A groan escaped Cole before he could stop it.

  Fire licked at his shoulder. Every pulse of his heartbeat seemed to push the pain outward.

  But he was alive.

  Cole blinked slowly until his vision stopped swimming. The chamber steadied in front of him. Stone walls. Torchlight. Dust hanging in the air.

  And the knight was down.

  The animated suit of armor lay in a heap where it had stood a moment ago. Black plates dulled and slack. The runes that had shifted across it were dark now, dead ink on dead metal. The green glow that had served as its eyes was gone.

  A part of Cole wanted to laugh. Not because it was funny, but because his brain needed somewhere to put the pressure.

  Instead he swallowed hard and tried to stand.

  His knee complained. His ankle screamed. His shoulder flared again, sharp enough that his teeth clenched without permission.

  He made it upright anyway.

  Cole’s stance wobbled, and he steadied himself with one hand against the stone floor as he rose. The crowbar had been a sure thing. His spells had been a sure thing. His body was not.

  His eyes flicked to the reason he had fought at all.

  The prisoner.

  The man was still bound in the middle of the room, ropes tight around his arms and torso, gag still in his mouth. He stared at Cole with wide eyes that were no longer just fear. He was incredulous.

  Cole limped toward him. Each step sent a dull ache up his ankle and into his calf. His injured shoulder pulled against his shirt. Blood had dried in a sticky patch along his sleeve and collar.

  He bent down and another grunt of pain escaped him as he started working at the knots.

  The ropes were tight. Whoever had tied them had known what they were doing. Cole’s fingers felt clumsy. Weak. He kept missing the right angle, and frustration rose with every failed tug.

  His head felt heavy.

  A small flicker tugged at the edge of his vision.

  Cole ignored it for now.

  He focused on the ropes.

  They gave a little.

  He pulled again.

  The prisoner flinched as the fibers bit into his skin.

  “Sorry,” Cole muttered. “Hang on.”

  That was when Cole noticed something he had missed at a distance.

  The man’s ears.

  They poked out from his long brown hair in a sharp, elegant point.

  Cole stared at them for half a second.

  Then, to his own surprise, he almost laughed.

  He had just fought frog monsters. He had been swallowed by a portal. He had killed an armored nightmare wearing a knight costume. He had floating screens that talked to him like he was in a game.

  Elves were not the weirdest thing on the list.

  Once he got the ropes loose enough, the man reached up with shaking hands and pulled the gag from his mouth. He coughed, swallowed, and sucked in air.

  Cole sat back on his heels, breathing hard, and took him in properly.

  The elf looked like he had been here a long time. Hair tangled and matted in places, but still a soft brown that would probably look almost shiny if it was clean. His face was gaunt. Cheekbones sharp. Lips cracked. Dark shadows under eyes that were a startling green.

  The elf’s clothing was almost gone. A strip of cloth that might have once been a tunic hung in tatters, doing a poor job of covering anything. Cole forced his eyes up again, too tired to be embarrassed, too practical to pretend it mattered.

  His own clothes were not much better. At least he still had his jacket. It was torn and dirty now, streaked with blood and ash.

  The elf stared at Cole.

  “What are you?” the elf asked.

  Cole blinked. For a second he thought the elf meant his title. His halo. His magic.

  But the elf’s eyes were locked on Cole’s face, trying to reconcile what he saw with what he knew.

  Cole swallowed. “Cole. My name is Cole Rourke.”

  The elf did not react the way a normal person would. There was no relief. No simple gratitude.

  Just disbelief deepening into something more.

  “You are level one,” the elf said slowly. “Barely a tier one being.”

  Cole stared back. “Okay. I… yeah. I think so.”

  The elf’s voice sharpened. “You should be dead. Do you understand where you are?”

  “No,” Cole said, and this time the frustration cracked through. “I don’t. This all happened to me a handful of hours ago. I don’t have a damn clue what’s going on. I tried to save some kids. I accepted a prompt. Now I’m here.”

  He paused, then frowned, looking at the elf. “Come to think of it, how can I even understand you?”

  The elf’s gaze shifted, and for the first time he looked tired rather than shocked. “The Ethereal handles it for us. It filters language for all bound to it.”

  Cole blinked. “The Ethereal?”

  “It is a… being,” the elf said, choosing the least wrong word. “A presence. A concept that speaks. It is the thing sending you those messages.”

  Cole exhaled through his nose. “I’ve been calling it the System.”

  The elf’s head tilted. “System.”

  Cole grimaced. “Yeah. Like game rules.”

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  “Your culture’s terms are strange,” the elf said, and then he winced as he moved his arms. “But the meaning is close enough.”

  Cole looked down at the elf’s wrists. The rope had eaten into the skin. Purple bruising was already forming along with faint greenish veins.

  The elf rubbed his wrists and hissed in pain.

  “It’s clear you’re newly bound,” he continued. “Some call your kind the initiated. New to the Ethereal. It gives. It takes. It tests. It kills.”

  Cole stared at him for a beat. “It has a name. Great.”

  The elf’s gaze flicked to the corner of the room, as if he expected another attack. “It always has a name. Or ten. What matters is that it is not kind.”

  Cole shook his head slowly. His shoulder burned. His ankle throbbed. It was a miracle that he was still standing.

  “Okay,” Cole said. “Okay. What about you? What are you, besides an elf? And why were you tied up like that?”

  The elf hesitated, mustering the energy to respond. Then he nodded once, as if the decision had been made.

  “I am Faelen,” he said. His voice was hoarse, but it carried a strange steadiness. “Thank you for rescuing me, Cole Rourke.”

  Cole nodded. “Yeah. I couldn’t just leave you like that.”

  He wanted to say more. He wanted to ask a hundred questions. His mouth opened and closed once as he tried to decide what mattered most.

  His shoulder pulsed again. Hot. Wet.

  He looked down and saw blood seeping through his torn shirt, slow and steady.

  Faelen’s eyes moved to Cole’s shoulder, his expression shifting. Sympathy, but also calculating, doing survival math.

  “Do you have a healing potion? You’ll want to attend to that.” He gestured to Cole’s side.

  Cole logged the new information. Potions were a thing here.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” he said.

  “You are aware that you will not be able to escape until you complete it the Rift, correct? That is, or die trying.”

  Cole’s eyes must have answered for him. Faelen shook his head. “That is why rifts are considered so dangerous. Why would you voluntarily enter one?”

  “Voluntarily?” Cole snorted, and pain flared because snorting tugged his shoulder. He hissed and forced himself not to do that again. “Man, I got shoved in here. I was fighting frog things outside a daycare and one tackled me straight into a portal. It popped open and then it ate me.”

  Faelen’s lips twitched. Not quite a smile. “Yes, the Ethereal has no patience for gentle introductions.”

  Cole held pressure to his shoulder again. His fingers came away red. He did not like how much.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare, would you? Or know where a guy can get one?”

  Faelen shook his head, “Unfortunately, I do not. As for where to acquire one, you will want to either buy them or make them before entering a Rift.”

  Cole stared. “And I take it I can’t buy them here?”

  Faelen spread his hands a little, helpless. “Purchasing here is… out. Some rifts contain markets. Some contain traders. Some contain places where the Ethereal allows commerce. This rift has not offered that.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. “So I have to make one.”

  “As it happens,” Faelen said quietly, “I would like you to do that.”

  Cole blinked. “Why. For me?”

  Faelen’s mouth tightened. “For both of us.”

  Cole’s head snapped up. “What do you mean both of us?”

  Faelen held Cole’s gaze. His eyes were still that sharp green, but now Cole saw the faint tremor under the elf’s calm. A weakness he was hiding on purpose.

  “I am dying,” Faelen said.

  Cole stared at him, startled. “What? No. You’re beat up, you’re hungry, sure, but dying?”

  Faelen let out a slow breath. “I entered with a party. They are all dead now. That elite killed them.”

  Cole’s stomach sank. “That knight.”

  Faelen nodded. “Yes.”

  Cole looked over his shoulder at the armor heap. The dead runes. The dull plates. It did not look so terrifying now.

  That did not mean it was not.

  Faelen’s eyes sharpened again as he spoke.

  “I do not understand how you were able to win,” Faelen said. “Targeting the runes was a good idea, but you use magic I have never seen. You have more spells than you should. You cast more than you should.”

  Faelen’s gaze swept Cole’s face, scanning him. “Are you not using mana?”

  Cole blinked. “Mana?”

  Faelen nodded once. “A resource. A limit. Most casters are bound by it.”

  Cole swallowed. “No. I don’t think so. I haven’t felt… anything like that. I just call it and it happens.”

  Faelen’s eyes narrowed. “That is not normal.”

  Cole almost laughed again. “Yeah. I’m getting that.”

  Faelen leaned forward slightly, he couldn’t help himself. “When I look at you, I see your title. Black Halo. Level one. But that tells me almost nothing. It should not be enough to do what you did.”

  The way he said it made Cole feel like a frog pinned to a tray.

  Cole’s temper flickered. “Hey. I’m not a damn science project. I’m a guy who tried to keep kids from getting eaten.”

  Faelen blinked, then nodded. “Fair.”

  Cole took a slow breath. “And none of this explains why you’re dying.”

  Faelen’s hand went to his side, fingers pressing lightly against his ribs. Cole saw the flinch there, quick and controlled.

  “The knight poisoned me,” Faelen said. “Deliberately. A slow poison. It weakens. It drains. It does not kill quickly.”

  Cole stared. "How long?" "A day," Faelen said quietly. "Two at most."

  Cole stared. “Why. Why not just kill you?”

  Faelen’s face tightened, and for the first time the elf looked haunted. “Some dungeon creatures do not simply kill. They make decisions. They set traps. They punish mercy. They bait.”

  He glanced toward the ropes that had bound him. “It used me.”

  Cole’s jaw clenched. He thought of the daycare again. The kids’ faces pressed to glass. The way the world had split open like it was nothing.

  Predators.

  Even in the apocalypse, predators found a way.

  Cole forced his breathing to slow. “Fine. Why can’t you make the potion yourself? Why didn’t you bring any?”

  “We did,” Faelen said. “We had potions. We had a bag of holding. We had supplies.”

  Cole’s stomach dropped. “Had.”

  “The knight destroyed our bags,” Faelen continued. “Mine. The others. Everything we carried that mattered.”

  He looked down at his own ragged clothes. “And even if I had supplies, I cannot craft them.”

  Cole frowned. “Why not?”

  “Professions are not free,” Faelen said. “Certain professions are locked unless you have the correct class foundation. I am a warrior. I can be a smith, a hunter, a scout, a guard captain. There are paths open to me.”

  He met Cole’s eyes. “Alchemy is not one of them.”

  Cole stared. “So you need an alchemist.”

  Faelen nodded. “Yes.”

  Cole’s mouth twisted. “And you think I can be one.”

  Faelen’s gaze flicked up to the space behind Cole’s head, and Cole felt the halo’s cold weight again.

  “You are a wizard,” Faelen said. “Locked by a mythic title. Your power is strange. It is tied to Authority. I believe you can learn alchemy.”

  Cole stared at him for a beat, then shook his head slowly. “I’m not a wizard. I’m a delivery driver who woke up in somebody’s nightmare game.”

  Faelen’s expression did not change. “The Ethereal does not care what you were.”

  Cole hated how true that felt.

  His legs felt heavy. His shoulder throbbed. His ankle pulsed. The thought of sitting down seemed like a good idea.

  Which meant it was probably a trap.

  Survive.

  Cole took a breath and forced himself to focus.

  “Fine,” he said. “How do I learn it? What do I have to do?”

  Faelen lifted a hand, pointing past the room.

  Cole followed the gesture and realized there was an exit gate open at the far end. A stone archway that had not been there when he was fighting. Or maybe it had been and Cole had been too busy not dying to notice.

  Beyond it, torchlight continued into more tunnels.

  The light shifted oddly. It bent and turned in ways the room geometry should not allow.

  Faelen spoke quietly. “There are more tunnels that way. A corridor network. A maze.”

  Cole frowned. “A maze.”

  Faelen nodded. “Rifts like to separate. Confuse. Make you bleed time.”

  Cole glanced back at the room. At the dead knight. At the ropes on the floor.

  He did not like leaving without understanding what he had done. He did not like leaving without checking if more enemies were coming.

  But there was no safe place to rest. Not here.

  Faelen continued, “There is another Trial Gate. It is not the same as the one that brought you here. It is a profession gate. A test. If you clear it, the Ethereal will grant you an alchemy profession.”

  Cole stared. “Just like that.”

  Faelen shook his head. “Not just like that. It will try to kill you.”

  Cole rubbed his face with his free hand. The motion tugged his shoulder and he winced.

  “You can come with me?” Cole asked.

  “I can enter with you,” Faelen said. “I can guide you through the maze. I can help keep you alive. But I cannot take the profession for you.”

  Cole’s eyes narrowed. “And you said you have a day.”

  Faelen’s mouth tightened. “At most. The poison is slow, but it is steady.”

  Cole looked at Faelen again. Really looked. The elf’s skin had a faint gray tinge under the torchlight. His hands trembled slightly when he thought Cole was not watching.

  Cole swallowed.

  “You don’t look all that… worried,” Cole said, and his voice came out rougher than he meant it.

  Faelen blinked. “Worried.”

  Cole gestured vaguely. “About dying.”

  Faelen’s gaze was distant for a moment. Then he shrugged, a small motion that still made him wince. “When you spend your life under the Ethereal, you and death become intimate. It is a dance I have performed more than a few times.”

  He looked back at Cole, and there was something old in those green eyes. “I have lived a long time. I would prefer to live. I believe I can, with your help. But should I pass, I am… at peace.”

  Cole was not.

  Not until he knew his son was alive.

  Not until he knew those kids at the daycare had made it. Not until he understood what this world was turning into.

  Cole glanced down at his bleeding shoulder and then at Faelen’s shaking hands.

  He nodded once.

  “Well,” Cole said, voice low, “let’s go find this alchemy trial then. So you can dance with death once again someday.”

  He forced a step toward the archway.

  His ankle screamed.

  His shoulder flared.

  He kept moving anyway.

  Behind him, the dead armor lay silent on the stone, runes dulled like old scars.

  Ahead, the maze waited, torchlight bending into darkness.

  It felt patient.