The corridor pulsed around him.
Walls that weren't stone but memory shifted with every breath Riven took. They moved like lungs inhaling sorrow—smooth, damp, too close to natural but entirely wrong.
Each step echoed not because of acoustics but because the chamber wanted him to hear himself coming apart.
The green glow beneath his boots pulsed like acid-laced veins through the floor, twisting into tendrils that licked at his shadow. The light wasn't warm. It was surgical—cutting him open one thread at a time.
He didn't like how quiet his thoughts had gotten.
Riven didn't fear pain. He feared stillness.
He took another step. The walls behind him closed. There would be no return without a reckoning.
Then—he heard her.
The voice.
"You poisoned me. Slowly. With who you became."
His heart stuttered.
The chamber widened without warning, folding outward like it had been holding its breath. The acid-green light faded to black—and in its place: a dim, blood-orange glow.
A silhouette stood at the center.
Bound.
Bleeding.
Her wrists hung from invisible wires, head tilted. Dark curls matted to her cheek. Skin once radiant, now withered by illusion's cruelty.
His mother.
"You left me to rot in your shadow, Riven."
He blinked. "You're not real."
"Neither are you," she whispered. "Not anymore."
Then her body burned.
Not in flame—but with decay. Her skin flaked off like cinder petals, and beneath it—another face. His. Twisted in a smirk.
"You're proud of it, aren't you?" the doppelgänger hissed, stepping out from behind her corpse. "How good you got at hiding the blood under your tongue."
The floor split.
Dozens of him emerged from the walls and the cracks.
Each version worse than the last.
One with jagged blades for fingers, smiling as he slit a throat.
One laughing over Seraph's body, covered in her blood.
One holding Nyra's chain like a trophy.
One standing over Voss's corpse, a boot planted where his heart used to be.
They circled him.
"You're always too late," one said, wearing his eyes but not his regret.
"You hesitate," another spat. "And they die for it."
"You're not her shield," one whispered, voice poisoned with truth. "You're her end."
He spun in place. They came closer. Every angle showed another death.
Nyra burned alive.
Seraph strangled in silence.
Voss, throat crushed under collapsed gravity.
And in each one—he stood still.
Doing nothing.
His knees buckled.
Riven dropped.
The pressure crushed his spine, his ribs, his mind.
He screamed.
"I—I didn't want this—!"
"No," a dozen voices echoed, "you are this."
Tears hit the floor, hissing as they touched the acid light.
And then—
The air shifted.
Not outside him.
Inside.
His shadow pulsed.
It moved before he did.
Coiled. Hissed.
Then exploded.
Black tendrils surged outward like an entity unchained, sweeping through the circle of illusions. Screaming shadows slammed into mirrored walls, shattering them into shards that reflected his pain and fury back at him.
His aura shifted—violent, neon green. His body trembled, but not with fear. With clarity.
His blood dripped onto the floor.
It didn't stain.
It burned.
Steam hissed upward as it carved a path into the stone, sigils forming where none had been.
He rose.
No longer shaking.
His voice was low. Final.
"I am the pain. I am the shadow. But I am not your weapon anymore."
The illusion of his mother smiled sadly.
And then vanished.
The other Riven-figures fell to ash.
Behind him, the shattered reflections reformed.
This time, they showed one image:
Riven, standing tall, with serrated blades in each hand and a cloak of shrieking shadow twisting around him like living smoke.
His Echo Form.
It stared back at him.
Then nodded once.
The trial dissolved.
Light returned—but dimly.
The ground beneath him reformed, solid but scarred.
The sigils that burned in his blood didn't fade.
He looked down at his palms.
Steam still curled from his fingers.
His voice came out in a rasp.
"I let go. And I became."
He walked forward.
The corridor accepted his passage.
But his shadow—
It followed behind him.
And it no longer walked the same.
The violet corridor curled inward like a throat.
Not stone. Not fire.
Something in between.
Each step Nyra took was met with a subtle pushback—like the corridor was testing her resolve with resistance alone. Her fire flickered along her arms, not in defense, but anticipation. The sigils along her body throbbed softly, echoing the rhythm in her chest. Not panic.
Purpose.
When she stepped past the threshold, the space rippled like heat shimmer.
The light shifted.
The floor disappeared.
And the world changed.
She stood in the throne room of Veyrune.
But it wasn't how she remembered it from the palace halls or her stolen glances through stained-glass windows. No—this place was soaked in blood. It glistened down the gold-laced walls, pooled beneath shattered marble, stained the base of the obsidian throne that loomed at the center like a god's coffin.
King Vaelor stood tall in his royal blacks, his blade still dripping with fresh crimson. But his eyes… his eyes were calm.
At his feet knelt a version of Nyra—polished, flawless, mouth shut. Her chains were gone. Her fire dimmed. Her skin wrapped in royal silk. Her smile painted on like porcelain.
A tamed echo.
A lie in her own shape.
To the side, Celeste laughed—elegant, untouched, a crown of frost glinting across her brow. Silk chains wrapped her wrists, but she didn't struggle. She posed in them, like they were jewels.
The illusion whispered all around her.
"Obey."
"Smile."
"Be adored."
"You could have peace."
Nyra didn't move. Not yet.
Her fire had vanished. Snuffed like a match under a noble's boot.
But not gone.
Buried.
She clenched her fists.
Took one step forward.
The fake version of her turned and smiled—perfect and hollow.
"Come kneel," it whispered. "You've earned rest. You don't have to fight anymore."
Something sharp twisted in Nyra's chest.
The part of her that had survived lashes and cages and the weight of being ignored itched to kneel. To rest. To be accepted. Even if it meant breaking in all the places she'd glued herself back together.
But she'd bled to become whole.
And no illusion would undo that.
She raised her chin.
Looked straight into the eyes of the King.
Then said, with venom slow and unflinching—
"If peace demands I kill the girl who survived… then peace can burn."
Her body changed instantly.
Chains shot up from her wrists, bursting into a wide fan behind her like wings.
Violet fire spiraled from her palms—not as a blast, but a dance. It moved in elegant circles, wrapping her in radiant arcs. Her feet did not stomp. Her fists did not flail.
She glided.
Like heat-wrapped vengeance wearing the skin of a queen.
She stepped through the throne room.
Unbothered.
Untouched.
The illusion tried to crack. It sent Celeste lunging forward, conjuring chains of ice and silk—but they evaporated the moment they touched her flames.
The false version of Nyra wept blood.
The King raised his blade.
And she walked right past them.
Not in fear.
In indifference.
Because none of it was real.
And they could not break her with ghosts of a girl she had already buried.
As she passed the throne, her chains coiled protectively around her torso. Her fire burned brighter—cooler. The violet deepened into amethyst, then blackened briefly at the edges like ink on fire-washed parchment.
She paused at the center of the room, lifted one hand, and snapped her fingers.
The illusion shattered.
Not in flame.
Not in glass.
But in silence.
The throne room dissolved into light.
The floor reformed beneath her feet, smooth obsidian once more. Her fire withdrew into her skin, leaving behind the scent of ash and something older. Something like memory.
She exhaled.
Her voice was quiet, not to the chamber—but to herself.
"I didn't come here to bow. I came here to rise."
A single rune flared beneath her feet.
The Severing accepted her.
And she walked forward.
Not because it allowed her to.
But because she did not ask permission.
The mirrored corridor welcomed them with a silence so thick it had shape.
It was not empty.
It was waiting.
Seraph and Nyx stepped in together.
One body. Two minds.
But tonight, the Severing would ask: Which one would remain?
The corridor curved in slow spirals, its walls glass-like and flawless. Yet the reflection they cast… was wrong.
It didn't follow perfectly.
It moved a beat too slow.
Or too early.
Its smile didn't match their mouth.
Nyx narrowed her eyes first.
Seraph tilted her head.
"It's already begun," Seraph murmured.
Nyx flexed her fingers. "Good."
The corridor widened, expanding into a room without walls. Just infinite glass stretching in every direction—above, below, behind. No floor. No ceiling. Just them.
And across from them, standing on the other side of the chamber…
Was her.
Not Seraph.
Not Nyx.
But a perfect version.
Polished.
Refined.
Seamless.
One body. One will. No duality. No war. No laughter. No softness.
Only control.
She smiled.
Not cruelly. Not kindly.
Just… empty.
And then she spoke.
"You could be this. Unified. Respected. Powerful."
Nyx snorted. "We are powerful."
Seraph stepped forward. "And we don't need to erase ourselves to earn it."
The mirror version raised a hand.
The room warped.
Suddenly, Seraph and Nyx were apart—forced into physical separation. Two bodies again, but split by mirrored walls.
Seraph stood on a silver bridge, shadows swirling at her heels.
Nyx crouched in a field of broken glass, red lighting cracking in the distance.
Each reflection now moved alone.
The voice returned.
"Choose. Only one of you leaves."
Seraph looked through the mirror toward Nyx.
Nyx tilted her head, grinning.
"You think this'll work on us?" Nyx muttered.
Seraph took a breath, lifting her war fans slowly. "They think the only strength is in silence."
"But we are the scream behind it," Nyx finished.
They both moved.
Not toward each other.
But through the illusion.
The mirrors tried to resist—shifting, twisting, flashing images of their worst moments. Seraph kneeling over corpses. Nyx laughing mid-scream. The past. The blood. The trauma.
They didn't stop.
They met in the center.
The mirrored world cracked.
But not completely.
The perfect version still stood.
Still smiling.
"You don't need each other," it said. "You never did."
They looked at one another.
And spoke in unison.
"We were never meant to be apart."
Then something happened.
Something new.
They didn't resist the mirror.
They rewrote it.
Together.
Their voices blended—one sentence passed between them like breath, each taking pieces of words like dancers trading steps.
"You want control?" Seraph whispered.
"We are control," Nyx answered.
They passed weapons mid-motion—war fans to scythes, scythes to daggers—each move seamless. Their body moved as one, not as halves stitched together but as a rhythm perfected.
The illusion stumbled for the first time.
The perfect version flickered.
It tried to speak again—but this time, Seraph and Nyx were already moving.
Together.
Their reflections did not mimic them anymore.
They obeyed.
The mirrored walls dissolved.
The perfect version cracked down the center—fractured glass slicing through its smile.
They stood side by side as the illusion collapsed.
One form. Two wills.
Seraph's fan rested over Nyx's shoulder.
Nyx's blade hovered behind Seraph's back.
Their breathing was in sync.
Their eyes burned in dual tones—violet and deep crimson, spiraling in unison.
One final line passed between them like a spell:
"We didn't merge because we had to," Seraph said.
"We merged because we chose to," Nyx finished.
The Severing didn't shatter.
It bowed.
And they stepped forward.
Together.
There was no floor.
No walls. No ceiling.
Just void.
Voss hovered in place, feet planted on nothing, surrounded by pressureless black that swallowed sound and shape alike. His body felt weightless, but not in freedom—no, this was the kind of weightlessness that came before the fall.
Something pulsed in the distance.
Not light.
Not magic.
A presence.
And then—she screamed.
Nyra.
From behind him.
He turned.
She burned—alive, consumed, screaming for help as violet fire devoured her limbs. Her silver eyes locked onto his as her chains melted from her skin.
"RUIN!"
He ran. Or tried to.
The void bent, stretching him in wrong directions. The closer he got, the farther she drifted.
Then her body turned to ash.
Another voice.
Nyra—again. But this time, drowning.
She clawed toward the surface of a pool of ink-like liquid, gasping, sputtering.
"Help me—"
He dove.
But his arms passed through water that wasn't wet. He couldn't feel. Couldn't touch.
She sank.
And vanished.
He gasped.
Turned again.
Now she stood chained—executioners flanking her, a blade poised at her throat. Her expression wasn't afraid.
It was betrayed.
"You promised," she said.
The sword fell.
Blood sprayed.
Too late.
He dropped to his knees.
The void around him pulsed.
Harder now.
Cracks opened beneath his boots—not cracks in stone, but in reality. Veins of white-hot magic spiderwebbed into nothing, tracing beneath the air.
The illusions repeated.
Over and over.
Hundreds of Nyra's dying. Burning. Fading.
And in every one—he failed her.
The pressure in his chest spiked.
His control slipped.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
Then the screams stopped.
And he screamed.
"NYRA!"
The air snapped.
Everything broke.
His magic detonated—not in flame or sound, but in a silent quake. The Graviton Veil shattered outward from his body in a pulse that rippled through the void, ripping holes into the trial chamber's walls. The illusion collapsed in on itself like a folding star.
The void shook.
Pressure rushed inward from every direction. The gravity he had kept so tightly controlled cracked through space and time like glass under a hammer.
The Severing room itself shuddered.
The mirrored floor disintegrated.
The walls glowed.
Not from fire.
From impact.
Voss stumbled forward, hands trembling, skin burned across his shoulders and ribs. The mark beneath his collarbone pulsed—a mixture of raw gravity and deeper pain.
He wasn't walking out of a trial.
He was walking out of a wreckage.
Reality reformed slowly around him, but the damage lingered.
The Severing hadn't judged him.
It had tried to cage him.
And he had deleted it.
Behind him, the runes no longer glowed.
They flickered—like they were afraid to remain.
He dragged himself across the threshold of the corridor.
Each step distorted space slightly—his aura still overcharged, flickering like stormlight.
He didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
He'd left nothing behind but craters.
And a promise carved into his chest like a wound:
"Next time… I'll kill the world before I let her die."
The Severing Chamber may have buried its subjects beneath obsidian, silence, and memory…
But the Dominion never stopped watching.
Far above the trials—beyond even the sealed thresholds of the forbidden wings—there sat a chamber no student had ever seen. A sphere of shadow, tucked within the very bones of the Institute, invisible to the naked eye, untouchable by magic. The Dominion Surveillance Nexus.
Only one figure occupied it now.
Queen Selene.
She stood before the wall of void-glass panels, each one flickering with translucent light pulled from the deepest core of the Severing Chamber. Every moment—every breath—streamed in real time. But what she saw was not what the students saw.
She saw soul pressure.
Magical resonance.
Emotion translated into color, code, and volatility.
And what she saw now made her pulse stutter.
Across the flickering mirrors: chaos.
Nyra's signature had sharpened into something that wasn't fire anymore—it was memory in motion. Her aura was no longer violet. It was evolving, stretching into ancient runes that didn't appear on any Dominion record. Her pulse rate didn't spike during her trial. It slowed.
Riven's screen no longer displayed stable readings. His blood had altered. His shadow signature had become untethered from his physical form. One of the mirrors monitoring his pressure had shattered an hour ago.
Selene's fingers twitched.
She moved on.
Seraph and Nyx—one body, two minds—had synced so perfectly their resonance collapsed into a singular waveform. Something no dual-type had ever achieved. The data kept trying to split them apart.
It failed.
And then there was him.
Voss.
His panel didn't stabilize after his trial.
It continued to pulse.
The gravitational field surrounding him warped the very room he'd exited into. The observation mirrors struggled to hold form. His magic was no longer reacting to commands—it was creating its own laws.
Selene's expression remained calm. Her crown rested at the edge of the observation deck, untouched. Her eyes gleamed like moons frozen in frost.
Behind her, a Dominion Warden stepped forward.
"They're not breaking," he said.
His voice held a touch of unease. He stood tall, but not unmoved. His rune-enforced armor shimmered faintly beneath his cloak.
Selene didn't turn.
She watched Nyra's screen flicker again—this time showing a reverse flare of silver light pulsing through her body from the inside out.
Then she finally spoke.
"No… they're becoming."
The silence afterward was so complete it seemed to seal the chamber.
A beat passed.
Then Selene turned away from the panels.
She walked to the chamber's control altar and placed one gloved hand on the runic circle.
The air around it hissed.
The Dominion system waited for a command.
Her voice was softer than the wind—but sharper than any blade.
"Make sure we never let them evolve unchecked again."
A long silence followed.
The Dominion Warden nodded once and disappeared into the darkness behind her.
The Queen stood alone once more.
Watching.
Listening.
And calculating.
They climbed the staircase in silence.
Not the silence of obedience.
But of aftermath.
Of survival.
The air had changed since they entered the Severing Chamber. The very stone beneath their feet felt different—more brittle, like Dominion's foundation had been cracked by what it tried to contain.
They emerged into the torchless stairwell one by one. No torches were lit. No sigils guided the way. The Dominion wanted them to return in darkness.
But they glowed.
Nyra led.
Her chains no longer dragged. They floated just behind her, wrapping around her arms like living armor, humming in tune with each breath she took. Her fire didn't blaze like before—it coiled with purpose. It breathed. Silver light pulsed beneath her skin like veins of moonlit flame. The sigils on her shoulders flickered—no longer violet. Pale silver and black.
There was no fury in her now.
Only presence.
Behind her came Seraph and Nyx.
But not as two.
Their steps were unified, but their posture changed between strides. Their gait shifted every few paces—serene, sharp, serene again. A phantom rhythm between the calm grace of Seraph and the predatory tension of Nyx.
Their movements were seamless.
Their aura was no longer two streams of energy vying for control.
It was a single entity with twin pulses—light and shadow folded into one another, an endless spiral of balance. Their hair shimmered faintly, silver threads visible through the black now. When they exhaled, it sounded like the air passed through two voices at once—one smooth as mist, the other like the growl of steel.
Seraph spoke first.
"The Severing did not separate us."
Nyx chuckled darkly. "It polished us."
"We didn't lose ourselves in the dark," Seraph said as they ascended, the dim light reflecting off her war fans strapped across her back.
"We met ourselves there," Nyx added, smirking. "And we offered the dark a deal."
"It said no," Seraph finished gently.
"So we rewrote it," Nyx growled.
They both smiled.
Riven followed behind them.
His gait was slower. Not from pain—but from calculation. His eyes glowed acid green, the whites faded like old bone. His shadow didn't stretch behind him anymore—it walked beside him, even though there was no light to cast it.
Every few steps, it twitched. Jerked. Moved without him.
He didn't seem surprised.
He kept his gaze fixed on the back of Seraph and Nyx as if confirming that what he had seen inside the Severing hadn't erased them.
"My shadow followed me out…" he finally said, his voice distant, echoing slightly like two frequencies overlapped.
He paused.
"…but it didn't come out the same."
Seraph slowed just long enough to glance back.
"Neither did we."
Nyx added without turning, "You should see what our mirror thinks of us now."
Riven smirked faintly, but his expression didn't soften. His hand hovered near his blade. Not to draw it—but to remind itwho it belonged to.
And then came Voss.
Last.
He looked worse than any of them.
Shirtless. Blood still drying across his chest in jagged burns. His skin was torn across his ribs, and his hands shook slightly as he gripped the railing. But the pressure around him—the air itself—warped.
Gravity rippled around his body like stormlight bent through broken glass.
Each time he breathed, the stairwell seemed to recalibrate.
He was barely holding himself together.
But he was standing.
He was moving.
And his eyes never left her.
Nyra.
She hadn't turned around once.
She didn't have to.
She could feel him behind her—dragging a storm in his wake.
Voss exhaled.
His voice was hoarse, scraped raw by the force of what had been torn open inside him.
"You died."
Nyra stopped.
The stairwell held its breath.
Slowly, she turned her head, one silver eye gleaming in the dark.
"No," she said. "I refused to."
Voss stepped up beside her—gravity fluctuating for a split second—then stabilized.
He looked at her like she was the last thing holding him tethered to reason.
"Next time…" he said, his voice low, fierce, reverent, "I'll kill the world before I let that happen again."
Nyra didn't smile.
She didn't need to.
Her fire flared briefly—not in response to his power.
In answer.
They reached the final landing.
The stairwell opened into a corridor lit by soft rune-lamps—shadows waiting to reclaim them into the world above.
None of them looked back.
None of them said they were okay.
Because they weren't.
They weren't whole.
They were honed.
Sharpened.
And the Dominion hadn't won.
It had simply warned the world what was coming.
The stars above the House of Shadows never looked the same after the Severing.
They didn't twinkle. They trembled.
Low-hanging things, stretched across the heavens like runes waiting to be read—by the right blood.
Nyra stood at the edge of the rooftop with her arms crossed, chin tilted to the sky, but her body told a different story.
Her shoulders were tense. Her fire hadn't settled since she stepped back into air. Her chains were coiled up her arms—not dragging, not slack. Waiting.
The rooftop was still.
But the world above it was not.
There was no breeze. No whisper of moonlight wind. Not even the normal chill of night.
Just the quiet hum of energy, like the edge of a storm—so close you could taste the iron in the air, so silent it made your bones ache for movement.
And then it started.
Her flame flickered—not from will, but from recognition.
One star broke rank.
It didn't fall. It rose.
A silver sliver of light pushed upward through the sky in slow, spiraling defiance. The line it traced across the dark wasn't natural—it bent in impossible curves, stardust curling behind it like script only the divine would dare to write.
Nyra's breath hitched.
The sigils along her spine ignited.
One by one, in rhythm with the comet's path.
Not violet. Not red.
Silver.
As if her body had been waiting for that frequency since before her birth.
Her chains lifted gently from her arms, swaying like reeds in still water. Her flames didn't burn—they reached. Toward the stars. Toward it.
She didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
She remembered.
And the sky began to shape.
The serpent appeared—not all at once, not like a mirage—but in pieces. A shimmer here, a coil there. A ripple in the stars. Wings that shimmered, too wide to fit the sky. A head that never turned but always faced her.
No face. No eyes. No features. Just presence.
It watched her.
And for the first time, she didn't just see it. She felt it see her.
Not just her fire. Not just her magic.
Her.
The soul beneath the scars. The fury beneath the silence.
She opened her palm.
Silver fire pooled there—quiet, beautiful, endless.
Her body remembered the motion now. She lifted her hand.
The fire rose on its own.
And it responded.
The stars spiraled tighter.
The serpent coiled more visibly, stretching across the cosmos until it wrapped the entire crown of the sky. As if everything she knew had always existed under its hidden body, and only now was it willing to reveal itself.
It did not roar.
It simply waited.
Boots touched the stone behind her.
She didn't turn.
Didn't have to.
She knew that step.
Voss.
Or perhaps not Voss.
Ruin.
The shadow-wrapped version of him who emerged only in moments like this—when silence cracked, when power breathed too close to prophecy.
"She sees you," his voice said.
Nyra's lips barely parted.
"It sees everything."
He came closer, but only a step.
Close enough for her fire to brush his skin.
He didn't flinch.
His gaze, like hers, was skybound.
"It's not done watching," he said, and his voice was reverent now.
Nyra turned slightly.
Her eyes glowed silver.
"Good," she whispered. "Let it watch me rise."
And then she released the flame.
The silver spark soared upward, joining the comet's trail until it vanished in its wake.
The stars dimmed slightly—like exhaling.
The serpent faded.
But not fully.
Its outline remained—a constellation that wasn't mapped. A presence written between every heartbeat of the night.
Watching.
Marking.
Waiting.
Because it had seen her. And it had remembered.
They were not broken by the Core.
They were sharpened.
Fire. Shadow. Silence. Weight.
And something divine… watching from above.