Kael's eyes opened to a strange, floating stillness.
He wasn't falling. He wasn't standing. He was suspended—surrounded by endless sky. No ground. No horizon. Just soft gray clouds drifting endlessly in every direction.
"Where… am I?"
His voice echoed, swallowed quickly by the vast space.
Then a sound like breaking glass cracked through the air.
From nowhere, a door appeared.
Simple. Wooden. Hanging alone in the open sky.
Kael floated toward it, drawn by some invisible pull. He reached out, hesitating. The mark on his palm burned softly.
He opened the door.
—
The moment it swung wide, Kael was pulled through—flung not by force, but by memory.
He landed on stone.
The air was dry and warm, filled with the scent of smoke and old parchment. Around him stood towering bookshelves, stretching upward into shadow. This was no forest, no training hall.
It was a library—but not any he'd seen before.
Floating candles lit the path ahead, one by one.
Kael stepped forward slowly.
"Is this part of the trial?" he whispered.
"The mind remembers… but not always as it should."
The voice came from ahead. Not booming like the last—this was softer. Familiar.
He turned the corner and froze.
Sitting at a wooden desk was a woman with dark hair and silver eyes. She was reading, her fingers turning pages with care.
His heart stopped.
"…Mother?"
The woman looked up.
Her face was calm, but her eyes… her eyes knew him.
"Kael," she said. "I've missed you."
He ran forward, but the closer he came, the more the room blurred, like ink running in water. She remained still.
"Is this real?" he asked, voice cracking.
She smiled faintly. "Real enough. For the trial. You must understand who you are. And to do that… you must face what has been locked away."
Suddenly, a mirror appeared beside her.
Not smooth. Not clean.
Cracked.
Distorted.
"Look," she said.
Kael turned, slowly. In the mirror, he saw himself. A child—rain-soaked, crying on a doorstep.
Then the image shifted.
His mother, running through a storm. Shadowy figures chasing her. Lightning striking trees around her. She screamed, shielding the baby—him—in her arms.
Then came the fire.
A city ablaze. Towers burning. People running, falling. A black sigil in the sky pulsing with malevolent light.
He saw his mother injured, whispering to a hooded man—Thomelin—before placing Kael in the blanket.
The storm. The farewell. The kiss.
"I'm sorry," she whispered in the memory. "But you must survive."
The mirror cracked further.
Kael stumbled back.
"I didn't know," he said. "I didn't remember any of it…"
His mother—illusion or not—stood and walked to him. She placed a hand on his cheek.
"There is much you still do not know. The Trial of the Mind isn't about remembering everything. It's about facing the truth of what you are."
The mirror shattered completely.
Kael closed his eyes against the noise, and when he opened them—
—
He was back.
Floating in the endless sky.
But now, three symbols floated before him.
A wolf. A flame. A crown.
Each spun slowly, glowing softly.
A voice returned—no longer hers.
"Choose what defines you now. Each path leads forward… but reveals something lost."
Kael reached out. His hand hovered over the symbols.
He felt drawn to the flame.
Warm. Wild. Relentless.
He touched it.
—
The sky exploded in color, and the clouds swirled around him violently.
When they cleared…
He stood in a circular stone chamber. The sky was above him once more, and the wind from the Vale returned to his ears.
Before him stood the robed figure from the pool—the woman with silver hair.
"You have passed the Trial of the Mind."
She looked at the mark on his palm, which now pulsed with a second ring of energy.
Kael felt tired. Not in body—in soul. But beneath the fatigue, he also felt stronger.
More aware.
"I saw… everything," he said quietly.
She nodded.
"Your mind remembers. Now your spirit must awaken."
—
Back in the Vale
Elenor waited at the edge of the pool, her sword across her knees, eyes fixed on the water.
When the light finally returned, Kael rose from the pool—soaked, breathless, but different.
She ran to him, throwing her arms around him.
"You were gone for hours! What happened?"
Kael looked at her with wide, burning eyes.
"I saw where I came from… and it's worse than we thought."
Thunder rolled in the distance.
The forest around them darkened—not from nightfall, but from something else. Something coming.
The second trial would not wait.