“They cannot expect this of us!”

  “What will we do? What if Oran ascends too? What if he dies?”

  My tribe huddles together beneath the willow tree; they seek the embrace of its leaves as shelter from the cries of pain beyond. We’ve split from the others with so many mourning the tragedy of their lost companions. We’re blessed that Lucil ascended and didn’t fall as so many others.

  The others are so distraught at the thought of losing our last Marked that I’m not pushed from the circle of bodies. It’s nice to feel closeness; even if it is born from fear.

  “I won’t die.” Oran grits his teeth and spits his words. “The architects won’t let you be alone.”

  “It’s happened before.” Homly interjects. “I’m older than all of you, I remember when the third tribe’s Marked died between trials. The architects didn’t provide another until more than half the third had perished. We had to absorb them into ourselves to maintain the balance.” He nods to another. “Salcath was third, and now he is fifth.”

  My tribe whines. It’s a terrible thing to have no tribe. The architects give us enough to live together in forties to a hundred, providing enough food and water for each to survive. It is only at the trials where we can all congregate.

  One of the wanderers passes us to sup at the food pillar and I wonder what their life must be like? To be a lone Marked out in the wilderness without any others to watch as you sleep. This one survived the fall in the trial with only a limp; he is tough. He has to be.

  Oran cannot sit still, he paces back and forth his limp less pronounced than that of the Marked but I can see he is hurting from his fall too. “It won’t happen this time.”

  “Will you ascend, though?” Homly asks, his voice quiet.

  Oran doesn’t answer for a long moment. He’s hurt something in his chest too, his breathe comes less easily than it ought and he struggles with his words. “We’ll see, won’t we? I’ve got another chance. I’m not going to waste it.”

  His words stab me in the gut and I want to be sick. He won’t consider his own death as an outcome, ostensibly for our benefit, but he will ascend? That would leave us just as bereft as his death. Oran has had a driven focus from the moment he gained his mark and this is another step along his ambition. He will leave us. I think he would strike us, sometimes, when he is angry. It is only the architects intervention that stays his hand.

  I lean back onto my splayed hands, my mood sour as I contemplate how our tribe might survive without a Marked. We’ll be like the third. Broken up and scattered into the tribes that have protection. Or perhaps the architects won’t care this time and our lives will seep into the dirt to become one with the architecture.

  Something soft gives and my hands sink an inch in the ground. My eyes widen as the first white tendrils of something crawl up my wrists.

  “Cocoon!” My words come a the same moment that the others realise they too are being subsumed by the soft white threads of a cocoon. My fear ebbs as the threads creep up my arms and wrap about my shoulders. Some of my tribe wear masks of fear but the far more common emotion is one of happiness. We smile, even in the darkness of the day, as we are taken into their warm embrace.

  The cocoon is tight, warm, dark, but it does not constrict me. I wriggle against its gentle hold and it soothes me further with light, sound, heat, taste, and every sense that I can think or feel. It is blissful joy and so much more all in one and I am grateful the architects gift this to us.

  It is not long that architects keep us within the cocoons this time; it takes a short while for them to impart into our minds the knowledge that allows us to be people. It is like a waking dream as new words and grammar slip onto my loosened tongue and I’m enlightened with concepts that are as numerous and grands as the stars.

  My mind skips. What are stars? I veer from it. I see the sun at the centre of everything, a blazing ball of flame that sits at the height of the world in the midst of heaven. All good, evil, and everything between flows from the sun. I bask in the glory of it even if it is only a projection into my own mind. It comforts me.

  I learn more small things that might help me survive. I learn of rocks and plants, shining ores tucked into deep caverns, and the yawning breath of dungeons. The last scares me more than I care to admit. The images are dark and petrifying. Places best left untouched without a mark on my arm and the power coupled with it.

  I understand flame, too. My mind skips again. Something atop fire, bubbling, dripping, and my mouth salivates. The images fade and I float in contentment. The architects have taught me what I must know and I am fulfilled.

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  I’m sad as the cocoon finally opens and I flop onto the dirt beside the weeping tree. I prick my knee on a sharp twig and curse myself for my clumsiness. Leaving a cocoon is always a disconcerting experience so I know I shouldn’t blame myself, but I’m bleeding, and this makes me angry.

  I’m not the first of my tribe to come back to the world but none of those out acknowledge me so I turn to hunker down on the edge when Homly cries out. He’s up, moving with swiftness across the grass towards another cocoon that has risen from the soft dirt. This one is different, it doesn’t have the solid white threads of the cocoons that wrap us and still hold a few of my tribe, it is solid and its top is clear.

  Homly places his hands on the surface and it retracts into itself to reveal a small, pink, mewling child no longer than my forearm and with lungs as grand as any I’ve heard. Homly plucks the child from its womb and holds it to his chest.

  “We are replenished.” We smile for there is only joy in a new birth.

  The second trial comes with the rising cycle.

  Oran steps once more onto the sands of the arena with his back straight and his head held high. He is impressive, a proud warrior in name and stature and I cannot help but admire him. My own body is frail in comparison. Much of his strength comes with his mark, but not all is accounted for. My body bears the scars of a life lived without power, with hardship and hunger as constant companions. He glistens in the light of his fire.

  There are few Marked than the night before; the dead do not account for all the missing, some must be too injured to attempt another trial. I scan the crowd. There are more missing even than that and I frown. The architects do not permit disobedience. If the Marked are called to trial then they should come. But the architects do not scream their displeasure.

  “There should be more.” The Banded glares at our gathered host. “Let it be as it is. I don’t have the patience to chase down cowards. It won’t matter anyway. Listen, Marked, the second trial will soon commence. Fight, try your best, and you might survive. The best of you may even ascend.”

  He leaps and this time I watch closely as he crosses the distance from the centre of the arena to the stands where we sit, Heightened and Unenlightened. He is so fast that I almost miss it, but I smile with pride as I catch the blur of his passage and see him arrive.

  I continue my smile, masking what may have been misconstrued as disrespect by amusing the new baby. It reaches for me with fat fingers and chunky arms. I let the child grasp my fingertip and it coos with pleasure. Its strength is prodigious for one so small.

  Wind whips at my hair and I look up to see the arena morph once more. The architects are not content with one surface; half the arena has sloped ten degrees and is covered in a slick substance which causes the Marked to slide towards the other half. I can feel the heat billowing from below as glowing grills have risen from the sand belching forth air distorted by their fire.

  The screams of the Marked tear at something inside me but I cannot look away.

  I see Oran. He is flame incarnate, but still the architect’s heat beats at him. He has spotted the places among the grills that are cool. Flat places wide enough for one and there are not enough for even half the Marked.

  It it butchery.

  The arena stinks like nothing I’ve ever encountered. From the fires rise salamanders with maws sized to a man and tails that swipe with the strength of ten Heightened. The Marked fight them with weapons seized from dungeon prizes, well fought and well earned, and they still fall the beasts.

  Oran lives among them. He blazes and sweeps his sword about himself with abandon, guts and blood soak and sizzle and burn away to nothing and he stands among it all regal and proud.

  The arena shifts again. Fire becomes rocky desert and the slickness of the slope melts into mud. The change takes a minute of excruciating grinding that puts my teeth on edge, but by the time it is done the salamanders have disappeared and one thing remains.

  The length of twenty men with a thick scaled hide, clawed rear legs thickly muscled to support its enormous bulk, and with wings sprouting in place of arms, bent to walk itself across the ground. The creature is dull of scale and its wings are torn in places; it wallows in the mud with its claws kneading at the soft ground. Dangling from its many pronged horns are four orbs, shining and white, and ready for plucking.

  The beast huffs and a cloud of green vapour warps the air.

  There are forty Marked left after the slaughter and my mind tallies the count. I weigh the values and I know there are not enough. They attack as one. The Marked that remain are hardened or lucky, but whatever it is they hold in their hearts is enough to propel each through the air with spear, bow, sword, flail, and fist. The great winged lizard is wrapped in ice, struck by lightning, and scorched by flames as telekinetics pound it with stones stolen from the arena floor itself.

  Three Marked die from the first swipe of its wing. Two more die as its breath melts through their flesh and strips their bones clean. Five more are dead before the first blade touches its scales. It is Oran who claims that honour. He is fastest. He is strongest. I stand with a cry for him torn from my throat and I am joined by a dozen more. My voice catches as the beast’s tail turns and bats his body across the arena.

  Oran crumples on the desert floor, unmoving.

  It goes quickly from there. Lacrin takes an Orb as does Asca and another Marked I recognise from the seventeenth. The last orb goes to the wanderer who had limped past me the night before. The moment the fourth orb is grasped, the arena stills. The creature sinks into the ground without a yelp until there is nothing to state its presence except the corpses of Marked that it leaves behind.

  “Four more. It could be worse, I suppose.” The Banded stands and strides to the centre of the arena. He hops onto the obelisk that has stood sentinel for the whole combat and points towards the sky. He scans us in the crowd and shakes his head. “You’ll need to do better than that next time. The architects won’t put up with another performance like this.” He mutters something to himself as the obelisk rises and with it go the four marked, pull heavenward by their orbs.

  I stare as they ascend, my hands full of a child and shaking with what I fear will happen next.