The Gatekeeper filled the passage ahead, a massive form of shifting stone plates and burning eyes. In its hands, it carried a pillar of rock ripped from the labyrinth itself, a blunt column that it swung in slow, crushing arcs. The floor around it was littered with bodies, fighters who’d tried to push through and failed, their crumpled forms against the walls. Their chests rose and fell. Alive. Unconscious. None of them had made it past.

The golden light of the Sanctuary pulsed behind the creature, close enough to feel.

Dominic slowed as he entered the chamber. The heat was still at his back, the lava somewhere in the corridors behind him, still coming. He scanned the bodies, the Gatekeeper, the narrow gap between its legs and the wall.

Lysandra stood at the edge of the chamber, her iron club held low. Her shoulder was bruised dark, the skin swollen and purple. She’d been here a while. When Dominic stepped up beside her, she startled then relax when she saw him.

"Seven tried," she said quietly. "All down."

Dominic counted the bodies. Five on the ground. Two slumped against the far wall. The Gatekeeper’s pillar dragged across the stone as it shifted its weight.

"Any chance that we could go around it?" he asked.

"No."

"We trick it. Both go at once. Different sides. It can only swing one direction at a time. One of us gets through."

She looked at him. "The other one doesn’t."

Dominic met her eyes. "You go first. You’re faster."

"You’ll be left behind."

"Don’t worry I have a plan."

A long pause. Her cold expression flickered, something moving behind it. Then she nodded. "Together?"

"Together."

They moved.

Lysandra broke right. Dominic broke left. The Gatekeeper’s burning eyes tracked both of them, its head swiveling, calculating. Its pillar came up, a massive column of stone, and swung toward Lysandra.

She was fast. She ducked under the first arc. Her club smashed into the Gatekeeper’s knee, stone cracking, but the creature was too solid to stumble. It swung again, a backhand she couldn’t dodge.

Dominic was already there. He crossed the distance and caught the blow on his sword, the Wobbly trait absorbing some of the shock. The impact knocked him sideways. His shoulder screamed. Lysandra looked back.

"Go!" he shouted.

She went. Through the gap. Into the golden light. She crossed the threshold and turned, her eyes finding him.

The creature’s burning eyes fixed on him. The blunt pillar rose for another swing. Dominic pushed himself up, his shoulder throbbing, his mana flickering like a candle in wind. Behind him, he could hear the other fighters starting to move. Some of them were slipping past now, using the opening he’d created, the Gatekeeper too focused on him to stop them.

He heard laughter. Someone said, "Thanks, Kane." Another voice: "Good luck with that." Boots pounded stone. Bodies slipped through the gap. One after another. The slots were filling. He could see the golden light behind the Gatekeeper, the Sanctuary, the fighters who’d already made it standing there, watching.

Lysandra was among them. She was looking back at him. Her expression was still cold, but her hands were tight on her club.

The heat surged. He felt it before he saw it, a blast of dry air from the corridor behind him. The lava had reached the chamber. It was pouring through the entrance, faster now, a river of molten stone that ate the floor as it came. The corridor behind him was gone. The only way out was through the Gatekeeper. And the Gatekeeper was still standing between him and the Sanctuary.

Twenty-four fighters had crossed. The last slot was his.

He couldn’t fight it. He had to get past it. But getting past meant going through the arc of that weapon, and the Gatekeeper was too fast, too relentless. Every time he feinted, it adjusted. Every time he tried to slip around, the pillar was there, blocking his path.

So he stopped trying to avoid it. He stopped trying to dodge.

He reached for the Wobbly trait, not as a shield but as a transformation. He’d used it to absorb impacts before. Now he pushed it further. His body went loose, malleable, the surface of his skin taking on a faint, translucent sheen. He felt his bones soften. His muscles become elastic. It was terrifying. It was also the only idea he had.

The Gatekeeper swung.

Dominic didn’t dodge. He turned into the blow, angling his body, and let the pillar hit him.

The impact was still brutal. Even with the trait, even with his body behaving like rubber, the force of it rattled his teeth and blurred his vision. But instead of crushing him, the pillar launched him. His body compressed, absorbed the kinetic energy, and then snapped back, catapulting him across the chamber at a speed he couldn’t control.

He shot across the chamber and hit the far wall of the Sanctuary with a crack that drove the air from his lungs. The Wobbly trait held. His body compressed again, the stone cold against his back for a fraction of a second, and then the stored force released. He rocketed back the way he’d come, a human projectile, faster than before.

The Gatekeeper was still turning, still tracking him from the first impact, too slow to register the second. Dominic hit it from behind, full force, his body slamming into the back of its skull. The transferred energy lifted the creature off its feet. Its burning eyes flared wide. Its pillar dropped from its grip. It toppled forward, past the point of recovery, and crashed into the molten river with a sound like a mountain breaking. The lava swallowed it whole, orange light flaring where stone met liquid fire.

Dominic hit the ground just past the threshold and crumpled. His body reverted to normal, the rubbery sheen fading, and the pain rushed in all at once. His ribs screamed. His shoulder was a knot of fire. His legs wouldn’t hold him. He tried to push up and couldn’t. He tried to crawl and barely managed a few inches before his arms shook out from under him.

The Sanctuary’s golden light surrounded him. The Gatekeeper was gone. The passage behind him was a wall of lava and collapsing stone. And he was inside, breathing, alive, his body broken but still his.

"Get up." Lysandra’s voice. Sharp. Cold. She was at the edge of the Sanctuary, her hands gripping her club, her bruised shoulder trembling. She couldn’t reach him. The threshold was a barrier. But she was there, her eyes locked on him. "Dominic. Get up."

He pushed onto his hands and knees. The stone was cold. His body was screaming. Wobbly was beside him, a small, trembling weight, pressing against his side as if trying to push him forward.

"Keep moving," Lysandra said. Her voice was unsteady, and raw from crying, her teary eyes were fixed on him. "You’re almost there. Don’t stop."

Dominic crawled. One hand. One knee. Then the other hand. The golden light was right there. Lysandra was right there. Her voice was steady, calling his name, telling him to move, and he crawled until his fingers crossed the inner edge of the Sanctuary.

He collapsed. Breathing. Alive.

The array shut off.

***

The labyrinth vanished. The Gatekeeper vanished. The heat, the cold, the bodies on the floor, the golden light. All of it gone in an instant.

Dominic lay on the cold arena floor, gasping. Wobbly was a warm weight against his side. Around him, fighters materialized. The ones who’d been crushed by the Gatekeeper, the ones who’d been caught by the lava, the ones who’d been trapped in dead ends. They collapsed, unconscious. But they were alive. The labyrinth had been an illusion, a trial of the mind.

Every wound, every broken bone, every burn had felt real. Their bodies were intact, but the memory of the pain was still there, raw and fresh. They would wake in the infirmary, groggy and disoriented, their minds still trapped in corridors that no longer existed.

Twenty-five fighters remained standing at the center of the arena.

The crowd erupted.

Eighty thousand people screaming a name that had been dead for a decade. KANE. KANE. KANE. The sound rolled across the stone seats and came back doubled, a wave that drowned out thought, that shook the banners, that made the barrier mages stop and stare. They’d watched him defend Lysandra. They’d watched him face the Gatekeeper alone. They’d watched him use his own body as a projectile, bounce off a killing blow, and crawl through the threshold with nothing left.

Dominic pushed himself to his feet. His ribs ached. His mana was gone. His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t make a fist. Wobbly bounced onto his shoulder. The pink bow was still there. Still perfect. Still absurd.

Lysandra stood a few feet away. Her bruised shoulder was dark and swollen. The head of her club rested on the stone. Her eyes were red. Tears had cut tracks through the dust on her cheeks, and she hadn’t wiped them away. When their eyes met, she walked toward him, her steps unsteady, the adrenaline still burning through her but fading at the edges.

"That was stupid," she said. Her voice cracked on the last word.

"But it worked."

"You couldn’t move. You were crawling. I thought you were going to die." Her hands were shaking. She gripped her club tighter to stop it, but it didn’t stop. "I thought you were dead. The Gatekeeper hit you and you flew into the wall and you didn’t get up and I thought—"

"Hey, i made it."

She stared at him. Her chest was heaving. The tears were still coming, silent now, spilling over her cheeks. She looked like she wanted to hit him. Instead, she wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing dust across her cheek, and her voice dropped to something barely above a whisper.

"Don’t do that again."

"Can’t promise that."

She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. Her shoulders curled inward, the switch flickering, the shy girl bleeding back through the fighter. "You’re impossible."

"So I’ve been told."

She looked at him for a long moment. Her hands were still shaking. Her eyes were still red. But something in her expression had shifted, the cold mask cracked open, the person underneath visible for just a moment. Then the shyness won. Her gaze dropped to the floor. She turned and walked toward the scoreboard, her club dragging slightly behind her, her shoulders hunched.

The crystal displays flickered to life. Pembroke — 1st. Cassidy Vance — 2nd. Victor Harwick — 3rd. Trent — 8th. Baines — 12th. Lysandra Li — 14th. Dominic Kane — 25th.

Twenty-five fighters advanced. Phase Three: the Team Format. Tomorrow.

The system chimed. Two hundred tokens. Six hundred fifty total. The pull button glowed in his interface. He closed it.

***

The courtyard was dark when Dominic walked through the gate. The chalk line was gone.

Florence sat on the bench. "Twenty-fifth. By an inch."

"An inch is enough."

"The face thing Wobbly did though."

"I had no idea it could do that."

She chuckled. "I figured." She studied him for a moment. "Turning yourself in rubber was crazy."

"Had to."

She leaned back against the bench. "You used the trait creatively. That’s good. Stupid, but good. You looked like a ragdoll at the end, though. Crawling."

"That is not something I want to experience again."

"You were a mess." But she was smiling. "The crowd loved it."

Theresa appeared in the doorway. She crossed the courtyard and wrapped her arms around him.

"The wraith," she whispered. "I heard it through the scrying. A woman’s voice. She called you little brother."

Dominic was quiet for a moment. "Yeah... it was Nicole’s voice, my sister’s voice."

Theresa pulled back. Her golden eyes searched his face. "Your sister?"

"Yes."

"You never told us you had a sister."

"I don’t talk about her."

Theresa’s hand tightened on his arm. "What happened to her?"

He explained as they walked.

"She disappeared, eight years ago, when everything fell apart." His voice was steady, but his hands weren’t. "I don’t know if she’s alive. I don’t know where she is. I just know she tried to protect me before she went."

"You were strong back there" she said, as she tightened her fingers around his. " You walked past it."

"I had to."

Theresa held his gaze for a long moment. Then she kissed him.

They went inside. Wobbly bounced onto the table, the pink bow still tilted. Tea was waiting. Florence had saved him bread.

Dominic sat. Six hundred fifty tokens. The pull button pulsed. 0.8 percent. Pity: 1/40

He closed it.

Tomorrow was the team event. Random teams. Lysandra. Baines. Pembroke. Anyone could end up with anyone.

But tonight it was tea, warmth, the bond humming. Two women who’d refused to stay home, and a sister’s name, spoken aloud for the first time in years.