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**Glade of the Awakened Stones – Trial, Phase Two**
The second wraith floated down like a tattered veil, taking Seris's shape entirely—slim, lithe, with blades glimmering and blood smeared across her arms. Her red eyes glowed like coals.
**"You ran when it counted. You left them to die."**
Real Seris didn't flinch. She rolled her neck slowly, blades flashing out into her hands with a soft *shing.*
"Yeah," she said coolly. "But so did everyone else. I was just the one who lived long enough to remember it."
The wraith lunged, shrieking with a voice like steel on bone. Seris dodged the first strike, twisting under the viney arm of her ghostly self, her movement fluid and cold.
"You think I *wanted* to survive?" she spat, slicing through the wraith's arm. "You think I forgot their faces?"
The clone grinned with her own smile, cruel and sharp.
"You never cried. You moved on."
Seris growled. "I didn't *move on*, I *moved forward*. There's a difference."
Lumi was watching with wide eyes, whispering to Garron. "Wow. That's either emotional maturity or repressed trauma. Hard to tell with assassins."
"Shh," Garron muttered. "Let her work through it."
Seris dashed forward again. This time, she didn't dodge—she embraced the wraith, blades pressed to its form. "I live for them now," she whispered. "And I don't need your guilt anymore."
The wraith shattered into petals, drifting around her like a soft rain.
**"Two truths accepted. One remains."**
Lumi froze.
"Oh no. No no no. Don't look at me!"
---
**Spirit Tree Lookout**
Sylvaeria was practically vibrating with excitement. "Ooooh, it's Lumi's turn!"
"She's… odd," Yuki mused. "Not weak. Not strong. But there's something peculiar."
"She's got something buried deep," Sylvaeria said, eyes narrowing. "The forest always knows."
Yuki huffed. "Let's see what you're hiding, little witch."
---
**Trial – Phase Three**
The final wraith rose—but it didn't form into a humanoid shape.
It became a small, glowing flower. Simple. Delicate. Its petals shimmered with pastel energy, and around it, images flickered—of a home in the mountains, of a child running barefoot under moonlight, of someone calling out a name with warmth.
Lumi went pale.
Garron blinked. "A… flower?"
Seris frowned. "This is your big secret? Your traumatic flower?"
Lumi didn't answer at first. She stepped toward it slowly, hands trembling.
"They said it was too dangerous. That it could bloom into a gate. That I couldn't control it." Her voice cracked. "So I buried it."
The flower pulsed, and the ground cracked. Roots burst up, forming a cage of thorns—but Lumi lifted her hands, and they froze mid-growth.
"I'm not that scared little girl anymore."
She tapped the flower with a finger. It bloomed wide, brilliant and silver-white.
The roots turned to ash. The circle of trial dissolved.
**"All truths accepted."**
The glade fell still.
Then the central altar rumbled, and from its hollow, a seed of spirit-light rose, floating before them.
"A boon," Lumi breathed. "The forest… accepts us."
---
**Observation Point**
Yuki exhaled slowly. "So. They passed."
Sylvaeria smirked. "Did you expect them to fail?"
"Part of me hoped they would. It would've made things easier."
She floated beside him, arms folded. "So what now, Sovereign?"
"…Now I want to know what that girl really buried. That wasn't just a flower."
Sylvaeria nodded. "Then perhaps it's time you met them."
Yuki's eyes narrowed. "Soon."
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