The Mythos Trials

Chapter Seven

It was more than Phenex could stand.

Gwen suffered through one trial after another, coming out more bruised and battered each time—and he couldn't do a damned thing to help her. The moment the first trial had begun, Atropos had whisked him away, forcing him to watch from behind an impenetrable barrier as Gwen fought first the Akuma—or at least, convincing copies of them—and then an entire battalion of Apophis's forces.

Each trial was worse than the last. Gwen faced everything from low-level demons to Reeves and his elite, but even so, that was far from being the worst of it. The worst was when Gwen was forced to fight intangible forces, things that were neither demon nor monster. Crippling self-doubt. Guilt. Jealousy. Fear.

Old remembrances flickered across his mind, super-imposing themselves upon the scene before him. Like Gwen, Phenex too had suffered psychological torments without number, in a time when he had been most vulnerable and predisposed toward a keen hatred of humanity. The horrors Gwen faced—the deaths of loved ones, her failure to save even one life in a sea of thousands, droves of Reeves' shadows pursuing her—Phenex had experienced it all.

If it had nearly broken him, then what would it do to her?

Phenex ground his teeth together, fighting against the magical constraints that held him, all to no avail. Atropos had him in her grasp. Not physically, but by cutting him off from his flames and the rest of his powers—from the strength he would need to overcome her and hasten to Gwen's aid.

"Stop." The words came out from between clenched teeth, and he shot Atropos a desperate look. "She's suffered enough, already!"

Atropos said nothing, merely content to stand behind him, watching Gwen's current trial through the haze of dark, opaque fog coalescing around them. Phenex felt as if they were scrying through a constantly warping mass of obsidian, wisps of black drifting around him like smoke without scent.

Like Reeves' shadows.

Fists clenched, he looked on in horror as the trial changed once again. The illusion of their battle in Wiesbaden lifted, changing to something Phenex knew would hurt Gwen beyond anything the Moirai could do to her physically. Yellow mist drifted around her, and as a figure emerged at its centre, Gwen stiffened.

Even through the fog, Phenex could see the damp curls of hair plastered to her forehead and neck, her shoulders heaving with each breath. She turned her gaze on the new figure, a moan of despair escaping her. Watching her suffer was bad enough, but having to hear everything—from the taunts of her false enemies to the sounds of her anguish—was more than he could bear.

"Why? Why are you doing this to her?" He looked over his shoulder at Atropos, anger coiling in his chest like a flaming serpent. "Do you have any idea how much his death cost her?"

"Of course I do. As do my sisters," Atropos said, her tone curt. "Just as we knew her soul would one day venture from Espira to become the child before you, we knew what hardships she would face...and the outcome of all."

"If you know the outcome, then why bother with the damn trial?"

"You misunderstand." Atropos gave him a withering look. "We knew what she would face in her world and yours—we know not the outcome of the trial. Why else would we have need to see it, if we already knew how it would end? No, within our realm, and within the realm of Mythos, there are countless possibilities. It is our wish to see which will come to fruition."

Phenex started to tell her that they could shove their curiosity somewhere unpleasant, when another voice spoke from behind, startling him. "I have tested her in all the ways I thought most effective," Clotho said, tossing long, dark hair over her shoulder. "It is your turn to test her mettle, dear sister."