The wind over the Glass Wastes howled like the mourning of gods, and under the flickering auroras, Lucian and Seraphis rode two shard-runners—levitating beasts forged from broken starlight and alchemical bones.
"The path to the Coven's sanctuary," Seraphis warned, "is not a road. It's a test."
Lucian nodded. "Let it test me. I have answers they fear."
The mountains ahead were jagged with mirrored cliffs, each reflecting distorted versions of Lucian's face—some younger, some twisted by power, some empty altogether. As they approached the mouth of a black chasm, a wind-borne voice whispered: Only those who have seen themselves shattered may enter whole.
"I suppose knocking won't work," Lucian muttered.
The shard-runners dissolved beneath them as the entrance consumed their shadows.
Inside, the Court of Shattered Eyes waited.
They were seven figures in translucent robes, sitting atop a ring of fractured thrones. Where eyes should have been, each wore a mirror shard—reflecting not the world, but the observer's deepest guilt.
Lucian's breath hitched as one shard showed a memory he'd buried: his mother, burning alive as soldiers of the old empire laughed.
"You seek to unseat prophecy," said the central figure. Her voice echoed in layers. "You rewrite what was never meant to be changed."
"I rewrite only lies," Lucian snapped. "I saw what your timelines ignored. The heir they crowned—the dark version of me—isn't a savior. He's a tyrant."
The court was silent. Then a second figure stood.
"You carry the pact. It bleeds through your aura. You've touched the forbidden script."
Lucian held up the sigil, still glowing on his palm.
"I didn't just touch it. I rewrote it."
That caused murmurs. The third figure rose, her mirror eye crackling.
"Then we must test your truth."
Suddenly, the room shattered into a thousand panes of reality.
Lucian fell through each—living a different version of his life in a heartbeat: one where he ran from the empire and died in exile, another where he became a warlord who conquered the East, and one where he never returned at all.
Each death was brutal. Each life a distortion.
Then a voice pierced them all. "You are not your possible failures."
Seraphis had anchored him—grabbing his arm and yanking him back to the real.
"You passed," one of the judges said, almost in awe. "No heir has ever survived the Prism Trial unbroken."
Lucian stood slowly, sweat beading on his brow. "Now give me what I came for."
The central figure descended from her throne, robes trailing stardust.
"Very well," she said. "The Chronicle of the First Fire—the last record of the bloodline's true purpose—will be yours. But know this: if you fail..."
Lucian met her gaze. "I won't."
She handed him a crystalline scroll pulsing with old runes. "Then go. The timeline realigns in seven nights. If you haven't reclaimed the Crown of Ash by then... your shadow self becomes king."
Lucian gripped the scroll tightly, its weight far beyond physical.
As they stepped out of the court, the sky cracked—three black comets tearing through the stars.
"The coronation has begun," Seraphis said grimly.
Lucian mounted his runner again. "Then let's end this. Before I become something I can't forgive."