Chapter 119 - THE BLACK TRIAL.

Darkness was not the absence of light. Not here. Not in the pit Ryon had fallen into. This darkness had weight, it had texture, it had the taste of iron and ash on his tongue, and it pressed against him as though he had been flung into the belly of a mountain that wanted him crushed into silence. His breath echoed, or maybe it didn't—he could not tell. The duel circle had ended, but the circle remained inside him, carved into his marrow. The commander's last words still vibrated in his skull like a broken bell: "Strength is not survival. Will is not enough. What do you carry that endures?"