The next trial was swiftly approaching. It would take place about an hour after the first. This was to allow anyone that wanted to drop out to do so with "grace and dignity." Yeah, right it was actually to ensure there was enough time to punish those that proved to be unable to meet the Coven Standards.

However, that might be, I wasn't going to be one of those dropouts. I was determined to make it to the end and to complete the trials successfully. I didn't know what awaited me if I failed yet still managed to survive the trials. I had a foreboding feeling, I didn't want to know and, definitely didn't want to find out. Unfortunately, nothing can quiet a fearful and anxious mind. I imagined one result of failure was banishment from the coven. Which might not have been too bad, but the thought of losing my mother, I can not bear to imagine that. I love her more than I will ever love the Coven. And if loving her means doing everything in my power to stay in the coven, then I will not fail...

~Second Trial~

Etta was standing beside the other participants in front of her loomed the large archway of a hedge maze. Several feet tall and looked ominous. She looked up and saw standing on a platform Terra Snapdragon she was standing on the left side of Kikimora. On the gremlin's other side was Lilith whose face had paled in color as she observed the large maze that the Head of the Plant Coven had just grown.

Kikimora called from the platform, "Participants you're task is to make it to the end of this maze. Show us your skills and expertise but be warned inside this maze are deadly traps dangerous in nature. Prove you possess the determination and bravery needed to be a part of the Emperor's Coven. Let the trial begin!"

The participants took off into the maze. Etta took one last glance at her mother before heading into the maze. Etta ran down one of the paths around her in other parts of the maze she could hear the shouts and screams of the other participants. Just then at her feet, the ground erupted and a giant Venus fly trap burst through the ground. Etta scrambled backward as the plant's jaws tried to close around her.

The plant again lunged at her and Etta reached into her pocket and pulled out a small vial. Inside was a potion she had made earlier. Potions weren't against the rules of the trial. Most other participants didn't have to use them since they could just perform magic. However for Etta, they were a necessity, they had been brewing during the time she was completing the first trial and all of the night before. She made a huge batch of different potions just encase now she was glad she had.

Etta flung the potion into the plant's mouth as it opened to eat her. The plant burst into flames and ash rained down on Etta as she scrambled to her feet. She glared up at the platform and saw a smile spread across Terra's face as she was watching the chaos of the maze unfold. Screams and shouts of fear, panic, and pain rang in Etta's ears and all around her as she started running again. She turned the corner only to see another participant barely managed to make it cross a pitfall of spikes. Etta reached into her other pocket and threw another vial, as it shattered on the spikes and ice covered them.

Before Etta could congratulate herself she heard screaming and saw Hunter running around the corner she had just come from. Behind him was a horde of vines crawling its way across the walls and ground of the hedge.

"Oh, my Titan don't bring them over here!" Etta screamed as she stumbled backward and started to attempt to cross the ice bridge she had just made.

Hunter was running toward her and he shouted sarcastically, "Oh so sorry to trouble you I should have gone the other way! Oh wait this was the only way!"

Unfortunately, as Etta placed her foot down the ice began to crack. "Oh, No" Etta muttered as she saw the spiderwebs of cracks that appeared underneath her foot.

Hunter and the vines behind him were closing in and he shouted, "Run you have to run!"

"I can't the ice will shatter if I try and run across it!"

"Did you seriously cheap out on potion materials again?"

"What are you squawking about?" Etta snapped and she slowly began to inch her away across the ice.

"Oh, that's so like you! Using cheap replacement ingredients instead of the actual ingredients! But this is seriously a new low still doing it even when you're life depends on the potion quality!" Hunter lectured his ankle had been caught by a stray vine but he managed to rip through it and scramble to his feet to continue running.

"I used the actual ingredients I just might have not been paying attention that's all! I was a little preoccupied worrying about my impending death via stupidly dangerous trial!" Hunter in a last attempt to escape the vines, tackled Etta across the rest of the ice bridge and they both landed on the other side. The vines crawled after them, "Throw a potion! Throw a potion!"

"Ugh, unbelievable you insult my potion quality and then demand I still use them!" Etta muttered but she reached around Hunter and chucked a potion burning the vines to ash. Hunter let out an exhausted sigh of relief before getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

He reached a handout and offered to help Etta but she shoved his hand away and got up herself with a disgruntled snort. She dusted the dirt off her clothes and grimace seeing her white cape that was already torn was now dirt and grass-stained.

Hunter pulled out a healer's patch from his pocket and slapped it on what appeared to be his scratched-up ankle. He sighed, "Sorry, Etta. I didn't mean to offend you..."

Etta sighed and uncorked another vial and poured its contents onto a scrap on the back of her hand. "These potions aren't up to the quality as my others. I was a bit pressed for time and I had other things on my mind when making them. I'm honestly surprised they didn't blow up in my face during the whole process,"

Hunter sat down and started wrapping his ankle using a piece of his cape he ripped off he got back to his feet and said, "We better get going, if we stay around each any longer they're going to get suspicious," Etta looked up and saw Kikimora, Lilith, and Terra had turned their gaze on the two of them.

"We're headed the same way though."

"Technically we're all headed the same way if you think about it," Hunter sighed and he started walking.

Etta walked beside him and said, "Do you think anyone has made it to the end yet?"

"Considering I haven't heard any cries of joy yet, but plenty of cries of pain. It's safe to assume no."

"I thought so too," They heard a blood-curdling scream up ahead. Hunter and Etta started running toward the sound, Etta was ahead and about to go the corner before Hunter yanked her back by the hood. As a limp body of a participant was thrown past them it would have collided with her if she had gone ahead. Etta yanked free from Hunter and ignored his warning as she ran over to the participant. She knelt down and placed her hand on the side of their neck and held her breath. She let out a relieved sigh when she felt a heartbeat. She got back to her feet only to freeze in her tracks. A plant golem now stood in front of her in its viney grasp was Hunter. Its eyes were pitch black except for two white seeds floating in the darkness.

Etta reached into her cloak and pulled out a vial and shouted, "Drop him you sorry excuse for greenery!"

"Run, just run I saw the exit when it lifted me into the air it's not far you could reach it!" Hunter croaked out before a vine wrapped around his mouth silencing him.

"Not a chance," Etta growled she narrowed her eyes and braced herself as the golem raised its arms to bring it down on her. The fists came down and Etta rolled to the side and chucked the vial at the arm. Rock covered the vines holding it in place.

Etta scrambled up the petrified arm with a scowl on her face. She hung on for dear life as the golem tried to shake her off. When she got to the head of the golem. She plunged her hands into where the pits of the golem's eyes. She ignored the sting of thorns and ripped out the two white seeds. The golem roared breaking its arm free it ripped Etta off of its back and flung her and Hunter aside both of them crashed to the ground and rolled several feet. Etta opened her hands and saw one seed in each hand laying in her scratched-up and bleeding palms. She slipped them into her pockets and reached over and grabbed Hunter's arm and yanked him to his feet.

They started running toward the exit of the maze. Etta looked back and saw that the other participant had recovered and was a few feet behind them. The golem let out another roar this one shook the whole maze soon more participants showed up.

"I don't know if I should say thank you or I'm terrified of you," Hunter muttered as he ran beside Etta.

"Consider us even. After all, you saved me from literally being bodied back there,"

"You were totally imaging that golem as Terra and Kikimora weren't you,"

"Maybe just a little," Etta said sheepishly.

Hunter and Etta made it through the exit and collapsed to their knees breathing heavily in front of the platform. Dark scarlet blood dropped onto the ground underneath Etta's cut hands. Kikimora wrinkled her nose and said, "So you both decided to assist each other through the trial,"

"Now Now Kikimora both of them made it to the end of the maze that was all that was required of them in this trial was it not?" Terra said raising an eyebrow.

"Yes..."

"Well, then they both should pass shouldn't they?" Terra insisted she then bent down and murmured something into Kikimora's ear. Kikimora's eyes lit up and Etta's heart dropped. Kikimora then said, "Congratulations, Merletta and Hunter you have passed and will be moving on to the finale and last trial please prepare yourselves before the trial begins,"

Terra then turned to Etta and said, "Now Sweet Blossom if you'd kindly hand those seeds to me," A vine forming a pocket extended toward where Etta was knelt on the ground.

Etta glared at the vine and looked to her mother who nodded her head ever so slightly. Etta reached into her cloak and dropped the seeds into the pocket they were no longer pure white and instead stained and covered in her blood. "Thank you, Sweet Blossom," Terra cooed before walking away. Hunter got to his feet and so did Etta. He nodded to Etta and said, "See you in a few hours, and good luck,"

"Same to you," The two parted ways.

Etta walked away and stood off to the side. Lilith then hurried down from the platform and knelt down till she was at her daughter's eye level and gingerly held her daughter's bleeding hands in her own. "Oh, Etta that was so reckless of you," She murmured softly as she began to heal them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to leave Hunter behind,"

"Etta, I know you care about him, you can't keep doing things like that. The Emperor's Coven doesn't look too fondly on attributes like empathy, kindness, and compassion,"

Etta scowled hearing this and said, "Of course, it doesn't, but I'm not like that I care about those things." She looked away and muttered, "Maybe I really don't belong in this coven,"

Lilith's eyes widened and she said, "No, No, Etta you're going to do just fine in the Emperor's Coven," She had finished healing Etta's hands and she gently placed her own on the side of Etta's face comforting her.

Etta looked into her mother's eyes, they shone with such love and care as they gazed back at her. "I-I..." Etta threw her arms around her mother hugging her tightly. She didn't know how to tell her mother that she didn't even really care about the Coven, after all, it was her mother's whole life. Lilith hugged her daughter back and gently stroked her hair and said, "You'll do just fine in the Coven, you only have one trial left, and I have it on good faith it's a lot less deadly than the past two have been,"

Lilith then parted and gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead, Etta's smile was lopsided but she nodded her head and said, "Sounds good,"

Lilith then gently squeezed her daughter's shoulders and said, "Remember sometimes sacrifices have to be made... I made mine for the Emperor when I was only a little older than you,"

"Did you regret it?"

"What?"

"The sacrifice you made... Did you ever regret it?" Etta asked as she looked up at her mother.

Something in Lilith's eyes changed but she said, "That's a story for much later, Etta maybe when you're older I'll tell you," She then gave Etta another kiss on her forehead and stood up. She held her hand out to Etta and said, "Let's get you some food before the final trial shall we?"

Etta took her mother's hand and the two walked away. Etta didn't know what the next trial was but she hoped her mother was right and it was a lot less deadly than the past two had been.