She collapsed onto solid ground, coughing, smeared from shoulder to toe in muck. For a long moment, none of us moved, breaths ragged in the choking fog.
Then Finn stiffened. His gaze darted to the right, toward the faint shimmer we had seen beyond the marsh. “
The second shard-it’s gone.”
My eyes widened as I searched for the glow, but it had vanished.
Judy swore viciously. “That was it. Gone. Gods damn it!”
Talia’s shoulders slumped. “The other shards are in the opposite zone, and we’ll never make it there in time to find two.”
Their despair pressed heavy in the air, gnawing at the strands of fragile unity we had left. For a heartbeat, even I felt it-the crushing weight of inevitability. We were too late.
But surrender wasn’t an option.
I straightened, wiping muck from my hands. “We’re still breathing. That means we still try. The other shards are across the woods. Longer route or not, we move.”
Judy opened her mouth, then shut it again, jaw clenched. Finn gave a single, steady nod. Talia bit her lip but whispered, “Okay.”
Behind us, Roxy staggered upright, eyes blazing. “You guys really are stupid, you know that?”
I arched a brow. “Excuse you?”
She wiped a sleeve across her face, then reached into her mud-soaked bag and rummaged blindly. After a while, she pulled out a glowing fragment of stone, slick with swamp water but unmistakable-the second
Moonstone Shard.
My breath caught. “You had it?”
She shrugged, her voice trembling. “I grabbed it before I…” She glanced at the swamp and shuddered. ” Another team was close, I thought they’d take it from me, so I ran. Then…well…” She gestured at the swamp.
The others stared in stunned silence.
Judy finally barked out a laugh, sharp and delighted. “You almost drowned sitting on the damn thing?”
Color flared in Roxy’s cheeks. “Shut up. You guys were the ones who risked the whole damn challenge to get me out.”
“Yeah,” Judy snorted. “Pretty stupid of us.”
Roxy scoffed and said nothing.
But something shifted in that moment.
The tension that had crackled between us since the start softened. Just a little.
And just like that, Roxy wasn’t a rival or a burden now. She was a teammate, mud-stained and stubborn, but ours.
I met her gaze. “We’re not done yet. Two down, one to go. Together.”
Roxy held my stare for a long, bristling second. Then she gave a sharp nod.
We set off again, forging toward the far side of the woods. Every step sucked at our boots. Branches clawed at our clothes. But the fog no longer felt as suffocating.
We had momentum. We had a chance.
-Until we stumbled upon our next obstacle.
A faint rustle, too deliberate to be wind, brushed against my ears. I froze, raising a hand for silence.
The others stilled, eyes wide, listening. The sound came again-a shift of leaves, the crunch of weight on damp soil.
We weren’t alone.
Judy’s hand slid to the knife at her belt as she whispered, “Another team.”
Talia’s breath quickened. “What do we do?”
Combat wasn’t against the rules. In fact, the history of the trials was painted with blood-teams sabotaging each other, brutally clashing to secure their advancement.
If another group thought we were weak, they wouldn’t hesitate to strike.
“Lay low,” I whispered, motioning them behind the thicker brush. “The fog will hide us. Wait for them to pass, then we move.”
But then the figures emerged from the fog.
AL
At their head strode a tall man with broad shoulders, his gait commanding, his presence sharp enough to penetrate through the mist.
The silver in his dark hair glinted even in the fog, his jaw set in grim determination.
Recognition crashed into me like a blow, and I hesitated, not knowing whether to feel comfort or stay on guard.
Would I get William Reed, Lucian’s brother, or Alpha William, leader of Ashveil pack?
Friend or foe?
SERAPHINA’S POV T
Need proof that this was an illusion and someone somewhere was controlling the fog?
As soon as I recognized William, he turned in our direction. We would have remained hidden, but then the fog shifted, curling like restless spirits around the clearing, and we were suddenly exposed.
Our eyes met and, for a tense heartbeat, the forest itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then William’s shoulders loosened, his rigid stance softening.
“Seraphina,” he said, voice warm enough to cut through the chill. “It’s just you.”
Relief flickered in his expression, chasing away the hard mask of an Alpha on guard, and I found myself relaxing slightly.
For a moment, I almost forgot we stood in the middle of a brutal competition.
He looked like the man I’d met at the gala-gracious, steady, carrying his brother’s sharpness in his jawline but softening it with his own brand of kindness.
“William.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “You startled us.”
His lips twitched with the faintest smile. “The feeling’s mutual.” His eyes flicked past me and hardened ever so slightly as he assessed the rest of my team.
Judy bristled like a cat, her hand still on her blade, Finn’s stare was cautious but unblinking, and Talia shrank behind them. Roxy, mud-stained, yet defiant, folded her arms and looked ready to snap if he so much as breathed wrong.
William spread his hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “We don’t need to be enemies here. Not when the woods themselves are enough of one.”
The tension in my chest loosened another fraction, and I took a shallow breath. I gave a slow nod. “Agreed.”
His team emerged from the haze-five in total, including William.
They looked like warriors bred for endurance: broad shoulders, sharp eyes, every movement deliberate.
But there was strain in their pale faces, a tightness around the mouth and eyes. The fog was clawing at them a lot harder than it clawed at us.
The smile William gave me reminded me longingly of Lucian. “We should move together. Strength in numbers and less chance of ambush. What do you say?”
I hesitated.
It was a risk. Traveling with another team meant exposing our strengths and weaknesses- and splitting any discoveries.
But it also meant security in the face of predators-both human and otherwise-that may lurk in the fog.
We’d been lucky so far, but just because the fog didn’t affect us didn’t mean dangers didn’t exist that could.
I measured his expression, looking for the flicker of duplicity, the calculation of someone ready to use us.
What I found instead was sincerity. And the quiet trustworthiness I’d glimpsed before at the gala.
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