I feel the rumbling in the segment soon after the trial ends. These places are special, made by the architects only to host us for a short time but we usually have a week or two together with the other tribes. It would be as close to a celebration as the tribes could muster, but now we’ve had two trials so quick and violent and we’re tossed back into the wilderness with no more than a crumbling segment and glaring red lights above.

  We still have a marked and for that I count myself blessed. Oran leads from the front of our tribe with the fury of a man scorned. He limps and mutters and shouts into the air; his cries can’t drown out the wails of the tribes who have lost all their Marked and are yet marching into the wilds without protection.

  So many Heightened will die. I don’t know how many of the thirty seven will survive until the next trial.

  We trudge across the soft ground to follow our light. It leads us through a crack in a cliff of red stone that winds and twists, narrowing and widening in maddening ways before spitting us out into a segment of rocky scrub, hungry and thirsting.

  Our new child cries and is passed among us all. Even I hold him for a time and he suckles on my thumb. I think it is because of the child that the architects provide us with food that night. It is a thin slurry, white and nutritious but bland after the flavourful tastes of the trial segment. It is the same to me. I eat and my stomach suffers.

  I huddle beneath a rock as water falls; some sectors have no falling water at all, others are inundated. I’ve been in segments that are tall enough and humid enough that clouds have formed near to the ceiling and natural rain has trickled down. Most often, in the segments where rain does fall, it is the will of the architects and it is dispensed from the sky itself.

  It is not long until the tribe is sunk to our ankles in the gathering water. Climbing rocks is dangerous and sitting at the bottom of a depression filling with water is worse. It is more dangerous still when Oran kills an inquisitive creature with a gout of flame and a swipe of his sword. It is small, without great teeth or claws, but something exploring the world the architects have created for us. But I’ve learned that even the smallest, meekest monster can still have a sting or bite that will kill a person. Best not to take a chance.

  “Pik.” Oran’s voice cracks over my shoulders and I flinch.

  I poke my head from under my scant, rocky cover and am wetted by the falling rain. “Yes?”

  “Come with me.” Oran turns his back on my frown. He only speaks to me in normal circumstances when he requires me to find a feeding obelisk, there is little else that he could want of me in the dark and wet. I could stay within my small shelter. A part of my wants to. He can’t hurt me; the architects punish those who fight one another, they punish most strongly those who kill another person.

  Fear crawls through me. How much would the architects care if he hurt me only a little, enough for fear and pain but not for the breaking?

  I’m being foolish. I scramble up and follow him over the lip of the nook that I’ve occupied with a few others who are more dejected by the rain than they are disturbed by my presence. Oran’s retreating back is broad and hunched, he doesn’t look for me. Minutes go by and our distance from the rest of the tribe grows as I follow him through the full dark of the null cycle. I navigate only by the light given off by Oran himself, flickering with flames along his skin.

  Oran stops. I slow in his wake and approach until I am am arm’s length from the Marked. I wipe a hand across my face to move the flop of my hair; it has grown too long, I’ll need to find a knife to cut it out of my eyes.

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  “You laughed at me, Pik.”

  I blink. I think I must look a fool for my jaw hangs slack and my mouth forms an oh before my mind catches up and I blurt out my response. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean? I’ve never laughed at you, Oran.”

  “You laughed at me when I fell, Pik. Did you want me to fail?” Oran turns towards me and I see something in his face that goes beyond his usual disgust of me. “You’re bad for the tribe. Do you see how weak we’ve become? You’re as useless as that new babe. I could snap your bones with a touch. Do you understand how vastly different our powers are, Pik?”

  My hands tremble now as fear wars with a mounting anger. Oran has spoken down and dismissed me for all the years I’ve known him. I’ve been nothing for so long, never becoming Heightened no matter how many cocoons I’ve been wrapped in and no matter how hard I’ve wished it. I’ve spent so many nights hunched over with my hands clasped, speaking to the architects and begging to be given the same gifts that children receive. I remain Unenlightened, weak, a burden.

  My anger wins for a flash moment. It’s stupid, I know it as soon as I let my temper flare like it so rarely does. “I didn’t ask to be Unenlightened. I didn’t ask to be weak. I do everything I can. I know I’ve not as useful as everyone else, but I do whatever I can to help, Oran. Do you think me blind? Stupid?”

  Oran laughs at me and it is hollow. “Blind? No.” He steps closer until the heat of his flames reddens the skin of my face and he leans closer still. “You are nothing. You make everything around you worse and yet you laughed at me, Pik.”

  I lie. I feel the flush of anger and fear and my knees are weak. I think I might collapse but I don’t, I lie. “So what if I did? So what? You weren’t good enough to ascend. You had two tries and you couldn’t make it. No one expects anything of me, Oran. But you were supposed to be the strongest.” I laugh now, in his face and my heart skips. “Look at you, trying to act strong in front of the weakest person you know. Should I fetch the baby? Perhaps you can bully him too?”

  I don’t anticipate his fist and I’m too slow to move even if I’d been warned. My vision blacks for a moment and I taste dirt. How did I fall? My head spins and my vision swims. Oran is standing over me, his chest heaving and his eyes are wide.

  “You hit me.” My voice is heavy around my lips that are bloodied and split. I can’t focus on him. He’s flat. Then realisation. Both of us start and Oran hunches his shoulders as if expecting a blow. We look up, a matched pair waiting and waiting for the signs that the architects are intervening. We wait for the sky to burst into warning colours and bathe us in the light of caution. Oran looks down to his feet, expecting a cocoon to come up and take him away.

  Silence.

  Dark.

  We stay here, frozen in a tableau for an eternity before Oran’s mouth widens. I can see him now. My head throbs and I feel the cold of blood drying against my skin. I don’t see Oran’s kick.

  I cough and iron bubbles on my lips. It’s harder to breathe now, every rise and fall of my chest is pain.

  Silence.

  Dark.

  He squats beside me, his fingers pull at my hair as he winds them through and tugs my head up. He pulls me back until I can look nowhere but into his eyes. He touches me now, with a single finger and I scream.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” Oran slaps me and I fade into the dark again. He doesn’t allow it for long as he shakes me awake. “Are you still laughing, Pik?”

  “Please.” I beg him with a swollen tongue and a jaw that hangs slack. My words are slurred.

  “The architects have abandoned you, Pik. Look. They’ve not come for you. Do you know what that means?” He shakes my head again. “No one is coming to help you. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to squeeze the life from someone. Do you think that macabre, Pik? Wanting to watch the light fade from a person like we do from monsters. I don’t think you’re any better than the monsters, Pik. You’re a waste. Less use than a rock. Poor, Unenlightened, Pik.”

  “Please.” My voice is quieter now as though coming from a distance. It is so hard to breathe.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t stain my hands with you. I want my first time to be special, not with something like you.” Oran releases my head and wipes his hands on his trousers as if I am filthy. “I can hear monsters out there. I’d best head back to the tribe, they’ll need me to protect them. Sweet dreams, Pik.”

  “Please.” My pleas are whispers to the dark as Oran leaves and the last light goes with him. “Please.” My body is heavy and I can hear the snuffling of creatures coming closer. I have no strength, my arms area leaden and my breath ragged. Why didn’t the architects come for me? Why wouldn’t they help? Darkness takes me fully now, it wraps me in warm ribbons until I fade from the world and am swimming in thought.

  This is my end.