Nirro's fingers dug into the cliff's edge, his veins bulging as he anchored Kira's dead weight. Below them, a few remaining children were still scrambling up the dark stone, their terrified weeping echoing from the depths.
Above, the reactions of the survivors were instantaneous and fractured.
Sapphire didn't hesitate. The moment his boots hit solid ground, he spun around, ignoring his own bleeding hands, and lunged toward the edge to help Nirro pull Kira up. "Hold on! Nirro, don't you dare let go!" he bellowed, his voice raw with panic.
Beside him, Kealor collapsed onto all fours, vomiting bile from the sheer physical strain. He looked back down into the abyss with a face full of sweat and exhaustion. "Jex! Use the root to your left! Keep moving, please just keep moving!" he screamed, his voice cracking as he tried to guide the remaining stragglers through the dark.
Only Lucian stood perfectly still, a few paces back. His chest heaved, his eyes wide and vacant as he stared at his hands. He was completely detached, his mind trapped in the echo of that grey creature's face and the terrifying truth of Eoman's words: Death cannot kill Death. He didn't move to help. He couldn't.
Ryven stepped forward next, his heavy boots grinding against the gravel right at the precipice. His face was a mask of cold, professional detachedness, but his eyes were tracking every single child still clinging to the rock face.
"Listen to me!" Ryven commanded, his tone slicing through the panic like an iron blade. "The exercise is not over until everybody is out of the pit. If you fall now, you are a corpse. There are no ropes coming down. Use your weight. Shift your hips. Do not look down at the dead!"
Eoman, however, didn't look at the children climbing. He slowly leaned over the edge, his shadow completely blotting out the meager light reaching Kira's dazed face. His long fingers resumed their maddening, rhythmic tapping against his chin as he looked at Nirro's straining grip on Kira's wrist.
"How touching," Eoman purred, his voice dripping with smooth, theatrical amusement. He didn't reach down to help. Instead, he drew his foot back, his boot hovering inches away from Nirro's anchoring fingers.
"Let us establish the final terms of your exercise, shall we?" Eoman announced brightly to the entire yard. "The gate to the barracks closes when the sun hits the tree line. Anyone still down there when the light fades... becomes the permanent property of the night critters. And as for you two..."
He looked down at Kira, whose eyes were fluttering closed from blood loss, and then up at Nirro's unyielding, silent glare.
"If she drags you down, Silent Pebble, you both feed the pit. I will not penalize you for choosing your own survival. Let go of the curse... and climb."
Nirro completely ignored him. His gaze remained locked on Kira, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles in his neck looked like taut wires.
"Kira!" Sapphire screamed, throwing his body forward alongside Kealor to reach the edge.
Before their fingers could cross the lip of the cliff, a sudden, crushing wave of gravity slammed downward. The invisible force intercepted Sapphire and Kealor mid-stride, brutally pinning them flat against the gravel.
Sapphire clawed at dirt. "Get off— we have to—"
"Don't interfere, boy," Ryven said.
Flat. Cold. Final. He didn't even look at them. Eyes stayed on the pit.
A split-second later—Swoosh!—a jagged black spike tore through the air, whistling exactly where their heads had been a moment prior, shattering in the air upon missing the targets it was meant to strike.
Ryven stood over the flattened boys, his raised hand slowly lowering as his aura faded. He shot Eoman a hard, murderous look.
Eoman didn't even blink. He merely smiled at Ryven's interference before turning his unhinged attention back down to the cliffside.
"Let go," Eoman urged softly, leaning closer to Nirro. "It is not worth the trouble to hang onto dead weight. Didn't Instructor Ryven teach you that?"
Nirro didn't answer. He didn't even look up. Relying entirely on the mechanical leverage Ryven had drilled into him, he threw his shoulder back, desperately trying to hoist Kira high enough to reach the solid rock.
Eoman's crescent-shaped smile widened.
"Oh, you want to play a game?"
With a sickening, liquid sound, small black spikes began to sprout directly out of the stone face. They grew slowly, like dark stone vines, poking and prying at Nirro's anchoring fingers, forcing them away from the ledge millimeter by millimeter.
"Let her go, and you will survive," Eoman purred.
From below, Kira looked up through dazed, tear-filled eyes. She saw the dark spikes creeping toward Nirro's grip, saw his boots slipping on the vertical stone face, and a wave of absolute terror washed over her. She couldn't let him die for her.
"Nirro... let go," Kira choked out, her voice cracking. "Please. Let me go!"
But the silent realist listened to no one. Nirro merely latched his fingers tighter around her wrist, his knuckles turning a ghostly white.
Seconds stretched into agonizing minutes. Annoyed by the stubborn silence, Eoman abruptly drove a sharp black spike straight through the meat of Nirro's anchoring hand.
Nirro let out a sharp, quiet grunt. The pain was blinding, but he swallowed the urge to scream, refusing to give Eoman the satisfaction of enjoying his suffering.
Instead, Nirro lifted his head, staring back at Eoman with an icy, unyielding glare that burned with pure defiance.
Eoman's grin only grew, delighted by the resistance.
But down below, Kira's eyes widened in horror. From the stone right next to Nirro's bloodied arm, a massive, jagged spike was rapidly forming, aiming directly for his chest.
No.
Gathering every ounce of her remaining strength, Kira violently twisted her arm, forcefully breaking her own wrist free from his bloody grasp.
Nirro's eyes widened in a rare flash of absolute shock as empty air suddenly filled his palm.
Kira plummeted backward into the dark.
But the shock on Nirro's face lasted for only a fraction of a second. Before the massive spike could impale his chest, before Eoman could even register what happened, Nirro uncoiled his legs from the cliffside and dove headfirst into the abyss after her.
A rare expression of genuine surprise crossed Eoman's face as he stared down into the empty, whistling wind of the crevice.
Far below, swallowed by the dark, two small shadows were still falling—one after the other—straight into the clicking swarm.