Samuel, our selective mute, lifts a hand and clears his throat. "So, if I got this right, Max shouldn’t die. If she does, she’ll be rewritten. If she’s rewritten, she might lose her humanity. We get it."

That pretty much sums it up. No sugarcoating, no unnecessary fluff.

Lady Elsa raises her hand slightly, her gaze sweeping over us. “Now that you understand the gravity of the situation, and how we all stand to gain from the two of you joining us, we need to know your answer.”

I glance at Eric and place my hand over his, giving it a light squeeze. His fingers tighten slightly in response, his eyes locking onto mine. A silent conversation passes between us. One laced with exhaustion, hesitation, and the unspoken we’re in way too deep now, aren’t we?

I nod. “Yes. We’ll join you.”

The Keepers of the Rift, because apparently, every secret organization needs a cool, ominous name to begin their doom-and-gloom briefing. Do’s and don’ts, contact protocols, and an overarching “don’t die” policy that feels oddly personal now.

Then Lady Elsa drops the next bomb. “We have a case coming up soon, a young prayer warrior butchered his girlfriend to death. He claims possession.”

Eric lets out a dry scoff, eyes narrowing. “Of course he does. Classic.”

The date is set for two weeks from now, and as much as we’re slowly getting desensitized to horror stories, we’re at the breaking point. Mentally fried. Physically wrecked. Emotionally bankrupt.

We don’t even need to discuss it, we all just know.

“We’re taking a vacation,” I declare, voice flat.

“For a week and a half,” Eric adds, mirroring my deadpan tone.

We’ll be back before the hearing. But until then?

If another supernatural crisis wants to find us, it’s gonna have to wait its damn turn.

---

Time flies when you’re having fun.

Or, in our case, avoiding certain doom.

One week and a half slipped by faster than we could grasp, like sand through fingers or a divine joke at our expense.

We’d barely stepped through the front door when my phone rang. The voice on the other end was high-pitched, nasal, and painfully enthusiastic for this hour, and it chirped, “Obsidian Forum. Keepers of the Rift. Tomorrow. 08h00.”

Great. Nothing like being summoned to a supernatural tribunal before we've even unpacked.

A quick briefing later, we agreed to meet at the Obsidian Forum in two days.

---

The Obsidian Forum looms like a monolith of judgment, an architectural decree of “you’re either guilty or about to be.”

Unlike the courtroom where Alec had faced judgment, loud and performative in its fragility, this place didn’t pretend.

It didn’t need theatrics. Here, guilt wasn’t argued; it was unveiled.

At its core, The Apex juts from the ground. A triangular platform that rises ominously, reserved for the accused. It symbolizes a soul being weighed, measured, and, more often than not, found wanting. Concentric rings of stone seating encircle it, forming a descending amphitheater where every single person can look down on the poor soul standing trial.

At the highest tier, separate from the judges yet impossible to ignore, sit the Spiritual Leaders. Their dark stone thrones, inlaid with celestial symbols, radiate both authority and restraint. They do not enforce judgment. They do not hand down sentences. But their presence alone shapes the trial’s outcome.

The chamber is already brimming with prayer warriors, spiritual warriors, and leaders from countless sects, their hushed conversations threading through the air like an unseen current.

Eric and I step into an adjacent chamber, where Lady Elsa and the rest of the Spiritual Leaders wait. She runs through the setup with the efficiency of someone who’s done this a thousand times.

“The Veilwardens enter first,” she explains. “Five of them take their seats. Then the Judicars follow. Then us.”

Simple enough, except for the part where Eric and I are about to be thrown into the deep end of supernatural politics.

The chamber hums.

Not with mere noise, but with the kind of energy that knows when something greater has entered the room.

Whispers writhe like shadow-serpents through the gathered crowd, coiling with anticipation.

Two new members.

Their voices drip with curiosity, flicker with speculation, and sizzle, just faintly, with suspicion.

Lady Elsa enters first.

Not a single word is spoken, yet the effect is instantaneous.

The entire chamber rises.

Heads bow in silent unison, not out of duty, but reverence.

Behind her, Neil, Natasha, and James glide in like sentinels carved from starlight and smoke. Their expressions are unreadable, cast in shadows that flicker beneath the Sanctum’s strange light.

Then came Gabe and Warren.

We haven’t met them before, but presence doesn’t need an introduction.

There’s something in the way they walk. Something in the way the air parts for them.

The kind of presence that makes the body obey before the mind catches up.

Spines straighten. Eyes widen.

Even the breath in the room seems to halt in place.

And then… Eric and I.

We step through the archway like thunder given form.

A ripple of silence crashes outward, like the pause before Heaven decides to break something open.

The Judicars, ever the immovable faces of law, remain statuesque, but their eyes betray them.

A twitch here. A flick there.

They measure us. Fear us. Wonder who we’ve become.

I swallow against the dryness in my throat.

The Sanctum is enormous, but the walls feel closer now, like they’re leaning in to listen.

And that’s when it hits me.

The butterfly effect.

Not the poetic one.

The "you’ve just walked into a den of lions wearing blood-soaked silk" kind.

We take our seats, the folds of our robes falling like a mantle of command.

Lady Elsa positions herself at the center. Eric to her left. Me to her right.

The message is clear:

Power has arrived.

And it is no longer asking permission.

From below, we must look like myth made flesh. Untouchable. Unrelenting. Ordained.

Then, a voice, low and deliberate, cuts through the anticipation like a blade dipped in prophecy.  "The accused, Gregory Willow, stands before this Tribunal, charged with culpable homicide, practicing dark magic."

Magister Kaelith’s presence alone commands attention. He wears authority as effortlessly as his badge of office, the silver emblem gleaming against his dark robes. Standing beside Mr. Willow, he delivers the facts with the precision of a blade.

“On the night of March 21st,” Magister Kaelith began, voice crisp and controlled, “the accused, Thomas Willow, was in the company of Isabella Neethling, a fellow prayer warrior from his sect.”

He consults the parchment in his hand without lifting his gaze. “An argument was allegedly sparked regarding Miss Neethling’s relationship with a deliverance warrior.”

A beat.

“According to the accused, Miss Neethling retired to the spare room shortly after the exchange. By morning, she was discovered dead.”

He closes the file. The silence is sharp enough to draw blood.

“Mr. Willow claims she was possessed.”

Another pause. Measured. Intentional.

Then, with clinical finality…

“And that he butchered her in self-defense.”

A ripple of murmurs sweeps through the chamber. Every breath is held, every gaze locked onto the man at the center of it all. Mr. Willow keeps his head bowed, eyes fixed on the ground. But something is wrong.

His shadow shifts.

Not the restless fidgeting of a nervous man, but something else, something unnatural. I see it, though I doubt anyone else does.