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This is a test of strength. No different to martial training where he would have to stand with his arms stretched in front of him and a sword balanced on his palms. He knows how to do this. It is a matter of ignoring the body’s demands and overcoming them with his will.

He focuses on his breathing, and simply gazes at Perl, willing himself to endure this. If he can do this simple act, just remain in this position, they will have Iceheart. Iceheart and all the power it brings.

But with his eyes closed he sees something. Not the Ice Hall where he stands or the training yard he imagines. But something else. Somewhere else. A strange vision dances before his eyes. Shapes and colours and sounds. Even smells. But blurred and confused. He does not know what he is seeing, hearing and smelling.

He opens his eyes. The vision is gone. The Ice Hall is still there. Perl is still there. He closes his eyes again, and when he does, the vision returns. Clearer.

It is now a vision so strong it makes him gasp. This is magic, he knows. His own magic, growing yet stronger. The vision is as real as the hall he stands in. He sees a dark landscape, a red sun, air full of dust and smoke. The smells are perhaps strongest of all. His belly roils at the stench of blood, shit and fear. The screams of terrified men, fire and devastation all around. Like the aftermath of a terrible battle.

He sees Attar. This is Attar. Attar fallen. In ruins. The Rose Palace, glittering pink rubble on the ground. The very earth on fire.

And then he sees the demons. He knows exactly what they are. Great creatures, with bodies like men, although taller than any men Kerik has ever seen. And with strange faces, tusks and horns, eyes glowing as red as the boiling sun in the dark, dusty sky.

This is what is coming. This is what Perl fears. This is the return of the Bellator. Not only Ur-Durik, the Demon King, but thousands of Bellator demons taking the world back. Ruling as they had once done with mortal men as nothing but slaves.

Kerik gasps.

He blinks his eyes open. He sees the hall, just as it was. But when he closes them again, the vision returns. Who has sent this to him?

Kerik Darekul, you have a path.

He doesn’t know where the words are coming from. Are they inside his head? Just his imagination? He opens his eyes and sees the hall again.

Perl?

Is Perl somehow communicating? But when he looks at Perl, watching him from the dais, suppressor cuff on his wrist he knows it is not Perl’s voice in his head.

He thinks again of how brittle Perl had been. It had started after Kerik had fucked him. But not right after. During that conversation about Perl’s demon. That conversation when Perl had told Kerik how he had taken him to protect him from a witch who had gone mad from amassing too much power. Perl still feels so much guilt about that. Perl had given that witch some of his power to awaken her abilities. She had fae blood too.

And he had told Perl about his plans to become Duke of Fanost using his own magic. To become a great Wizard King. Kerik feels his belly freeze over with a feeling far more unpleasant than the strain in his outstretched arms. Did Perl think that Kerik too was losing his mind to magical madness.

No. He pushes the thoughts away. It cannot be that. That witch was wrong. She believed herself the fated Magician. She had even made a deal with Vindar to take Kerik in order to replace him. No doubt she planned to kill him. But Kerik truly was the Magician. So surely this is different.

He is not her. Perl cannot think magic will drive Kerik mad with power the way it did his witch.

Kerik looks up at the cage, far above him. Perl’s father had gone mad too. When he had appeared in Perl’s bed chamber, ripping through the wards with a blood door, his mind had been all but destroyed by magic.

Batraous was not wrong. But he still lost his sanity to magic.

Kerik doesn’t know how long he holds the position while lost in the vision. Time in the Fae Realm has no meaning. How long has he been standing here? How long since he left Ismagaar? It is impossible to fathom.

So he focuses on his breathing again and he does not move. The bells do not ring. It is simple.

Until Exeinil claps her hands. Until the bells on Kerik’s fingers vanish. Until the Queen announces, "Position one, complete.”

Kerik drops his arms with a great gasping sigh of relief. He wants to go to Perl. To feel Perl’s skin against his, perhaps to persuade Perl to kiss him again. Even, to find a moment to speak with Perl and tell him what he has seen. Ask him if he is scared Kerik will be destroyed by the magic Perl has given him.

But there is no chance for that. Perl simply stands up and says, “Hands behind your head.”

The second position, it seems, is going to begin immediately.

Kerik obeys, clasping his hands together behind his head, fingers laced. His arms still ache, but holding them like this is easier to maintain. There will be more to this position, he is certain.

The platform Kerik stands upon is shrinking. He glances at Exeinil and sees she is making a movement with her hand. The platform shrinks until it is only slightly bigger than Kerik’s bare feet. It is also rising, raising itself higher until Kerik is balanced on a tiny ledge raised in the air, the height of a man standing.

For the width of a stride around the platform the floor of the Ice Hall has also transformed. It has turned from white marble to something black and as Kerik looks at the square of floor below him, it bursts into flames.

Kerik cries out in shock. The flames are huge, high enough that they lick up onto the platform around his bare feet. He can feel the searing heat on his legs, even on his torso and face.