one of us, not fully apart. Sometimes he passes a scrap of dried meat, or mutters a warning about ground that “doesn’t smell right.” He never asks for anything in return. In a place where every favor is a transaction, that’s almost more unsettling than if he demanded payment.

  He starts as a shadow—patching up his own wounds, then quietly offering Elen a fresh strip of bandage. She grumbles but lets him check her splint, and I catch her glancing at him with a mix of suspicion and relief. The next day, when my ankle swells, Kraven just squats beside me, hands me a scavenged cloth, and waits until I grudgingly prop up my foot. The gesture is so neutral it’s hard to get mad at. Almost.

  He never tries to wedge himself between me and Elen. Instead, he lingers at our edge, a buffer against the meaner currents. When Miranda and Caden ramp up the snide commentary—“Get a load of Team Codependent over there”—Kraven just sharpens his knife, eyes flicking up in a way that shuts them up cold. Elen’s shoulders relax a notch, and I find, almost against my will, that I’m starting to count on him being there.

  Rain comes in sheets. Nights are cold, the jungle howling with unseen threats. One night, when my ankle feels like it’s full of glass, I wake to find Kraven sitting guard, eyes reflecting the tiny flames of our pathetic campfire. He just nods when I meet his gaze. It should be awkward, but it isn’t. Not anymore.

  We fall into a rhythm. Elen and I bicker, but Kraven becomes the buffer—stepping in when tempers flare, distracting us with stories of old missions or, once, a surprisingly sweet memory of his little sister. It’s not trust, not exactly. But it’s closer than we were at the start.

  Thirty-five days blur by in a fever dream—patching wounds, rationing water, sleeping in shifts. I keep my knife close, my back to the wall, my trust at zero. My ankle heals slow; Elen’s leg swells, the bone knitting wrong. Kraven patches us both, fussing over injuries whether we want him to or not. We all make mistakes: Elen drops our last firestarter into a puddle, I nearly stab her in my sleep when she wakes me for watch, and once Kraven nearly walks into a nest of jade wasps and spends a day swelling up like a balloon.

  The jungle never lets us forget it’s hungry. One night, just before dawn, we’re jolted awake by screams—raw, animal, way too close. Lucius and Darius barrel through the undergrowth, wild-eyed, with something chasing them that’s all claws and eyeshine. For a split second, all the old alliances shatter. Miranda tries to bar our path with a branch, but Kraven bulldozes right through, dragging us with him. In the chaos, someone swipes our last strip of dried meat.

  When the sun finally claws its way up, the group is smaller. Darius is gone. Miranda’s got blood on her hands and won’t say whose. Lucius is sullen and silent, and if he’s planning to kill us in our sleep, he’s not even hiding it now.

  Paranoia sets in hard. Every snapping twig is an ambush, every shadow a trap. Elen mutters numbers under her breath, calculating odds. Kraven barely sleeps, pacing the camp’s edge, knife always ready. I start seeing movement at the corners of my eyes—bright colors that vanish when I look, phantom hands reaching through the vines.

  The thing is, the jungle’s not just trying to kill us. It wants us to turn on each other. And most of them do.

  But we don’t. We hold the rope. We patch wounds. We guard each other’s backs, even when we’re too tired to speak. I start to realize: maybe that’s what the Trials are really about. Not just surviving the monsters, but surviving each other—and not letting the world make you into something you hate.

  The toll is real—slowed reflexes, snappy tempers, the constant threat that one wrong move ends it all.

  When the double doors appear—floating on a lake that shouldn’t exist—we’re ready to claw our way through anything. The water’s black and freezing, dotted with hunks of ice and the occasional bloated corpse. Elen and I knot ourselves together, rope at the ready.

  She shivers, voice tight. “Cut the rope if you have to.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I say, grinning. My hands shake too hard to tie a decent knot, but she helps, her fingers steady even if her voice isn’t.

  Kraven tests every knot twice, hands steady even as the rest of us shiver. “If one of us goes under, the others pull,” he says, voice flat but firm. “No heroes. We all make it, or none of us do.”

  For a second, I see something raw in his eyes—fear, maybe, or hope. I squeeze his shoulder, surprised at how natural it feels. Elen just grunts, but her grip on the rope tightens. I know she feels it too: the shift from alliance to something almost like family.

  We wait until the others make their move—Lucius first, slicing through the water like a shark, Caden and Miranda close behind. Only when it’s clear do we wade in, dragging our sled of junk. The cold is a slap. My muscles rebel, my bad shoulder spasms, and for a terrifying moment I almost let go, vision tunneling. Elen shouts, yanking the rope, and I claw my way back to the surface. One mistake. That’s all it takes.

  We haul ourselves onto the far bank, soaked and shuddering, and drag our battered bodies through the portal.

  Kraven’s the first to his feet, helping Elen up with a gentleness that surprises me. He offers me a hand, and I take it without protest for once. We’re a mess—soaked, shivering, teeth chattering—but for the first time, I don’t feel like I’m carrying the world alone. The three of us stand together, battered but not broken, and step into the portal as a unit.

  Darkness swallows us whole.