Arin's vision exploded into streaks of white fire and deep shadows. The ship didn't feel like it was moving, but the stars outside elongated and bent, swirling into a spiral that seemed both infinite and claustrophobically close. The only constant was the sound—a low, resonant hum that felt more like the heartbeat of the space around them than any mechanical vibration.
Lira gripped the side console, knuckles white. "Is this… hyperspace?"
Talon's voice came through the comm, strained. "If it is, it's hyperspace with a bad case of quantum vertigo."
Arin kept his hands steady on the controls, though part of him knew it didn't matter. Here, the ship wasn't flying in the traditional sense—it was being carried. And whoever, or whatever, was carrying them had a destination in mind.
Vakya's glyphs returned, flickering in slow, deliberate patterns. Not frantic this time. Measured. The meaning seeped into Arin's mind: Observation begins.
The hum outside deepened, and then—suddenly—it stopped.
The spiral unraveled, revealing an open expanse that defied scale. It wasn't a system. It wasn't even space in the way Arin understood it. Massive shards of crystalline rock floated in midair, lit from within by molten gold veins. Between them drifted vast streams of liquid starlight, flowing like rivers without banks. Above and below—if those words even applied here—hung two colossal, broken spheres, each half the size of a small moon, suspended in perfect symmetry.
In the distance, suspended on nothing, was a single bridge of black stone.
"That's… not possible," Lira whispered. "Where's the gravity source? How is any of this—"
"It's the Trial," Arin said. "This is it."
Vakya's glyphs pulsed brighter: Cross.
Arin set the Seraph's Wing down on the nearest floating platform, its crystalline surface humming faintly under the landing struts. When the cockpit hissed open, the air outside smelled faintly metallic, like rain on hot stone.
The moment Arin's boots touched the platform, the bridge in the distance shimmered—and the sentinel's voice echoed directly in his mind. One path. One truth. Cross, and be named worthy.
He turned to Lira and Talon. "Stay with the ship."
"Like hell," Lira shot back. "If you're going in there, so am I."
Talon smirked. "Guess I'll keep the engines warm, then. One of us needs to make sure we can run if things go sideways."
Arin and Lira stepped off the platform. The crystalline ground dissolved under their feet into a ribbon of obsidian, carrying them forward through the rivers of starlight. No railings. No tether. Just the void yawning on either side.
Halfway across, the first guardian appeared.
It rose from the starlight below, a humanoid figure forged entirely from fractured light and shadow. Its eyes were twin voids, pulling at Arin's thoughts like whirlpools. In one hand, it carried a blade made of mirrored glass; in the other, nothing at all—because its other hand was the absence of matter itself.
It spoke without moving its mouth: Speak the First Truth.
Arin didn't know the trial would be questions. He thought it would be combat, or endurance. But the glyphs in his mind swirled, forming a single clear line: The self is not the center.
He spoke it aloud. The guardian's blade dimmed.
Pass. It dissolved into motes of light that fell like ash into the void.
Lira glanced at him, brow furrowed. "How did you—"
"Vakya," Arin said. "It's feeding me the answers. Or… what it thinks are the answers."
They kept moving. The bridge curved, bending in ways that shouldn't be possible.
The second guardian appeared as a massive beast, part wolf, part eel, its body coiled around the bridge. Its eyes glowed a fierce gold.
Speak the Second Truth.
The glyphs this time came slower. Arin hesitated, then said: "Power without balance destroys the holder first."
The beast studied him, then uncoiled, vanishing into the starlight streams.
They walked for what felt like hours, though the light around them never shifted. Arin could feel the weight of the sentinel's gaze even here, tracking every step.
Finally, they reached the third and final span of the bridge.
The third guardian was not a creature or a warrior. It was a mirror.
Lira frowned. "What's the trick here?"
The mirror rippled, and Arin saw himself—not as he was, but as he had been before Vakya, before the Veil, before Echofire. A younger man, uncertain, bitter, and carrying too much grief in his shoulders.
Speak the Final Truth.
The glyphs didn't come this time. Vakya was silent.
Arin swallowed. "I don't… I don't know it."
Lira stepped closer. "Then maybe it's not something Vakya can give you."
He stared at his reflection. At the man he'd been. At the choices he'd made to get here. And slowly, he understood.
"The Final Truth," he said, "is that the journey changes you—and if it hasn't, you've learned nothing."
The mirror shattered without a sound.
The bridge ahead unfurled into the platform at its end, where a single object floated in the air—a shard of black crystal, humming with the same frequency as Vakya's glyphs.
Arin stepped forward, and the shard merged into his chest like a drop of ink in water.
The sentinel's voice boomed in his mind: Worthy.
The trial was over.But as the light faded, Arin realized something—the shard wasn't just a gift. It was a key. And keys, in the wrong locks, opened doors that should never be touched.