The moment Seraphina stepped across the threshold, the chamber sealed behind her with a groan of shifting stone. The soft pulse of crystal light faded, leaving only the throb of her own heartbeat in her ears.
She stood alone.
The floor beneath her feet was etched with symbols that glowed faintly—moon phases, fang-like crescents, and a strange star at the center. The walls of the cage curved like a ribcage, made from veins of glowing ore and bone-white stone. There were no bars, no chains—yet she could feel it. A presence. A weight. A power that pressed against her mind.
It wasn't just a test. It was a reckoning.
"Welcome," a voice echoed, though no figure appeared. "Daughter of Blood and Moon."
Seraphina's mark burned, and she instinctively gripped her shoulder.
"Who's there?" she called out, trying to steady her voice.
But there was no answer.
Only silence.
Then the air shifted.
The floor beneath her lit up, and suddenly the chamber became a mirror of memory. Shadows flickered across the curved walls—images from her past.
She saw herself as a child, curled under the staircase, hiding from foster parents who whispered about her 'unnaturalness.' She saw the night she'd shifted for the first time, alone and terrified, her cries muffled by the woods. Eryn's face appeared then—smiling, laughing—before fading into ash.
"No," Seraphina whispered. "Don't do this."
But the chamber wasn't listening.
A different memory formed now. One she had never seen.
A man stood over a bloodstained altar, hands trembling. Kael. Younger. Desperate. He cradled a baby with two glowing marks.
"Save her," he begged the shadows.
"She is not meant to live," a voice replied. "Two bloods cannot coexist."
"She is prophecy incarnate," Kael said.
And then the scene dissolved.
Seraphina's knees buckled.
She wasn't just a hybrid. She was never meant to exist.
The floor cracked beneath her, not from stone but from the illusion of stability. And from that crack, a scroll emerged—glowing, ancient, and pulsing with life.
She reached for it.
The moment her fingers touched the parchment, the words unspooled themselves, floating into the air like fireflies.
THE FULL PROPHECY:
"When the blood of moon and fang converge, A daughter shall rise beneath the broken surge. Marked by two, torn by fate, Betrayed by love, yet still too late.
She shall be tested in mountain deep, While the shadows of Crimsaria weep. Broken once, awakened twice, Her power sealed by sacrifice.
A mate will wound, a war will bloom, And death shall dance beneath the moon.
But if the blood-bound heart does beat, The night shall fall at her feet."
Seraphina stared as the words hovered before her, radiant and cruel.
"Betrayed by love…" Her voice broke.
Was it Vael?
Her hands clenched. He had stood beside her in silence. But something in him had changed. The way he looked at her—like he knew something. Like he was hiding something.
And the line: "A mate will wound."
Vael was her mate. It made sense now. The way her mark reacted when he was near. The way her heart ached when he drew close. But he hadn't claimed her.
Because he couldn't.
Or wouldn't.
Tears welled in her eyes.
She wasn't ready for this.
The prophecy shimmered once more, then ignited in light. The words seared into the walls, burned into the air itself.
Then the floor shifted again.
A new presence entered.
This one was not a memory.
It was alive.
A figure stepped forward—cloaked in silver, face hidden by a mask of bone. Its eyes were not eyes, but two swirling galaxies of light.
"The Trial is not knowledge alone," it said. "It is choice."
Seraphina rose shakily to her feet. "What choice?"
"Your fate can still be broken. Your power can still be sealed. Will you walk forward—knowing you may be betrayed, knowing war will come—or will you turn back, and live a half-life, untouched by greatness but safe?"
"I…" She faltered.
Her heart still beat with Eryn's loss. Her soul still bled from Vael's distance.
But she remembered Kael's words. Live. Grow. Fight.
She remembered Eryn's laughter.
And she remembered her own fire.
"I choose forward," Seraphina said.
The chamber glowed.
The figure bowed.
And the cage shattered.
Stone peeled back, revealing a path of moonlight leading into the mountain's core. At its end, a door pulsed like a heartbeat—waiting.
Kael and Vael waited on the other side.
And war waited beyond them.