Adena is the one who shoves Aramin back. It’s a single, sharp gesture, and even from here, I know she’s giving Aramin the firm stare I’ve often seen her give on the warfront. This is her silently begging for Aramin to stay on his path. Then she disappears from Aramin’s view as the wall finishes turning, sealing her away from the others.

My gaze goes farther down the maze. Adena has an entire pack of Ghosts to face up ahead, while a second pack is heading down the altered corridor where Aramin is now trapped.

They are all going to die. And even as I still try to temper my emotions, I feel the fear of that thought coursing cold through my bones.

Down a separate path, Tomm and Pira hit a new pocket of Ghosts. The audience roars as they sync their movements and cut the beasts down. Each group of Strikers has survived half of the maze, but there is still so much left.

The roar of the audience forces me to look elsewhere. It’s Adena, who has somehow used a strip of her old coat to tie together her daggers into a serrated whip. She swings it at one of the Ghost’s neck and it wraps all the way around, the blades all digging in. Down on his own path, Aramin leaps out of the way as a Ghost lunges forward at him, then sweeps into a ferocious attack.

But their movements are beginning to become more labored, the gaps between each attack slightly longer than the last.

And they are all tiring.

Abruptly, the audience gasps as one. The sound is so terrible that I jerk my head toward what has caught everyone’s attention.

A Ghost has managed to bite deeply into Tomm’s leg.

It drags him down the path as he scrambles desperately against the ground, reaching in vain for his blade. Even now, in the throes of unimaginable pain, he doesn’t make a sound.

Out in the arena, I feel Red’s emotions twist. He has witnessed the same thing.

Pira rushes at the Ghost. She arcs underneath it and shoots at its knees. It stumbles, hobbled and screaming, but behind it come three others.

She and Tomm meet each other’s eyes for just an instant. The audience doesn’t know yet, but I recognize their expression immediately. It is a look I know all too well from the old warfront. Then Pira turns her blade down—not at the Ghost, but at him. She skids next to him, then pulls him to her in a sudden hug.

I don’t see the dagger go in, but I know she has stabbed him in the heart.

I wince and jerk my gaze away from the scene so suddenly that Constantine looks at me. Corian. Corian, Corian. The memory flashes through me like a bolt of lightning—the Ghost opening its jaws behind him as he crouched there on the forest floor, paying his respects to the creatures he had just killed. Me, rushing forward too late. His bright blue eyes looking up at me, filled with tears, knowing what I have to do.