Page 23 of Elven Crown

The room erupted with a violent cheer. Every member lifted their voice in anticipation and encouragement, some even in the kind of hunger for violence and blood and struggle that could only be slaked by watching someone else go through it all alone.

The floor trembled beneath so much stomping and pounding against the floorboards while Shade’s gathered operatives ushered in the beginning of a night for their newest potential initiate unlike any other night.

A night which, for everyone else in this room, had changed the course of their lives forever.

The dais vibrated beneath Rebecca’s feet where she sat as the air of anticipation thickened and the noise intensified. She had no idea what to think or how to feel. She couldn’t even decide how she truly wanted this to turn out now that she was here, about to watch it all unfold.

If Rowan successfully completed The Striving tonight and passed, she would be stuck with him for far longer than she wanted to consider.

If he failed, there was now a high probability of him not surviving past that failure, and there was nothing she could do.

In a ritual initiation like this, even as Shade’s commander and even with someone she knew very well standing in the central casting circle, Rebecca’s hands were still tied. Everything from here on out was up to Rowan alone.

She liked the way that felt even less than the idea of him having found her and breaking through Shade’s security in the middle of the night just to sit down for a little chat.

When the screaming cheers and stomping and cries for action died down, each casting circle lined with chalk along the walls and painted in various locations across the floor burst with renewed magical light. The old-world runes and newer iterations used more commonly on Earth, the wards and spellbindings all programmed into this part of The Striving—each component flared to life with the blistering green light, swirling and flashing and pulsing.

Rowan Blackmoon stood at the very center of it all.

The central casting circle grew brighter by the second. Then the runic imprints scrawled on the walls followed suit, imbued with their own single purpose for the ritual. Over a dozen different spells etched into this physical space all powered up together to signal the beginning of what could very well turn out to be Rowan’s last trial ever.

Because Rebecca had been so focused on stopping him, she hadn’t stopped to consider the hidden consequences of such a thing.

While the magic thickly pulsing through the gym grew and intensified, Bor turned on the stage to head back toward his seat. He huffed out a tired-sounding sigh, as if he’d stopped enjoyingthese things long ago and only continued overseeing the rituals because it made everyone else happy.

He met Rebecca’s gaze and nodded.

For the briefest moment, she thought there was some deeper meaning behind that nod, some secret message meant just for her. A reassurance she hadn’t asked for—that everything was going to be okay, that she’d made the right call, that no matter what happened next, it was all out of her hands and beyond her control.

Because The Striving wasn’t about anyone else but the person in the center of that casting circle.

As soon as the thought occurred to her, Rebecca shook it out of her head.

Why would Bor try to tell her any of that with alook? Why would she make it so obvious for anyone else in this room to pick up on her guilt and the brewing fear of what she might have set in motion tonight?

She had to be imagining it.

As if they merely followed some silent order from the old giveldi, the second Bor settled onto his stool at the corner of the dais with a low creak from the furniture beneath his weight, five different glowing green circles of runic power and concentrated energy lit up within the walls all at once.

Each of them filled the air with a dangerous hum, mirroring the whine of high-powered automatic weapon systems augmented with magitek for that extra boost of firepower.

But these were nothing like precision rifles or automatic assault weaponry. This was magic—ancient old-world stuff from way back in the day, meant to test far more than just a person’s proficiency with loading, aiming, and firing.

The brighter those circles on the walls lit up with their internal green glow, the more violently the gym’s overhead lights flickered, strobing faster and faster until it looked like they wereabout to give out. It was impossible to tell which casting circle would strike first until it already had.

A blinding burst of magical energy erupted from the center of the casting circle to Rowan’s left. An enormous, crackling orb of blue-green energy tore away from the wall with a trembling boom ricocheting across the gym before. The churning energy barreled toward Rowan without any sign of stopping or slowing.

Rebecca’s ears already rang with the whining buzz of so much magical firepower warming up all at once. It made her dizzy, but she didn’t dare look away from Rowan.

He noticed the enormous magical blast hurtling toward him at the last second and stepped easily to the side, avoiding a full blast of attack magic hitting him square in the face.

The elf moved with impossible speed. His evasion techniques made his first maneuver look as easy as if he were jerking away from an annoyingly buzzing fly and nothing more.

The attack missed him and continued straight across the gym, where the churning energy bashed into the opposite wall with a heavy crack and a spray of plaster and sawdust. The impact shuddered the walls, as if the casting circle’s single purpose was to bring down the entire compound instead of a single magical being pushed to his limits by an ancient ritual.

So far, this first trial wouldn’t be an issue.

The second Rowan realized the first attack had passed him by, he turned toward the crater it had left in the wall behind him and raised an eyebrow, still smirking like a stuck-up moron.

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