The journey east was not easy.
Beyond Tharamel's ruins stretched a wasteland called the Ashen Mile, where nothing living dared take root. The ground was cracked and scorched, riddled with old, unmarked graves. The wind howled constantly, dragging dust across the bones of forgotten soldiers who had fought wars no one bothered remembering.
It suited Liora's mood perfectly.
Tessa marched ahead, silent and grim, her body coiled tight like a blade barely sheathed. Lienne walked at Liora's side, her limp growing worse with each step, but she refused aid. Stubbornness, perhaps. Or guilt.
They all carried guilt now.
Each step forward felt heavier than the last.
As they crossed into the broken lands surrounding Myrhaal, the city finally rose before them—a jagged, looming silhouette half-swallowed by mist.
Even at a distance, it felt wrong.
The walls were torn down in places, like a beast had clawed through them. Stone towers leaned at impossible angles, defying gravity. A river of black water encircled the city's base like a moat of oil, reflecting no light, only a murky, endless depth.
The air tasted different here—stale, like breathing in someone else's dying memory.
"I don't like this," Tessa muttered, breaking their long silence.
"You're not supposed to," Liora said.
Myrhaal had been abandoned centuries ago. Official records claimed plague. The real story, however, was one whispered only among the highest circles of necromancers:
The Trial of Masks.
A ritual of unraveling.
A test not just of power, but of self.
Liora's grip tightened around the Codex Mortuum, its weight a steady throb against her hip. The book had grown heavier with each mile, as if it, too, sensed what awaited.
The city gates had long since rotted away, leaving only a yawning arch framed by splintered stone.
They crossed into Myrhaal without fanfare.
Inside, the city was a tomb.
Buildings lay shattered, their interiors gutted by time. Statues of forgotten kings and sorcerers leaned drunkenly against crumbling pillars. Vines crept through the ruins, but they bore no flowers—only twisted thorns, black and brittle.
There were no birds. No insects. No life at all.
Only… echoes.
"Why did you come here, little flame?"
The voice was a whisper at first, skimming the edges of Liora's mind. She stiffened, scanning the empty street. Tessa reached for her axe. Lienne paused, her eyes narrowing.
"Something's watching us," she said.
"Not something," Liora replied. "The city itself."
Because Myrhaal wasn't just abandoned.
It was alive.
And it was judging them.
They reached the center by twilight, where a vast amphitheater sprawled like an open wound in the earth. Cracked marble steps descended into a pit filled with swirling mist. A broken dais stood at its center, atop which rested three thrones made of twisted bone and iron.
Behind the thrones, a wall bore carvings.
Faces.
Hundreds of them.
Each one locked in a different expression—joy, terror, sorrow, rage.
They weren't carved.
They were trapped.
Souls, frozen in stone, still faintly conscious.
"Welcome to the Trial," Liora whispered.
No one else dared speak.
A figure materialized at the dais, stepping forth from the mist.
He wore no mask. His face was pale and weathered, eyes black pits of absence. His robes hung in tatters, yet his presence pressed against Liora's mind like a hand gripping her skull.
The first Veil-Touched.
An ancient keeper of the rite.
"Three must enter," he said, voice a hollow rasp. "One will ascend."
"The others?" Lienne asked hoarsely.
The keeper smiled.
"They will be… honored."
The faces on the wall seemed to writhe in silent agony.
Tessa stepped forward without hesitation.
"We fight together," she said.
"No," Liora answered, her voice firm.
They turned to her, confusion flashing.
"This is my trial. Not yours. If you enter, you'll die for nothing."
"We chose this!" Tessa growled. "After Dareth—after everything—you're not doing this alone!"
Lienne nodded grimly.
"Family doesn't abandon family."
The word hit Liora like a dagger to the ribs.
Family.
She didn't deserve that word.
Not after what she'd cost them.
But she swallowed the guilt, the fear, the crushing sense of inevitable failure, and drew herself upright.
"Then we enter together."
"Three," the keeper repeated, gesturing toward the mist-shrouded stairwell that spiraled down beneath the amphitheater. "One."
Without another word, Liora led them down.
The descent was worse than any nightmare Liora had ever known.
Each step peeled away a layer of self.
She felt memories sloughing off her skin like rot—her first incantation, her mother's voice, the smell of rain on cobblestone, Alric's lessons, the sound of Dareth laughing by a fire.
Pieces of her fell away, devoured by the mist.
Tessa stumbled, clutching her head.
Lienne wept silently, but kept moving.
By the time they reached the bottom, they were raw things—bleeding souls encased in fragile meat.
A great mirror stood before them.
Not glass.
Not silver.
It was made of dreams—a churning surface of every fear, every failure, every moment of weakness they'd ever endured.
The keeper's voice echoed down from above.
"To ascend, you must wear the truth."
A pedestal rose from the ground, bearing three masks.
One white.
One black.
One veined with red.
Liora approached.
The white mask shimmered with the scent of forgiveness.
The black mask reeked of power.
The red mask pulsed with pain.
Choice.
It was always about choice.
"Which one?" Tessa whispered.
"You have to choose for yourself," Liora said.
But she knew.
Deep down, she'd always known.
Tessa reached for the white mask.
Lienne hesitated, then chose the black.
And Liora…
Her fingers closed around the red mask, the veins thrumming like a heartbeat.
The moment she placed it against her skin, the world ripped apart.
Visions flooded her.
Her mother, kneeling before Veluran, blood on her lips.
Alric, binding a forbidden spirit inside a child's body.
The White Circle's leaders laughing as villages burned.
And herself—
Not a hero. Not a savior.
A weapon forged for a war she had no choice in.
Pain lanced through her chest.
The red mask fused to her face, sinking into her bones, her blood, her very soul.
She screamed, and the mist drank the sound hungrily.
When she collapsed to her knees, gasping, the amphitheater above was silent.
Only one rose from the mist.
Tessa's axe lay abandoned.
Lienne's body slumped against the wall, her mask cracked and bleeding black smoke.
They had fallen.
Only Liora remained.
The keeper approached, bowed low.
"Veil-Touched. Mask-Bearer. Soul-Forger. Welcome."
Liora stood, trembling, tears burning paths down her cheeks.
She hadn't won.
She had survived.
There was a difference.
And the price…
The price would haunt her forever.
As she climbed out of the pit alone, the Codex pulsed against her side—alive and awake.
Far to the east, the White Circle prepared to move.
And deep within the Codex, a voice she recognized as her mother's whispered:
"The ash in your blood will bloom in fire, my little flame. And the world will burn for it."