Maya's POV
The realm of the dead was cold.
Not just physical cold—though my breath frosted in the air—but soul-deep cold. The kind that made you forget what warmth felt like. What hope felt like.
I walked on a path made of bones. Thousands of them, packed together, smooth from countless feet walking this road before me. The dead surrounded me on all sides—gray twisted things that had once been people. They reached for me with skeletal hands but couldn't quite touch me.
The Heart Stone's magic protected me. Barely.
"First test," a voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. Ancient. Tired. "Answer truly, or join us forever."
A figure materialized in front of me. An old woman, her form more solid than the others. Her eyes were kind but impossibly sad.
"Why did you come to this world, child?"
I opened my mouth to say I didn't know, that it was an accident—then stopped. The trial demanded truth. And deep down, I knew the truth.
"I was given a second chance," I said quietly. "I died with regrets. With a life I'd wasted being afraid. Maybe... maybe some part of me wanted this. Wanted to be somewhere I could start over. Be brave." My voice cracked. "Even if I didn't know I was choosing it."
The old woman smiled. "Truth spoken. The first test is passed."
She dissolved into mist. The path ahead cleared slightly.
I kept walking.
That's when I felt it—a warmth in my chest. Not from me. From somewhere else. Four distinct points of heat, like small flames burning against the cold.
Kael. Riven. Shen. Torrin.
They'd bonded to me. I could feel them. Their determination. Their fear for me. Their absolute refusal to let me go.
Tears froze on my cheeks. I wasn't alone. Even in death, I wasn't alone.
The warmth gave me strength to keep moving.
The second test came without warning.
The path ahead split into four directions. And standing at each split was someone I knew.
My mother. My father. My best friend from college. And a little girl—the child I'd saved from the fire.
"Maya," my mother called, her voice exactly as I remembered. "Come with me, sweetheart. I've missed you so much."
"This way," my father urged. "I'll keep you safe. Like I always did."
"Choose me," my friend pleaded. "We'll laugh again. Remember how happy we were?"
The little girl just held out her hand. Trusting. Innocent.
My heart shattered. They looked so real. So alive. I wanted to run to them, hug them, tell them everything I never got to say.
But they weren't real. This was the test.
"Second test," that ancient voice intoned. "Choose which path to follow. But know this: three paths lead to eternal rest. Only one continues to the third test. Choose wrong, and you stay here in peace with those you loved. Choose right, and face greater trials ahead."
Peace. They were offering me peace. An end to fear and pain and struggle. I could stay here with the echoes of people I'd loved. Stop fighting.
It would be so easy.
I looked at my mother's face. "I love you," I whispered. "I love all of you. But I can't stay."
"Why not?" the little girl asked. "Don't you want to rest?"
"I do," I admitted. "But I have people waiting for me. Four people who bonded their souls to mine to keep me anchored. They're probably fighting something terrible right now because of me. I can't abandon them."
My mother's image smiled—proud and sad. "You've learned to live for others. Not just yourself."
All four figures dissolved. And the path ahead unified into one road.
"Truth and sacrifice," the voice said. "The second test is passed."
I ran forward, suddenly desperate. Two tests down. One more. Then I could go home—back to that strange valley with four impossible males who'd risked everything for me.
The third test waited at the end of the bone path.
A mirror. Massive. Made of black glass. And in it, I saw—
Me.
But wrong. This Maya had red glowing eyes like when I'd been possessed. Her smile was cruel. Power radiated from her like heat.
"Third test," the voice said, heavier now. "Face what you could become."
The mirror-Maya stepped out of the glass. She moved like a predator.
"Hello," she said in my voice. "I'm your potential. Your power. Everything you could be if you just stopped being so scared and weak."
"I'm not weak," I said, backing up.
"Aren't you?" She laughed. "You died a coward. Lived a coward. Even now, you're terrified of what you're becoming. The Key-bearer. The one who opens gates." She leaned close. "You know what's behind those gates, don't you? You've felt it. The power. The darkness. And part of you wants it."
"No—"
"Liar." Her eyes blazed. "You felt it when the Heart Stone awakened. All that power. All that potential. You could reshape this world. Become something greater than human. Greater than anything."
She was right. I had felt it. That rush of power. That temptation.
"But power like that corrupts," I said. "Changes you into something that hurts people."
"Or something that saves them," she countered. "With that power, you could protect everyone. Build a paradise. No one would ever threaten your males again. No one would dare."
My males. When had I started thinking of them that way?
"The question is simple," mirror-Maya said. "Will you embrace what you're becoming? Accept the power and the darkness that comes with it? Or will you stay weak, human, and watch everyone you care about die because you were too afraid?"
My hands trembled. "That's not a fair choice."
"Life rarely is." She held out her hand. Red light swirled around it. "Take my hand. Accept your fate. Become the Key-bearer in truth. Open the gates. Unleash the power."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you pass the third test." The ancient voice spoke again. "But know this: rejecting power now means facing what comes next with only your human fragility. The trials ahead will be harder. Deadlier. You may die. Your males may die. All because you refused strength when it was offered."
I looked at mirror-Maya's outstretched hand. At the power swirling around it. At the certainty in those red eyes.
Then I looked down at my own hands. Small. Human. Scarred from the laboratory fire that killed me.
But also the hands that had saved a child. That had strategized a way to defeat Varak's army. That had convinced four broken outcasts to believe in something better.
These hands had built things. Saved things.
I didn't need dark power to do that.
"I reject you," I said firmly. "I'll face what comes as myself. Scared and weak and human. But myself."
Mirror-Maya's face twisted with rage. "FOOL!" She lunged at me, claws extended—
And shattered. Like glass. Like the illusion she was.
The ancient voice sounded... pleased? "Three tests passed. Truth. Sacrifice. Self. The Key-bearer has proven worthy."
The bone path ahead began to glow. Not red. Not black. Pure white light.
"Return to the living, Maya Chen. The first lock awaits your key."
The light surrounded me. Lifted me. I felt myself rising, moving up through darkness toward—
Pain exploded through our bond. All four of them—Kael, Riven, Shen, Torrin—screaming in agony.
Something was attacking them.
"No!" I tried to move faster. "Hold on! I'm coming!"
The light accelerated. The realm of the dead fell away. I shot upward through the crack in the earth like a rocket.
I burst out of the ground just as dawn broke.
And found absolute chaos.
The four males were fighting a monster made of bones and shadows. A Death Wraith. They were losing. Badly. Kael's side was torn open. Riven's wing hung at a wrong angle. Shen was barely standing. Torrin was on his knees.
The Wraith raised one skeletal hand, green fire gathering for a killing blow aimed at Kael.
"NO!" I screamed.
Power exploded from me. Not the dark power mirror-Maya had offered. Something else. Something that came from passing the tests.
Pure white light shot from my hands, slamming into the Death Wraith. It shrieked—a sound that hurt to hear. The light burned it, dissolving shadows, cracking bones.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" it wailed. "YOU REJECTED THE POWER! YOU SHOULD BE WEAK!"
"I am weak," I said, and somehow my voice carried across the valley. "But I'm not alone."
I ran to the four males, placing my hands on each of them. The bond between us flared brilliant white. Our combined strength—their physical power, my knowledge, our shared determination—became something greater.
The Wraith lunged at us.
We moved as one.
Kael and Torrin hit it from both sides. Riven dove from above despite his injured wing. Shen's venom found cracks in its bones. And I—
I touched the Heart Stone still embedded in the Bleeding Stone.
"First lock," I commanded, and my voice resonated with power. "OPEN."
The stone blazed. The carved lock clicked. And from it, a beam of pure light shot into the Death Wraith.
The creature screamed. Dissolved. Returned to the realm it should never have left.
Silence fell.
We all collapsed in a heap, wounded and exhausted but alive.
"You did it," Kael gasped. "You actually did it."
I wanted to celebrate. To cry. To sleep for a year.
Instead, I stared at the Bleeding Stone where the first lock now stood open.
Behind it, I could see something. A crack. A tiny crack in reality itself.
And through that crack, something looked back at me.
Something vast. Something hungry. Something that had been waiting a very, very long time.
"Oh God," I whispered. "What have I done?"