The platform beneath Sira splintered, jagged cracks racing across its surface as if lightning itself had written her doom. With a sound like a world breaking, the stone gave way.

She fell.

The abyss swallowed her scream, the thunderous winds tearing at her limbs, her hair whipping wildly around her face. She reached out, hands clutching at nothing. For a heartbeat, terror ruled her.

But then the storm shifted.

The abyss became not emptiness but vision, each bolt of lightning a thread of memory. She landed not on stone, but upon a field of light—roots stretching endlessly into shadow, pulsing as though alive.

Inside the Trial

A voice called her name. Not Rael’s, not Lakvenor’s, not Veyrahan’s. It was a woman’s, familiar and achingly distant.

Her mother.

She stood before her, not as Janara the queen, but as Janara the mother: soft-eyed, soil clinging to her hands, the smell of earth and rain on her robes. Yet her form flickered, broken by lightning arcs, as though not entirely real.

“My daughter,” Janara said, her voice trembling with both pride and sorrow. “I hid the truth from you, as my mother hid it from me. The Verdant Core is not only life—it is the memory of creation itself. But creation demands balance. If life grows without restraint, it strangles itself. That is why the Keepers feared us. That is why they—”

Her voice fractured, her form dissolving into sparks.

From the shadows rose another shape—her mirror-self, the false Sira, vines of storm writhing around its frame. Its eyes burned with hunger.

“You are not heir to Gaia’s gift,” it hissed. “You are its curse. You were made, not born. Crafted of soil and spark, a vessel for power too great for flesh.”

Sira staggered back, denial on her lips—but part of her trembled. Deep down, she had always felt it: that strangeness in her blood, the way the earth and air bent too easily to her will. Not learned. Not earned. Innate.

Her hands shook. If I am only a vessel, then who am I?

Above the Storm

On the platform above, Rael’s voice tore through the gale. “SIRA!”

He had defeated the serpent, though blood streamed down his arm where fire had scorched him. Lakvenor stood beside him, his blades sparking, his chest heaving from exertion. Both brothers strained against the storm wall that sealed Sira away, slashing and striking, but the barrier held like a cage of thunder.

“We can’t reach her!” Lakvenor shouted over the roar. “It’s her fight—can’t you see that?”

Rael’s jaw clenched. His blade pressed against the barrier, sparks showering as he tried to force it open. “If she falls, we all fall. I will not let her fight alone.”

A hand like stone clamped onto his shoulder. Veyrahan stood behind him, unmoved by the storm. His gaze was steady, his voice grave.

“She does not fight alone, Sun-born. She fights herself. And only she can win.”

The Trial Deepens

Back within the abyss of light and shadow, the false Sira lunged. Vines lashed out, wrapping around her arms, her throat, squeezing until her breath came ragged.

“You will destroy everything you love,” it whispered. “Even him. Especially him.”

Rael’s face flickered in her mind—his eyes steady, his hand reaching for her through every battle, his voice grounding her when fear threatened to consume her. The thought of losing him pierced deeper than any storm-vine.

Her chest burned. Fear whispered: If you love him, you will be the fire that devours him.

But memory rose against it. Rael’s hand clasping hers during their exile from Solara. His quiet vow at the edge of Glimmerwood: I chose this path with you.

And her mother’s words: Never fear the storm. Listen to it.

Sira closed her eyes. Beneath the fear, beneath the storm, she felt it—the steady pulse of life, older than gods, older than the Keepers. Roots deeper than shadow. Light woven into the soil of her soul.

“I am not your vessel,” she whispered. Her hands lifted, glowing with green fire. “I am not your curse.”

The storm-vines recoiled, hissing.

The false Sira shrieked as cracks split its form, light spilling out like molten earth.

But just as victory seemed near, the abyss shook violently. The shattered doppelgänger’s form did not vanish—it reformed, swelling into something vast, monstrous, an amalgam of storm and root, human no longer.

Above, the storm barrier cracked. Rael and Lakvenor saw it too late—the flash of green fire twisting into shadow.

Veyrahan’s eyes narrowed, his voice grim:

“She awakens more than her truth. She awakens what the Keepers buried.”

The platform shuddered. Lightning surged. And Sira screamed as the monstrous reflection reached for her once more—

—before the vision snapped to black.