No. No, I couldn’t possibly kill him. I could do anything else, anything else, even kill myself, but him? Soren? No. No matter what form he took, no matter what life we lived, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him.

Then fail the trial and let the world burn.

I blinked back tears and clenched my hand around the knife. It would be one stab. One quick stab right in the eye, deep inside to his brain, and he would be dead. One quick movement and I would be back among the roots. One more painful task and I would be free, home, ready to save the world.

Soren still had his forehead pressed against mine, and I took my chance at surprise, slashing with the iron knife at his face and hearing him scream. It broke my heart, shattered it to a million pieces, as he clutched his injured eye in pain and looked at me incredulously.

Finish it. Finish it! Gouge out his eyes and win.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t look at the betrayed expression on his face. I couldn’t watch as people came into the loft, alerted by the screams. I couldn’t kill Soren. I gritted my teeth and turned the iron knife on myself, slashing deep lines in my wrists. Blood gushed out of the gashes in my skin faster than I thought possible, and the screaming and shocked voices quickly became a background to the pain and dim feeling that I was floating away.

I closed my eyes and let myself float. I was done.

I woke up back in the gap, staring at the opening hundreds of feet above me. Would I need to climb to get there? Did I even have the energy to climb anymore? My bones felt brittle, like an old woman’s, and something inside me ached and ached and ached, though I could not pinpoint where.

I wanted to go back. To the nice, safe world. To the world where Lydian never came for me and I still slowly fell for Soren. I wanted to go back to those bright, happy spots that led to certain doom one way or another once Ragnarök hit. It would be worth it to feel the comfort again.

Deep inside, the voices from the roots called to me in sympathy before sighing and apologizing that my destiny was so painful.

Wearily, I grabbed onto one of the tree roots and let visions flash before my eyes. I didn’t see any of them. I pulled myself up root by grueling root, until there was some form of light, some form of voices, and I emerged from the gap to the world I belonged in, covered in a wet, dark fluid as if I’d been birthed into the world again.