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Elara's POV
They say the truth sets you free.
But no one tells you what it takes from you first.
The pages had stilled, and yet my surroundings hadn't. The room around me was… gone. Or maybe I was gone from it. All I saw was a silvery fog, thick like wet cotton, brushing my skin, clinging to my breath. The book was still in my hands, open to the first trial, ink still wet on the parchment.
Then I heard it.
A heartbeat.
Not mine. Louder. Heavier. Surrounding me.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The fog parted.
A mirror stood before me. Towering, ancient, cracked in places but still clear enough to reflect. But it didn't show me now. It showed… a version of me I hadn't seen in years. Braids. Wide eyes. Ink-stained fingertips. Fear in every inch of that small frame.
The voice that came from her mouth wasn't mine.
But I remembered it.
> "I just wanted to disappear into the stories. Not become one."
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat.
> "You ran, Elara."
"You left them."
My knees buckled. It wasn't just a mirror. It was a voice, a portal, a trial that wasn't just symbolic. The truth... it wanted blood.
> "Who did you write away, Elara?"
A new scene reflected now. A boy. Young. Brown hair, mismatched shoes. Ink on his palms too.
Aryn.
My breath caught.
We were ten. He'd found a spell in one of the books I'd scribbled into, laughing. He believed I could make stories come alive. He dared me to try. I wrote a castle.
It collapsed around him before I could finish the sentence.
The ink swallowed him whole.
> "You never spoke his name again," the mirror whispered.
"Because I didn't know how to fix it!" I shouted. "Because I was scared that if I did, he'd come back broken!"
The mirror cracked.
A single splinter, running from top to bottom.
> "Truth cuts," the voice said. "But it also reveals."
Then—behind me—footsteps. I turned.
He stood there. Older. Aryn. But his eyes were hollow. Words floated above his head, sentences unfinished.
> "You left me in the story, Elara."
I staggered back. "This isn't real. You're not real."
> "Neither is anything. Not the masks. Not the Court. Not even the version of you that pretends she's a hero."
My hands trembled. The book glowed.
> Write.
It demanded a choice.
> Rewrite the scene. Bury it deeper. Face him.
I took a breath.
I wrote: "Aryn never stopped reading. His story never ended."
The words shimmered, and the hollow in his eyes blinked with life for a split second.
> "You remember me," he whispered. Then—like mist—he dissolved.
The mirror broke entirely.
And the fog lifted.
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I collapsed to my knees, heart pounding, lungs aching. My first trial was done. The truth hadn't set me free—it had carved open a wound I didn't even know I still carried.
But I'd survived it.
The book floated beside me, flipping pages on its own.
A new heading.
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Trial Two: The Labyrinth of Lies
> "Sometimes, the story you believe is more dangerous than the truth you ignore."
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End of Chapter 17