Aiden would have liked to say he had been able to relax at the party last night.
Part of him had been fully ready for it to become some fireball of disaster.
Someone attacking.
Someone invading.
General unnatural shenanigans leading to something bad.
But no.
Everyone had gone to the party, talked to people, and went home.
Yet at the same time, Aiden was worried.
Mainly for two reasons.
The first was Pip.
His confession had been strange and out of left field, but Selene's succinct rejection would probably spark some animosity. Aiden was worried Pip might try to sabotage them in some way.
The other was the fact that, after Selene's rejection, Ymer had seemed to talk to Pip for quite some time with a sort of evil grin on his face.
Though Ymer gave off an evil vibe in general, so he may have just been smiling.
Aiden was going to assume it was sinister.
"I think you're looking into it too much," Jax said as they made their way to their pillar in the arena, where the other teams were doing the same.
"Hey," Liora said, crossing her arms, "dude brought his whole squad to attack Selene and me in the street with plans to kill us. I doubt he has had a sudden change of heart."
They took their positions.
Aiden found himself staring to the side, where Ymer's group stood, seemingly making small talk much like their own.
Yet he could not help feeling a level of ominousness from that.
His thoughts on Ymer and his group were cut off when their platform began to rise, just as it had the day before.
They rose to the top.
To Aiden's surprise, one of the five judges stood on a small, semi-transparent platform.
However, what terrified him was who stood behind him.
The mask.
The attire.
They were the same as before.
Those cruel crescents that made space for eyes and a mouth, despite being seemingly void and empty, like staring into an abyss instead of the space behind porcelain.
Though what was most unsettling was the strange silence compared to the fear they had felt last time.
Before, Red had been like a hurricane moving through, everyone clinging to whatever they could just to avoid being dragged away in its fury.
But now?
Not even knowing he was there until they saw him was like standing on the beach and turning around to see a tsunami inches away that had somehow made no sound.
Aiden felt like he should stumble back.
His body refused to move.
That familiar feeling came over him.
Locking up to prevent himself from moving.
Just in case movement told Red where he was.
Red stood behind the judge, who Aiden thought was named Fable.
He leaned down and whispered something to him.
Then he vanished.
A noise like a thousand held breaths escaping at once swept through the coliseum as everyone realized they were safe again.
On the middle platform, Fable clapped his hands together.
The sound echoed throughout the silent coliseum.
"They say a person is tied to their fate at birth," Fable said. "Let's test that theory, shall we?"
Several massive rectangles with rounded corners appeared in the sky around the coliseum like giant system screens.
Each depicted what seemed to be rooms of a large mansion floating inside a strange starry space, as if a chunk of ground had been ripped free and suspended there.
"Each of you here will be assigned a random number to determine your bound fate," Fable continued. "If you take a moment to reflect, you can see it. It is up to you to have the highest fate before time is up."
Fable smiled.
"At any point, you may forcefully swap your fate with up to two people who have not swapped with you by simply pointing at them and snapping your fingers."
He clapped again.
Everyone turned back toward him.
A set of floating cards hovered on either side of him.
One held a closed black eye on both sides.
The other held an open golden eye.
"During the event, if you're lucky, you'll find black or golden cards. You may use them to exchange one of your swaps into a boon. Golden cards give you Golden Eyes, allowing you to see the fates of everyone around you."
The golden card spun slowly.
"Black cards give you Shadow Eyes, allowing you to hide your number from those with Golden Eyes."
"I hope this is part of the event," Beatris said behind Aiden.
Aiden turned and saw that everyone seemed to be turning into sparks, like when they entered a dungeon.
He looked toward the other groups.
Only four pedestals were being affected.
Theirs.
Loners and Friends.
Leftovers and Co.
And Please Don't Split.
Aiden knew the people from Loners and Friends, and they had seen Leftovers and Co. yesterday at the party.
However, he had missed seeing Please Don't Split.
There was a third clap.
Everyone turned back to Fable.
"While you cannot say what your number is," Fable said, "you are free to cooperate with your team as you wish. The team with the member who has the highest bound fate wins."
His smile widened.
"Now, let the game of Fatebound commence!"
Aiden woke in a strange room.
Beside him, a fireplace crackled with flames that did not grow or shrink, as if sustained by magic.
He shifted and found himself seated in a large, fancy velvet chair.
The kind one could imagine a noble resting in while wearing a robe, reading a book, and holding a warm drink beside the fireplace.
Looking around, Aiden saw racks with the heads of a deer, elk, and moose mounted on the wall.
Boxes were piled in one corner.
A small table sat nearby with a three-pronged candle illuminating a few plates with scraps of food.
He was not alone in the room.
There were four chairs, facing each other in a sort of X shape.
Across from him sat Cassius, who was rubbing his head like he had somehow smacked it when he came in.
To Cassius's left was the human Aiden had seen yesterday with the hearty smile and beard.
He now had a hammer on his back, and his normal smile had been replaced by confusion as he looked around the room.
To Aiden's right was a strange sight.
It was the beastkin fox woman who had been with the bearded man before.
However, she was oddly gray in color.
Frozen in place.
Like a picture instead of a person.
"Uh," Cassius asked, pointing toward the girl and looking at the rest of them, "is she okay?"
"I sure hope so," the bearded man said, standing. "Is she stuck in something?"
He walked over and gently shook his teammate's shoulder as if trying to wake her.
She did not move.
A system message appeared before the bearded man.
He scratched his chin, then turned to Cassius and Aiden, who were now on either side of him observing the girl.
"Got a message," he said. "Says we need to solve the puzzle of the room to release the trapped teammates within."
"A puzzle?" Cassius asked. "I thought this was a mind games thing."
Aiden headed for the doorway.
He reached out.
Sure enough, a strange, unseen force stopped him from moving through, as if there was a wall in the way.
You have not solved the puzzle within the room.
Solve the puzzle to explore the rest of the manor.
"It's not letting us out until we solve the puzzle either," Aiden said, turning back to the others. "Any ideas where we can start?"
The bearded man shrugged and began scanning the room.
Aiden looked to Cassius, who was staring at a nearby tall mirror and glancing up.
"Huh," Cassius said. "This thing says I'm number one at something."
"What do you mean?" Aiden asked, walking over to the mirror.
He did not see anything where Cassius was looking.
However, floating over his own head was the number eighteen.
Aiden's mind flashed back to the introduction.
To the use of the word reflect.
"I think that's your number for this game," the bearded man said, patting Cassius on the shoulder. "So it's less that you're number one and more that you're in last place."
Cassius deflated slightly.
Probably because he had both revealed his cards for the game itself and discovered he was, in fact, not being judged as number one.
The bearded man headed back toward the fireplace and continued looking around.
"Before we begin," Aiden said, "how about we get some introductions out of the way? I'm Aiden of the Hog's Feet party."
He gestured to Cassius, hoping the momentum of the conversation would prevent the bearded man from trying to hide his name or something like that.
"Uh," Cassius said, "I'm Cassius, and I'm a member of Loners and Friends."
They both turned to the bearded man.
He put his hands on his hips.
"Name's Cal," he said. "I'm a member of Leftovers and Co."
He nodded toward the frozen woman in the chair.
"The frozen woman over there is Tess. She's another member of my party."