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Chapter Six: The Trial of the Past
(Part Two)
The staircase yawned below like a throat of stone, each step carved with runes that glowed faintly under my feet. The air shifted as I descended — colder, sharper, filled with whispers that rose and fell like distant chanting. The Ashborn Heart pulsed steadily now, but a new tension stirred in my chest.
Halfway down, the walls dissolved. I stepped out into a chamber unlike the ones before: a cathedral of black crystal, its ceiling lost in shadow, its floor scattered with ashes shaped like feathers. The faint light from my veins painted silver veins across the dark surfaces.
A voice drifted from nowhere. "You faced abandonment. You faced betrayal. But you have not yet faced the truth of your blood."
My throat tightened. "Who's there?"
No answer. Only the sound of wings — enormous wings — beating once overhead. Dust drifted down like snow.
In the center of the chamber rose a dais carved into the shape of a tree trunk, its branches curling upward. At the base, two shapes knelt — blurred figures, one cloaked in dark feathers, the other draped in pale silk. They didn't move.
I took a step closer, heart pounding. "Mother?" I whispered. "Father?"
The figures flickered. Faces began to form — a woman's eyes like shards of frost, a man's hair the color of night, their hands entwined. They looked neither wholly human, nor vampire, nor witch.
Then the image shattered into ash. The ashes spiraled upward, becoming a new apparition.
Alan stepped out of the swirl. But not Alan as I remembered — this Alan wore my father's face and my mother's eyes, his expression a cruel mask.
He circled me slowly. "You think forgiving the past frees you?" he hissed. "Your blood is cursed. Your parents doomed you before you were born. You're an accident, not a savior."
The chamber darkened, the ashes rising like a storm. The hybrid-Alan's voice deepened, echoing from the walls. "This is the truth you hide from yourself. You are the Heart's vessel because no one else wanted it."
I clenched my fists, but no fire came. Only a tremor. My breath came shallow. "Stop using their faces."
"They abandoned you too."
"No." My voice cracked but steadied. "They sacrificed themselves." I didn't know why I said it — the words felt pulled from somewhere deeper than memory.
The apparition sneered. "Then prove it."
It lunged at me, claws of ash and light sweeping toward my throat. I dodged back, calling up the new ward the Heart had gifted me. Silver light erupted into a dome around me. The claws struck and dissolved into sparks.
"I'm not that child anymore," I said, pushing outward. The dome flared, becoming a burst of force that hurled the apparition back. "And I'm not ashamed of who I am."
The hybrid-Alan snarled, its form distorting, melting into a mass of shadows. It tried to wrap around me, to smother me in a shroud of darkness. But the Heart inside me burned steadier than ever.
I opened my arms, letting the silver glow expand. "You're not real. You're pain wearing faces. And I accept you. But you don't control me anymore."
The shadow screamed, the sound splitting the air like glass under pressure. Then it collapsed inward, condensing into a single silver feather. The feather floated to my palm, warm as a heartbeat.
I closed my fingers around it. It dissolved into me, leaving behind an image burned into my mind: my mother cradling me as a baby, my father placing a hand on my forehead. No words. Just warmth.
I exhaled shakily. "Thank you," I whispered, not sure to whom.
The chamber brightened. The black crystal walls cracked and peeled away like paper. In their place rose a new path — a bridge of ash and light extending into a horizon of shifting silver dunes.
A final whisper echoed behind me: The past no longer binds you. The future awaits.
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I stepped onto the bridge. Each footfall left glowing prints that faded after a heartbeat. The silver dunes on the far side moved like waves, reflecting glimpses of possible worlds: cities burning, towers of light, Alan standing beside me or against me. Futures, or hallucinations.
At the bridge's end stood a figure cloaked in storm-grey, its face hidden by a hood. Its presence radiated both warmth and warning.
"You've walked the path of what was," it said in a voice like a thousand winds. "Now see what may be."
I hesitated. "Are you—"
It lifted a hand, silencing me. "Do not name me. In the next chamber you will see the world's fate — and your own. To wield the Heart, you must choose which future you will make real."
The silver dunes roiled. The black sun rose above them, its pulse matching the Heart in my chest.
I drew a long breath. My palms still trembled, but not from fear — from anticipation.
"I'm ready," I said, though I wasn't sure it was true.
The figure stepped aside. The silver dunes parted like a curtain, revealing a path into the blinding light of the next trial.
I crossed the threshold.
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