chapter two Zuri's pov
290 Words
Chapter Two: The Game Begins
Zuri
The first thing Zuri noticed was the silence.
Not the usual silence of a locked room or an empty street, but something deeper—an unnatural stillness, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
She opened her eyes.
The last thing she remembered was slipping through the shadows of the city, her fingers still tingling from the weight of stolen gold. Then—a pull, sharp and sudden, like being yanked through water. Now, she stood here, somewhere else.
The sky was wrong. Too vast, too bright, shifting between hues she didn’t have names for. The air hummed against her skin, thick with something unseen. Magic.
Around her, others stood, dazed and uncertain. Some were warriors, their hands twitching for weapons that were no longer there. Others wore the fine clothes of nobles, their expressions flickering between confusion and indignation. And then there were people like her—the ones who weren’t supposed to be here. The ones who had never expected to stand among legends.
A bell tolled in the distance. Deep, reverberating, final.
Movement stirred ahead.
A figure stepped forward, golden-haired and sharp-eyed, his presence filling the space like sunlight through storm clouds. Zuri didn’t know who he was, but she knew power when she saw it. This was someone dangerous.
“Welcome to the Trials,” he said, his voice smooth as silk. “You have been chosen.”
Zuri’s instincts screamed at her to run. Instead, she lifted her chin, forcing her breathing to stay even.
Chosen? No. That wasn’t right.
She had spent her life slipping between cracks, living unseen. And yet, somehow, the fae had noticed her.
That meant she had already made her first mistake.
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