The final trial was announced on a morning heavy with clouds.
We gathered in the main arena, the surviving candidates—just over one hundred of us—standing in nervous silence. The seats above were packed with observers: nobles, proctors, scholars, and in their private boxes, the Five. All watching. All waiting.
Headmaster Thalion's voice carried through the stillness.
"You have survived the Maze, the Gauntlet, the Arena, and the Woods. You have proven your strength, your cunning, and your will. Now you face the ultimate test."
A gesture, and the arena floor split open. From the darkness below, a structure rose—a twisted mockery of a forest, its trees blackened, its ground steaming with corruption. The air around it shimmered with wrongness.
"The Blighted Grove," Thalion announced. "A simulation of the Dark Forest's corruption, created by the Academy's founders using preserved samples from the original blight. Within its borders, you will face the forces that threaten our world—not in theory, but in flesh-rending, soul-corrupting reality."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"Your task: reach the Grove's heart and retrieve a Sealed Blossom—a flower that grows only in corrupted soil, whose petals can cure the most advanced stages of blight sickness. The first twenty to return with proof of success advance. The rest..." He paused. "The rest will be evacuated—if they survive."
The Blighted Grove pulsed, almost hungrily.
"Remember: this is a simulation, but the dangers are real. The corruption can kill. The creatures can kill. And if you stay too long..." His voice dropped. "The blight can change you."
No one spoke.
"Enter when ready. The trial ends at sundown."
---
Party 147 gathered at the Grove's edge.
It was worse up close. The trees weren't just black—they were wrong, their branches twisted into agonized shapes, their bark weeping a thick, oily substance. The ground squelched underfoot, releasing puffs of grey spores. The air tasted of rot and despair.
"We stick together," Mira said. It wasn't a suggestion.
Dorn hefted his shield. "Together good."
Vance checked his sword, his flames useless in this place. "Any bright ideas, plant-mage?"
I closed my eyes, reaching out with my deeper sense—the part of me that spoke to ancient things.
The Grove answered with screams.
The trees weren't just corrupted—they were conscious, their spirits trapped in endless agony, their pain a constant, shrieking backdrop. The ground writhed with corrupted roots. The air itself was thick with dying whispers.
I opened my eyes, sweat cold on my forehead. "It's alive. All of it. And it hates everything."
"Great," Vance muttered. "So we're walking into a place that actively wants us dead."
Elara gripped her holy symbol. "The blight sickness... if we stay too long, it can... change us?"
"That's what Thalion said."
She swallowed but nodded. "Then we don't stay long."
We stepped into the Grove.
---
The corruption hit like a physical weight.
My core, already scarred, shuddered. The blight pressed against my Sylvan Circuit, trying to find cracks, to seep in, to change. I pushed back, my will a wall of green and gold.
"Keep moving," Mira urged. "Don't stop. Don't touch anything."
We moved through the twisted forest, past trees that moaned, past pools of black liquid that bubbled with unseen things. Shapes flickered at the edge of vision—creatures born of corruption, watching, waiting.
The first attack came without warning.
A root—thick as Dorn's arm, black and glistening—erupted from the ground and wrapped around Vance's ankle. It yanked, hard, and he crashed to the earth, dragged toward a waiting maw of splintered wood.
Dorn moved faster than I'd ever seen. His axe came down on the root, severing it. Vance scrambled free, gasping.
"Thanks," he managed.
"Keep moving," Dorn rumbled, his eyes scanning for more threats.
We did.
---
Hours passed. We found Sealed Blossoms—three of them, growing in patches of corrupted soil, their white petals somehow untouched by the surrounding rot. Each harvest was a battle against the Grove's guardians: twisted creatures of wood and corruption that rose from the earth to defend their charges.
Mira's blade sang. Dorn's shield held. Vance's sword found weak points. Elara's prayers steadied us, pushed back the creeping despair. And I... I listened. The Grove's pain was a constant scream, but beneath it, buried deep, I heard something else.
A whisper. Faint. Desperate.
*"Help... us..." *
Not the corrupted trees—something older. Something trapped at the Grove's heart.
We pushed deeper.
---
The center of the Grove was a clearing of black glass, its surface reflecting a sky that wasn't there. At its center grew a single tree—massive, ancient, its bark pure white despite the corruption surrounding it. Its branches reached toward the heavens, and from its highest limb hung a single, perfect blossom.
The Sealed Blossom. The heart of the trial.
But we weren't alone.
A figure stood before the tree, waiting. Tall. Lean. Dressed in robes that seemed to drink the light. His face was young, handsome, but his eyes—his eyes held depths of darkness that made the Grove seem welcoming.
"Well," he said, his voice like silk over razors. "The little plant mage. I was wondering when you'd arrive."
I knew that voice. I knew those eyes.
From the novel.
From the future.
Malachar. The Necromancer's favored acolyte. The one who would, in the original timeline, corrupt half the Academy from within.
He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't exist yet.
"What's wrong?" He smiled, and it was the coldest thing I'd ever seen. "You look like you've seen a ghost." He stepped forward, and the corruption in the Grove seemed to bow to him. "I'm very real, I assure you. And I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time."
Mira's blade was in her hand. "Who are you?"
"Someone who's going to change everything." He looked at me, and his eyes gleamed. "Starting with you, Roy White. My master has... questions. About how you know things you shouldn't. About what you're becoming."
He raised a hand. The Grove screamed.
Roots erupted everywhere—not attacking, but forming. A cage of corrupted wood rose around us, cutting us off from escape, from each other.
"Don't worry," Malachar purred. "This won't hurt. Much."
The roots closed in.
And the darkness took us.
---