Three days had seemed like quite a long time, at first. Crow supposed it had been. They’d had several discussions about who was to enter the task in the first alone, and though the latter had not ended as he’d wished, there had been far more time remaining to gently push the matter further.

Nearing the end of the second, however, made the entire event feel suddenly far nearer. Tomorrow would be their last day of peace before needing to compete once more, and any day that came directly before such an eventuality would be anything but calming.

The creeping panic which had been building in his entire team, Astra especially, had reached boiling point upon Xeno asking once more whether she could take part in the next task. Tensions were heightened by Unity’s insistence on reminding her each time that there were far quicker and less painful methods of suicide available.

However, midway through their second free afternoon, Astra burst into the quarters and hurriedly told them that the following day had been scheduled for another task.

Having not actually watched any of the other teams compete as part of the audience, Crow asked if they could attend. Eager to get more information to turn into an advantage, Astra and Xeno had agreed, and Unity had likewise supported the notion. Though he was less enthusiastic after being told he couldn’t throw things at the contestants.

Crow had found himself working up no small amount of excitement at the prospect of watching another team compete, and it only increased more when he found out who would be taking part.

Upon being told, he decided to head off to the contestant’s wing and with Amelia luck.

It took him a fair minute to actually make the journey, his new quarters’ location still being something hazy in his memory, and the maddening geometry of the contestant’s quarters being just as disorienting as ever. Thankfully the experience of navigating the labyrinthian corridors was still fresh in his mind, and he found Amelia’s door before long.

The girl answered mere moments after Crow knocked, her face lighting up like a firework display as she saw him.

“Hi Crow!” She chirped.

“Hi,” Crow answered back. “I heard you’re going to be up next in the Sieve so I thought I’d pop in and wish you luck.”

“Thanks. Do you want to come in?”

“That’d be nice, thank you.”

Amelia gestured him into the room, closing the door behind him, and turned to speak again.

“I’m really excited!” She beamed.

Crow found himself amazed at the girl’s attitude. Astra had always been brave, Gem so confident as to border on pure arrogance, but Amelia was something else entirely. It was like the very idea of fear was foreign to her.

“I’m glad you’re not nervous,” he answered. That earned him a confused frown.

“Why would I be nervous?”

He considered trying to explain it to her, but decided against it and simply shrugged.

“I don’t know, people have funny reactions to things sometimes.”

Amelia seemed to understand that perfectly.

“They do,” she agreed. “Anyway, is it true you fought Ra in the second stage?”

The abrupt change in topic, and the question itself, both took Crow wholly off-guard.

“Uh, yes it is.” He answered, then felt his face burn slightly as he continued. “Well, it wasn't much of a fight. I could barely touch him even while he was treating the whole thing like a game.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. I was hoping you could tell me his weaknesses in case I went up against him.”

“Well, I get along quite well with him… I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable giving you an edge like that.” He replied. Crow liked Amelia, but he liked Ra too, and if given the choice he’d really prefer not to need to pick a side between the two of them.

“Don’t worry,” the girl answered lightly. “I’ll just need to pay extra attention to him and figure it out early on.”

Crow moved towards a sofa, gesturing for permission to sit and doing so when Amelia nodded.

“You sound confident,” he noted. “That’s good at least, but I think you might be taking Ra a bit too lightly.”

Amelia stepped to a chair placed some metre from the couch, strewing herself over it length-ways and kicking her legs absently as she spoke.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, sounding as though she were thinking out loud more than anything else. “I’m pretty powerful.”

“Ra’s older than you,” Crow pointed out. “And he’s a lot more than just pretty powerful. In fact I’m not sure Astra and I could take him even if we fought alongside one another.”

“Are you stronger than her?” Amelia asked. For a moment Crow thought she’d somehow gotten Ra’s sex wrong, then realised she was asking about Astra.

“Oh no, God no!” He laughed lightly as he spoke. “No Astra’s always been better than me, I think I’ve beaten her maybe twice in my entire life.”

Amelia nodded absently.

“I’m not sure how strong Ra can be, then. If you could put up any kind of a fight.” She paused, then glanced sideways at Crow. “No offence,” she added.

Crow waved a hand as he answered. “None taken.”

Though he was careful not to show it on his face, he found himself surprised by the dismissive attitude Amelia took towards his testament of Ra’s strength. He wondered whether she truly was as strong as her attitude seemed to imply, or if she merely had an inflated sense of her own abilities.

In either case, Crow was not so daring as to prod further in the aim of finding out.

He remained in Amelia’s room for some time, discussing her upcoming task and what it was likely to be. Neither of them had any idea, and Amelia herself seemed entirely disinterested in what the rules would be revealed as.

Their conversation ended up focusing mostly on the other contestants, mainly how they both rated each one.

Granted, it was somewhat difficult for Crow to pin down what exactly Amelia meant by certain things. By the end, however, he was confident that “weak” meant people of his own level and below, “easy” meant anything up to a hair stronger than Astra and “strong” referred to those precious few who could give Gem a run for her money in a one-on-one.

He found, as their talk stretched on, that she was far less empty-headed than he’d originally thought. She seemed to grasp many of the finer points of magical combat, or at least the finer points as Galad had laid them out, and at several points her insight proved far deeper than Crow’s.

It almost felt as though he were talking to Astra, and Crow found that he could imagine her beating his sister.

The hour soon grew later, and though they had reached an ever-more interesting point of the discussion, Crow was forced to bid farewell to the girl. Amelia seemed disappointed to see him go.

His journey seemed much easier than the first, and Crow wondered whether the single trip between his new quarters and the contestant wing had familiarised himself with the way. More likely, he decided, it was simply a result of him starting from the worst of it.

Illumination from the glowing crystals he’d been so awed by upon his first encounter with them made the time difficult to pinpoint as he made his way through the halls, but he was quite sure there would be no more than two or three hours of light outside the Crux’s walls.

Certainly, he felt the familiar evening’s weariness seeping through into his body as he walked. Rendering his limbs heavy, his muscles sluggish. His longing for comfortable cushions, a warm fire and some milk.

A grin fissured across his face at the thought of eating chocolate. In Selsis, such food was a rarity. Even families as wealthy as the Temporas could eat it only a handful of times each month, depending on when the peddlers came to town.

The Crux’s kitchen didn’t have more specific dishes, nor the atmosphere of a real restaurant, but had plenty of luxuries like chocolate. And it was surely not yet too late to take a trip down.

After bowing to the demands of his watering mouth and growling stomach, Crow arrived at his quarters, delayed by a mere quarter hour. He pushed the door open, stepping into the rooms and seeing Astra seated on the sofa.

“I was wondering where you were, Birdie.” Astra greeted him, lazily waving before turning back to a book she was holding.

Crow stepped inside, making his way to the table to place his acquisition down.

“Sorry I didn’t mention I was going out,” he said. “I just went and paid Amelia a visit.”

Though his back was to Astra when she next spoke, he could hear a sudden change in her voice as clear as day.

“I see. Were you wishing her luck or something?”

“More or less. She seems confident, though I suppose she’s earned that.” He answered, not entirely sure how to ask his sister what was troubling her. Thankfully, Astra spared him the trouble.

“I’m not so sure she’s the sort of person you want to… well, associate with.”

Crow turned back, staring at her. Despite his best efforts, he found no hint of humour or half-heartedness on Astra’s face. In fact, the intensity left no room for doubt that she was as serious as a judge.

“Why?” He asked.

“She unnerves me. I don’t think she’s quite right, in the head I mean.”

The sheer frankness of her tone shocked Crow.

“Based on what?” He demanded, thinking back to every word he exchanged with the girl in search of something that may have inspired such an impression. When he found none, a conclusion of an entirely different kind made itself apparent.

“Are you just bitter about losing to her?”

He hadn’t meant to sound so defensive as he did, and the sight of Astra practically flinching at his words struck him like a hammer. Hurriedly he stammered out an apology, only for his sister to silence him.

“Maybe,” Astra said. She sounded equal parts exhausted and regretful. “Probably, actually. I don’t know… There’s just something off about her, unsettling I suppose. Maybe I’m just imagining it.”

Crow felt a sudden heat under his collar at that.

“You had quite a strong bit of advice to base on something like that, don’t you think?”

Astra didn’t say anything more, simply stared down at her hands. The two of them remained silent, and Crow attempted to distract himself by opening his bottle of milk. The quiet wore him thin, however, and he found he could stand it for no more than three heartbeats.

“Has Xeno talked about taking part in the next stage again?” He asked, trying to force his voice into a state of normality. Graciously, Astra accepted the change in topic without missing a beat.

“No, but she’s seemed oddly… expectant, I suppose?”

Crow knew what she meant. Over the last two days, Xeno had taken to hopefully hovering around her teammates, as though waiting for him to speak and reveal that they’d decided to agree to her idea.

“What are you thinking? About her request, I mean.”

Pouring his milk, Crow tried to make his question seem as far from direct as possible. Astra appeared troubled by it nonetheless.

“I don’t know,” she said, almost reluctantly. “On the one hand she was right, we dismissed her- practically ignored her. And it went on for days while she was treating all our injuries. But on the other hand…”

She trailed off, and Crow didn’t need her to continue. As cruel as it might have sounded to say out loud, nobody could dispute that Xeno was the weakest of them.

“I think she should get the chance to help fight,” he said. “Even if only for one task. She’s probably the smartest out of us all, and even if she wasn’t I don’t want her to be sidelined any more.”

Crow went to bed with a stomach full of chocolate and a head full of worries, for though Amelia’s unshakable confidence had banished much of his fear, he couldn’t help recall the similar attitude Gem had taken to her own battle.

He awoke early the next day, getting dressed quickly and emerging in the living area with none of the usual delay that came from a night’s drowsiness clinging to him. Xeno and Gem were both occupying the sofa when he approached, and he overheard the tail-end of their conversation upon nearing them.

“-can get them for free, we’re contestants.”

They noticed his presence, turning to greet him as he took a seat and smiled in turn.

“Morning.” Crow said. “So what am I interrupting?”

“We just found out the stadium’s still open,” Xeno explained. “And we’re considering going in to watch the task today.”

“Xeno’s considering going to the stadium,” Gem added. “I’m quite content to watch it without sweaty, smelly people crowding the seats on all sides of me.”

Crow recalled the spaciousness of the reserved seats he and Astra had been permitted, frowning at Gem’s condemnation.

“Have you actually sat in the stadium, Gem?” He asked. It was remarkable how quickly and fully the girl’s pale skin was touched by pink as she shook her head.

“I’ve only watched by scrying slate,” she answered stiffly. “But I’ve seen the stands for myself and have no interest in occupying them.”

“I’ve actually sat in the stands,” Crow countered. “And they, or at least those reserved for contestants, are not nearly so cramped as you seem to think. There’s as much space for each person as there is for the two of you on that sofa, if not more.”

Gem glanced at Xeno, as though assessing exactly how much space that was. She was of course a full cubit from the fae, and so her decision was quite obvious.

“Very well,” she said slowly. “I shall give it a try, at least.”

Crow smiled, more at the memory of the stadium’s entertainment than managing to convince her. His grin died quickly as he remembered Gem’s injuries.

“Are you sure you’re well enough to be going so far as the stadium?” He asked her. The girl answered his concern with an irritated scoff.

“Don’t you start,” she scowled. “I’ve already told Xeno my ribs aren’t so bad anymore. As long as I don’t need to run or fight, they don’t even hurt, I’ll be fine to sit down in a stadium for a bit.”

“But if something goes wrong, you’ll be quite far from anywhere you can get treatment.”

She smiled thinly at that, conveying an hour of impatience and irritation with the single expression.

“Well then, you shall all have to try rather hard not to punch me in the ribs, won’t you?”

Astra came from her room some quarter-hour later, and to Crow’s utter lack of surprise she seemed nearly as eager to watch from the stadium as he had been. Unity joined them only ten minutes after her, and when asked about his own preference he pointed out that those filling the stadium likely remembered how he’d ended their last task.

It was decided he’d be best served staying at the Crux.

One of the perks of being a contestant in the Sieve, was that there was never any need to book seats to the stadium. There was always an entire section reserved, and upon reaching the great structure they were sent right along to it.

Apparently, this late into the event, gaugers were no longer necessary for the staff to recognise them.

Crow realised it had been only a few weeks since he’d been present at the areas reserved for spectators, yet it felt like so much longer to him. Much had happened since, he supposed. An involuntary shiver touched his spine as he recalled Gem’s fight.

Blessedly, ascending the steps drew his thoughts away from the stomach-churning memories of previous stages. They soon reached their destination, and as the rest of his team funnelled out into their designated seating area, Crow took a glance over the edge of the stair’s handrail at the ground below.

He quickly tore his eyes from the great fall and rushed to join the others.

Upon first laying eyes on the stadium, Crow had struggled to believe the sheer scale of it. His only point of reference up until that point had been Selsis, after all, and there was nothing even one hundredth so great in his old home town.

Looking out across the ovular arena from his vantage point near its top seemed to diminish the size. Crow realised that despite its enormousness, it could never replicate the sense of scale he felt while looking out at it from the ground in its centre.

A perfect view of a mountainous construct, crippled by perspective.

If the sight of the arena had been diminished since Crow last took it in, the comfort of the contestant-exclusive area had not been. The seats were even more scarcely occupied as in his previous visits, and he and his team were able to spread out several apart.

“Looks like losing and dropping out means you don’t get the same benefits that currently competing contestants do,” Astra remarked.

The stadium was only half full by the time they were seated, and its immensity left Crow scarcely able to imagine the crowds outside entering fast enough to occupy the remaining portion in less than days or weeks.

He soon found the Sieve’s staff were deserving of far more credit for their organisational skills, however, as after only ten minutes’ chatting and waiting, the empty space had been halved again.

Before long they were all sat as part of a great, writhing crowd. Banners waved over heads at some parts, ribbons in others. From his distance and height he could make out no details, not even ones so apparent as colour, but Crow was certain that a closer examination would reveal all the sigils and shades of the nations still finding themselves represented.

Even as he marvelled at the enthusiasm with which the bustling people below praised and acknowledged their countries, he saw Olympus’ presence in the stadium receive more exaltation than any other.

Karma Alabaster strode out into the centre of the stage. Through the magnifying lens placed before his seat Crow could see she was wreathed in thick wrappings which covered far more of her than usual and resisted the wind so much as to droop down in lieu of billow like ribbons.

Her attire was a colour somewhere between sand and marble, seeming less pristine than her usual whites, yet somehow suiting the occasion all the more for it.

The roaring and chattering of the people surrounding Alabaster on all sides began to die down, and the woman began to slowly turn as she looked out to them. It almost seemed like she was silencing the crowds with nothing but her gaze.

Crow had seen that gaze up close, and for a moment he found it easy to believe. When he took the matter to Astra, whispering despite himself as though there was any chance of a single person catching the Princess’ glare from so far away, his sister snorted and informed him the stadium was likely being magically dampened to hurry the event along.

Feeling slightly stupid, he was grateful when the Olympian woman below bellowed out to all corners of the stands and gave him something else to focus on.

It had been days since Crow had heard the Princess’ voice, and the sound of it seemed almost surreal. She spoke clearly, in spite of her strange accent, and quickly pushed through the formalities and introductory phrases before moving on to the contestants themselves.

Team Ra’s introduction was first, and Crow couldn’t help but notice the intensity of the cheering behind it. The short-haired and friendly-looking girl he’d met at Ra’s apartment opened the entrance, strolling with an almost childlike nervousness.

The enhanced view born from his seat’s lens rendered her face large enough that he could easily see her chewing on a lip, and with every word of praise she received from Alabaster it seemed she might erupt with embarrassment.

As much as it shamed him, Crow wouldn’t have remembered what the girl was called had the Princess not filled the air with it. Timi seemed to straighten up, as though being addressed by name had tempered her backbone.

Standing prouder, she suddenly seemed far older. Alabaster’s age at least. A woman, or at least more a woman than girl.

Timi’s aged posture was quickly pulled from Crow’s focus as the Princess called out to introduce team Ra’s next contestant. The chubby, pale boy he remembered as Sia half-jogged into his position.

White teeth were on full display as he grinned out to the audience, and Crow quickly realised that he, much like Gem, genuinely loved finding himself the centre of a crowd’s attention.

He hoped that confidence didn’t stem from surety in his power; between Ra and Amelia there were already too many forces for a lifetime of reckoning.

Apparently not caring to humour Sia’s thirst for centre stage, the Princess moved on long before he could finish drinking it in. The boy looked as though he’d have soon indulged himself for seconds as minutes, but she paid him no heed.

With a flourish and a widening of her beautiful smile, Alabaster gestured to the opposite side of the stadium. As Crow’s eyes shot along the direction of her hand, they came to rest upon a ghost, crawling from a bitter memory as much as walking from the tunnel.

Tenzo was just as he had been in Gem’s bout. Still tall, still lanky, still so fully wrapped in dark strips of fabric as to render both characteristics a challenge to discern. His face was hidden behind a mask of woven night, and Crow could only imagine what thoughts dwelled behind it.

He glanced a few seats to one side, studying Gem as she watched the boy. The girl didn’t seem distressed by his presence, though Crow was under no illusions as to whether or not he’d notice such a thing if she didn’t want him to.

He snapped his head back to the arena as the Princess called out again, and it suddenly became clear just how restless the audience had been.

A low, frictive energy buzzed among them, akin to the cogs in a windmill. There had been a breeze driving them, and yet it hastened now to a gale.

Finally, the Princess spoke again. Her words were suffocated by the raucousness of the audience as she announced Amelia’s name, and in spite of having spoken to the girl some twelve hours prior, Crow felt as though he was watching the entrance of her tunnel for a great, unfathomable beast to make itself known.

Amelia stepped out wearing a light-hearted smile, one which would have far better fit a party or festival than a march to battle. Her dark hair was tied back, though many strands had escaped the knot and jutted out in all directions like the fur of a dog. Black eyes seemed as bottomless as ever, if not more so, and for a moment, just glancing into one of the pits made her expression all the more sinister.

The explosion of noise from the audience seemed to grow ever more intense as she neared her starting position, and Crow found himself feeling extremely stupid when he finally realised why.

She’d beaten Astra, one of the Sieve’s favourites. More than that, she’d apparently completely overwhelmed the girl. Crow had trouble accepting that his sister could have been bested so casually, yet a single glance at the near-reverence Amelia was receiving shook that conviction.

He spared a glance at Astra, noticing the way her face seemed to almost flatten in a deliberate attempt at hiding emotion. The way she always got when trying to put on a brave front.

Crow leaned over, shifting along a seat and lowering his voice as he spoke to her.

“Are you alright?” He asked his sister. Astra turned to him and nodded, saying nothing. Realising it was more or less the best he could expect, Crow shuffled back. If she wanted to talk, he reasoned, she’d talk, provided she knew the option was there.

Alabaster had apparently finished up introductions for Amelia when Crow looked back, and he grinned at the knowledge that he was just in time to hear the explanation of the task’s rules.

The condition for victory was quite simple, one need only grab a particular gem. Green, half as long as a finger and more or less as wide, it would be difficult to spot only by size. Of course the real obstacle in obtaining the gem was in its guard, a predator from the continent of Gol specially transported for use in the task.

Crow had heard much about Gol, and not one word of it was good. He hoped only that the predator was worse at locating its prey than it was at killing, as when Alabaster promised it was above any of the Sieve’s contestants there had been a terrible certainty in her tone.

Much to Crow’s horror, Amelia seemed entirely absent within her own mind during the explanation. Her eyes drifted from one part of the stadium to another, feet tapping and fingers twitching in clear boredom.

Confidence was one thing, but she seemed unable to even fathom her own defeat. That filled Crow with a deep anxiety, gnawing at his nerves like a woodshank at lumber.

Alabaster finished her explanation, and the tension within the stadium’s great walls began to rise surely and strongly. Crow found his fingers digging into the sides of his seat, and he felt more than saw the preparations begin for the transportation.

The magic at work was great, and he realised that in all the times he’d been among the maelstrom, waiting for the Sieve’s tasks, he’d never had such a view of it- not like the one he was enjoying now. One couldn’t hope to glimpse the peak of a mountain, looking up from its base.

Ripples filled the air, and a great mist joined them. The atmosphere inside the arena seemed to swirl like a hurricane, and miniature forks of lightning began dancing about it, arcing from one place to another as though in a great battle seen from many leagues above.

A dull glow snaked out across the ground, glacially approaching the contestants who remained standing like nothing was happening. The sight of such power drawing nearer and nearer to them was ominous enough that Crow nearly forgot himself and called out a warning.

Instead he remained silent and seated, watching transfixed as the light enveloped each of the waiting mystics. It covered their bodies, and then they vanished.

The arcane mist began to thicken in the absence of the contestants, growing denser and more intrepid before Crow’s eyes. He watched as the gently wafting currents began to move with more force, until there seemed a great mass behind them as they coiled and thrashed over one another like vicious, fighting vipers.

It took no more than a few moments for the arena floor to be cleared of the swirling mists and crackling energies. When, at last, the great supernatural curtain parted, it revealed an entirely different sight.

Crow heard a gasp escape him as he gazed on the transformed stage.

The sandstone floor of the stadium had been banished, or else simply obscured by the new carpet of soil, thick roots and grasping foliage. Trees protruded from the ground, spaced no more than five paces apart, varying from a few hands to well over a yard in width. A canopy of ambitious branches and shield-like leaves formed a ceiling for the floor, eating the light of the sun long before it could reach the smaller plants below.

Something was wrong about the place, immediately and obviously, yet Crow found himself straining his eyes to identify exactly what it was. He wasn’t straining for very long.

Each trunk, shrub and branch seemed to occupy a state between opacity and transparentness. When Crow turned his gaze on them to study the flora, he was met with an utterly solid image no less discernible than a natural plant.

It was only when he aimed to look past them, to study something beside or around the great forest growths, that they seemed to flicker in and out of reality, fading from sight like the image on a poorly developed photograph.

A fascinating phenomenon, and an unnerving one. Yet he soon realised why it was present.

Amelia and Tenzo were some fifty yards from one another, Sia and Timi were a further quarter-mile. All contestants stood on the spot, their heads turning one way and then another as they squinted, clearly trying to peer through the obfuscation of the forestry.

Seconds passed, and the contestants began to look more and more frantic, spinning on their heels and glancing over their shoulders as if fearing the vegetation would come alive and attack them.

Sia began sprinting first, followed shortly by Tenzo, then Timi. The members of team Ra had taken off in different directions, the distance between them growing with each unknowing step, while Tenzo headed almost directly for Timi.

Only Amelia refrained from sprinting off, opting to begin walking as though she were strolling through a meadow. Her destination appeared to be someplace in between her two opponents, yet still not one which would intersect with her teammate’s.

And then, perhaps a few moments slower than he should have, Crow realised that the fickle transparency of the arena’s growths was limited only to those viewing from the stands.

None of the contestants could see through the plantlife, and with the greenery growing as thickly as it was- vines and creepers woven so tightly as strands in a rope- it seemed a sure thing to Crow that they could not see one another.