"Don't move," Lyla whispered.
A pulse of magic hit the floor, silent but violent.
The air thickened so suddenly it punched the breath out of my lungs. Golden heat slid around us like living flames, gripping my ankles and crawling up my spine.
It was studying us, watching, almost as if deciding whether we were worth its time.
Before any of us could answer its first question, the lock spoke again. Its voice scraped through the room like claws dragged down the inside of my skull. A thousand whispers and screams at the same time.
"WE SHALL PLAY A GAME IN ORDER TO UNCOVER HONESTY."
Lyla flinched. I could feel my Core sizzling in my chest, already prepared for upcoming danger.
"THE GAME IS SIMPLE.
OFFER ME THREE.
TWO SHALL BE TRUTH. ONE MAY BE LIE.
NO MORE. NO LESS.
ONLY ONE MAY WEAR THE SKIN OF FALSEHOOD.
MY ENCHANTMENT ENDURES BUT A SINGLE DECEPTION
AND EVERY OTHER WORD WILL BE DRAGGED INTO TRUTH.
YOU WILL SPEAK YOURSELVES BARE... WHETHER YOU WILL IT OR NOT."
The lock's voice dropped to something lower, colder, almost intimate.
"BEGIN."
One shard of golden light drifted toward Lyla's face. She stiffened instantly.
It didn't touch her. It only hovered. A blade choosing where to cut.
"THE FIRST SHALL SPEAK."
Lyla's breath hitched.
"I—I'm first?" she whispered.
The shard brightened. A clear answer.
"Just... pick something simple," I whispered back. The magic still held me pinned, tight and hot against my skin.
The lock laughed.
A brittle, rattling chorus, that made a chill run through my Core.
"THERE IS NO 'SIMPLE' IN TRUTH. NOW SPEAK, CHILD OF DESIRE."
The golden thread slid around Lyla's throat, threatening to squeeze.
She took a shaking breath.
"Uh... My favourite colour is violet."
The thread pulsed once in agreement.
TRUTH
The lock did not seem pleased with the simplicity of the answer though. Magic tightened around her shoulders, seeping beneath her skin, searching for more. Something deeper.
Lyla's voice broke - cracking open in places I didn't know she kept locked.
"When I was twelve..."
I could see the tears welling in her eyes, but the thread only tightened, forcing her to continue.
"I... I tried to cut out my Core. I wanted the desire gone. I hated it."
The thread glowed hotter and hungrier.
TRUTH
I stared at her, stunned, but she wouldn't meet my eyes.
Her jaw was locked tight, tears streaking down her cheeks in thin, trembling lines she didn't bother to wipe away.
Her final statement came out in a broken breath. The thread squeezed one last time, forcing it out of her.
"I hate being the centre of attention."
The locked laughed.
LIE
The magic snapped back as if recoiling from something rotten. Lyla staggered, catching herself on the cold marble. Her breath came in shallow bursts, like each inhale scraped against something sharp inside her ribs.
The golden light hovered around her for a heartbeat, almost tasting the sorrow beneath her skin before it finally withdrew.
I reached for her, but her eyes flicked to mine, wide and trembling, begging me not to touch her yet.
The lock had gutted her in front of me, peeled back something raw, and every instinct in me screamed to protect her.
But protection meant nothing here.
The lock didn't care about fear or pain.
Only truth.
Then its attention shifted.
Toward me.
The golden threads circled, slowly at first, then winding tighter and tighter until the air pressed suffocatingly against my ribs.
Pressure crawled beneath my skin, spiraling up my throat.
My mind spun, blank and chaotic, like pages ripped from a book and scattered across a storm. Every memory felt too sharp, every fear too loud.
My throat tightened, refusing to open.
The magic sensed it. The thread drifted closer, pulsing like a heartbeat, pressing its heat against my skin.
The lock didn't want words.
It wanted what lived beneath them.
The truth.
Shame coiled in my stomach, twisting tighter and tighter.
I could feel Lyla's gaze on me, fearful, steady and urging. And I hated that a part of me wanted to run, to curl inward until the truth couldn't find me.
But there was no running.
Not here.
Not from this.
I needed answers.
The lock would drag honesty out of my lungs one way or another.
I tried to keep it simple.
"My favorite part in Velanor is the gardens by the lake."
The thread pulsed.
Truth.
But it didn't loosen.
It tightened.
Winding closer, like it wanted to carve the truth free with a single cut.
Lyla wiped a tear off her cheek with her sleeve, breath still shaking.
"Serra... whatever you say next, it has to be real. If you try to twist it, the enchantment will force it out anyway."
I knew that.
I could feel it already, the pressure building under my tongue, forcing honesty upward like something sharp pushing from inside my chest.
"I'm afraid..."
The words scraped out rougher than I intended.
"...that something inside me is wrong."
The thread trembled, almost pleased. "YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT."
A sharp band of magic cinched around my ribs, so tight I gasped.
Pain flared, hot and sudden.
"I... I'm afraid, that I might be... Unstable." My breath shook.
"That I'll hurt the people around me."
The thread squeezed tighter and I felt my ribs bending under the pressure, sending an instant wave of pain and nausea through my body.
"BE HONEST."
"OKAY... okay..." the words came out in choked fragments. A truth I didn't even know I held, came spilling out of me.
"I'm afraid that if I'm unstable, that means...
maybe I was the one that started the fire."
The world blurred as tears gathered in my eyes.
"The one my parents died in... The one Eli and I ran from."
My voice cracked, collapsing in on itself.
"After standing in the flames during training... it — it felt familiar."
Sobs tore up my throat, breaking the words apart.
The golden light exploded in a blaze, flaring outward.
A chorus of laughter, brittle and delighted, poured from the lock.
Truth.
I felt the last of the magic seeping into my skin from the glowing thread, like the lock was rooting around inside me, searching for the final piece it demanded.
Only the lie remained.
It was impossible to choose something simple.
Impossible to fight it.
The thread dug deeper, found something raw, and chose for me.
I couldn't stop it.
"I was happier with Eli... than I am here," I whispered, my voice smaller than it had ever been.
The lock howled with laughter. A jagged, metallic, unhinged chorus that scraped across the room, metal screaming against stone, the echo of something ancient and starved finding amusement for the first time in centuries.
Lie.
The verdict hit me harder than the magic. I wasn't happier? How could that be a lie?
Magic snapped back, sharp enough to sting.
My knees gave out for a second, my Core lurching violently inside my chest.
Lyla grabbed my shoulder, steadying me.
"That's two truths," she breathed. "One lie. We... we passed."
But the way she said it sounded uncertain. Like passing one test meant stepping into something worse.
The lock wasn't finished.
Its three shards rejoined, spiraling into a single coil of molten gold that swelled outward until it loomed above us like a serpent carved from the sun.
Symbols writhed across its surface, shifting and sliding into runes I didn't recognize, runes that felt older than language itself.
No laughter now.
No mockery.
Only silence.
"YOU HAVE PLAYED WELL."
Its voice shifted into something deeper, older, as if the stone beneath us remembered a language spoken before Velanor ever existed.
"AND YOU HAVE NOT FLED."
The floor trembled beneath my boots, a subtle quake that climbed straight into my spine.
"NOW YOU SHALL HEAR MY TRUTHS."
The room shifted, not in shape, but in memory.
The air grew heavy with age.
The walls radiated a slow, ancient warmth, like embers buried deep beneath stone.
Everything felt older.
As if the truth-lock wasn't speaking into the room, it was pulling the room into its time.
Then the lock spoke, weaving riddles like spells carved into the marrow of creation:
"BEFORE THERE WERE MANY,
THERE WAS ONLY ONE.
ONE CORE.
ONE HEART.
ONE SOUL.
BEARING THE WEIGHT OF ALL STORMS."
A light flared violently, casting monstrous shadows that twisted and writhed like living things walking along the walls.
"BUT INEVITABLY, HEARTS GET BROKEN."
It hissed the word broken, a curse spat from the throat of history.
"AND WHAT SHATTERS, MUST ALSO BE SCATTERED."
Pain speared behind my sternum. My Core surged in response, a burst of heat I couldn't explain.
"ONE HEART WAS SHATTERED," it intoned,
"AND ITS PIECES BECAME FIVE."
My ears rang.
My vision blurred at the edges, warping with each pulse of magic.
"BUT FRAGMENTS REMEMBER
THE SHAPE OF THE WHOLE."
The coil leaned in until its light brushed against my chest, shimmering over the frantic pulse beneath my ribs.
I couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
"ONE WAS BROKEN,
SHATTERED,
AND FORGED BACK TOGETHER IN PAIN."
My stomach dropped.
"ONE WAS BORN,
UNTAMED,
A NATURAL HEART LIVING IN CHAOS.
WHEN SHARD MEETS SHADOW,
WHEN BORN MEETS BROKEN,
THE WORLD SHALL TREMBLE,
TO FALL,
OR TO RISE ANEW."
The chain snapped, the door blew open, and with a blinding surge of light, we were sucked into the secret archive.