At the Fields of Fire and Blood

Chapter XXI

Kayla allowed Joshua to pull her forward, the four of them linked in a chain as they stumbled towards the ruins where the first trial of the Pilgrimage awaited. She felt numb and dazed, her mind replaying that single phrase back to her over and over. No one had survived the first trial. It had all been in vain. All those great warriors sent out of the city in great parades. All of their last hopes seen off without much pomp or circumstance. It hadn't mattered at all, hadn't made any difference. They had all met the same fate. None had made it past the fields, past the first step of the Pilgrimage.

Her foot caught on a clump of dirt and Kayla stumbled, would've fallen if not for both Joshua and Darren still holding on to her. They caught her silently, kept trudging along as if a shadow had been cast over their previous sunny moods. Joshua's brows were furrowed deeply. He seemed outright furious as if the other adventurer's failures somehow offended him personally. Darren simply looked somber, his usually expressive face blank and unreadable for once. It was almost as if they had changed dispositions. Kayla couldn't see Vivien's face well, only her stance. Body stiff and head bowed down, whether in defeat or thought.

Kayla looked down at the ground as well and it was the former that filled her thoughts.

"We're not going to die here," Joshua said through gritted teeth as if he could somehow sense what she was thinking. "We're nothing like the ones who came before us."

He wasn't entirely wrong. They had powers the likes of which no other human could boast of possessing and that would certainly come in handy if they had to fight. But there was something else eating at her.

"Aries said that killing the Flowerheads or not was part of the trial," she said. "We'll have to make a decision."

"How are we supposed to know what the right answer is?" Darren asked and his voice wavered, making him sound like a lost child.

Vivien sighed in exasperation, shook her head. "We don't have enough information. We only met one, so far. It attacked us, yes, but only after we kind of provoked it. Everything else in the fields has been hostile as well, but that means nothing. We're intruding on their territory, basically."

Kayla stole a look at Joshua, expecting him to say something, but he kept his jaw set and his lips firmly shut as he marched them towards the ruins. Either he was still trying to come to a conclusion or he was going to decide in the heat of the moment, depending on what happened.

She bit her lip as she looked down again. Her first instinct was to spare the Flowerheads, that's what her head told her was the right answer. What Vivien had said made sense: they were invading their home, they had provoked and killed not only one of them already, but other local creatures as well. Even if they attacked, could they be blamed for acting on their instincts? For protecting their home? Maybe they could do something else. Use magic to put them to sleep or daze them long enough to slip past them, without causing any long-lasting effects. Even use Darren's illusions to hide their presence. Any of that could work. But if she was wrong and the true trial was to kill them all...

The others came to a sudden halt, jolting Kayla out of her thoughts. In front of them stood a half crumbled wall with a tall and wide archway that led into the ruins they had been seeking. The old, weathered stone was covered in thorny vines and brightly colored roses in red, pink and purple. Inside, torches that burned with the same fire as the flowers on the fields and the leaves on Aries' tree illuminated small areas and left everything else to be claimed by a darkness so deep it almost felt palpable.

"Fuckers sure need big doors," Darren mumbled under his breath before turning to the others. "We have a plan or?"

Silence. Kayla opened her mouth to speak, hesitated to see if anyone else would do it. Then, she decided she wanted to go first, after all.