Athena's POV
The trial wasn't announced. It simply began.
Flame lashed out from the stone, circling me in a halo of wild heat. I didn't scream—not when the fire kissed my skin, not when my power rebelled against the pressure. I let it come.
Then the shadows followed. They poured from the cracks in my mind, coiling around my ankles, my wrists, my throat. The voices came louder now.
You are not her.
You are not real.
You were made from pain.
And worse—memories. Of blood on my hands. Of screams that sounded like my own. Of Caelum's knife twisting into my ribs as I gasped for a name I couldn't remember.
"You can't have me," I whispered.
But the shadow grinned. We already do.
The fire turned cold.
Then—
A mirror. Floating in front of me. Shimmering silver. And inside it?
Me.
But not the version I'd come to know. Not the goddess. Not the weapon.
Just a girl.
Shaking. Bleeding. Lost.
I stepped toward it.
And it shattered.
The trial splintered time.
