For a moment Aren thought it was over. He thought the trial had finally broken him. His mind was sharp, yes, but even sharp minds bend when enough weight is laid on them.
That was the truth I wanted to make clear. Even someone like Aren, who was clever and strong in ways most boys his age could never be, could not walk through something like this without feeling himself split apart.
The shadows circled him. The cough of his sister still rang in his ears. The whispers grew, louder, crueler.
"You left us."
"You are weak."
"You don't deserve to live."
His vision blurred. His hands trembled. His lips parted. The words almost slipped out of him.
But Aren did something strange then. He smiled. Just a little.
Because he understood. This was the trial's game. It was pushing him to the edge. It wanted him to collapse here, where no blade was cutting him, no beast was clawing him. It wanted him to kill himself with his own fear.
And that meant he still had a choice.
He forced his back straight. His feet steadied on the ground. He pressed his nails into his palms until he felt pain. That pain was real. The shadows were not.
For a long moment nothing changed. The whispers went on. His sister's eyes filled with tears. His mother's voice cried from behind the trees. The weight pressed harder.
Then the forest melted.
The trees twisted into smoke. The faces stretched and vanished. The voices cut off. Silence dropped like a stone.
Aren stood in the dark.
This was worse. The silence. The stillness. Because in silence the mind turns on itself.
But Aren did not panic. He waited. He breathed. He told himself again and again that waiting was strength. That was his intelligence at work. Not rushing. Not begging. Not screaming. Just waiting.
Aren had survived the first layer.
And now he faced the next layer.
He stood in a circle of light that was not light. It bent and twisted. His eyes hurt if he looked at it for too long.
The sky above swirled in colors that should not exist, green and black spilling together like oil, stars circling too fast, wrong patterns in the heavens.
Then nine doors appeared before him. Each floating and each glowing differently. They were not normal doors. They whispered. They called. Each promised something, each promised an end. Aren counted them. He remembered. Nine.
Each door spoke in its own way.
The first door burned. Fire spilled across its edges, hot enough to sting his skin even from steps away. It said, power.
The second oozed smoke that smelled of rot. It said, truth.
The third hummed a lullaby in reverse, the sound like bones grinding. It said, rest.
The fourth changed shape every time he blinked. A door, then a window, then a mouth, then nothing. It said, nothing.
The fifth mirrored him, but wrong. Its Aren smiled too wide, eyes too bright, lips twitching. It said, freedom.
The sixth was plain. A flat door, wood without grain. Too calm. It whispered, safety.
The seventh rippled like water, cool and silver. It whispered, knowledge.
The eighth flickered, there one moment gone the next. It hissed, escape.
The ninth was thin and black, almost invisible. Its voice was a whisper so faint he thought it might be his own thought. It also said, nothing like the fourth gate.
Each whispered promises, each pressed something he could not name against his chest.
The choice was cruel. Too cruel. Because each door felt right if he let it. If he stopped thinking.
He moved closer. He touched the first. Fire licked his fingers but did not burn. He pulled back. The second, smoke entered his nose, it was sweet and rotten, almost addictive. He stepped back.
The third, his heartbeat slowed, his body begged to rest. Step back. The fifth, the mirror grinned and for one terrible second he almost grinned back. Step back.
He went one by one. Nothing worked. They all pulled.
Then Remain the fourth and ninth door.
Both were quiet. Both promised nothing.
Aren frowned. Two silences in a place where silence itself was a trick. One had to be a lie.
He moved closer. The ninth pulled at his eyes. If he stared too long, it blurred and vanished, like he had imagined it. That was wrong. It was not a door. It was absence shaped into one. It tried to make him forget it was even there.
The fourth, though, its silence was not empty. It bent air. Time stuttered around its edges. It moved with a rhythm that was not random. It did not try to erase itself. It insisted on existing even when it changed shape.
The ninth was nothing. The fourth was something hiding as nothing.
And this trial was never about choosing desire or fear. It was about finding what was real in the middle of tricks.
So he stepped toward the fourth.
The world around him changed.