Phase 3 Trials

The mist wasn't natural.

It slithered like thought, dense with pressure and amethyst light, coating the air with a heaviness that clung to Nyra's skin. Each inhale felt like breathing memory—dust and ash and things best left forgotten. She stepped forward. Her bare feet touched glass that pulsed faintly beneath her, reflecting not just her body—but the weight of everything she refused to remember.

This was Phase III.

The final crucible of the Dominion Institute's mindbreak trials.

Where the walls didn't test you.

They consumed you.

Her chains dragged louder than they ever had. No longer bound to her wrists like a reminder of the past—they moved like living things, pulsing, rattling, whispering with every scrape along the mirrored floor. They echoed too much. As if the corridor wanted everyone she'd ever feared to hear her coming.

She walked alone.

No sound but breath. No light but the strange violet haze that shimmered across the corridor walls like haunted fog. The glass didn't show her reflection anymore—it flickered with pieces of her, torn across time.

Then—

The first memory bled into form.

A child. Starved. Shaking.

Nyra stopped, her pulse spiking. The mist parted before her like it wanted her to see.

The child sat in the corner of a dungeon cell—filthy, bleeding from the wrists, bruises blooming like rot across her skin. Chains circled her ankles. Not ornamental. Not weaponized. Just restraints. Her lips trembled with each silent plea.

"I'm sorry. I won't fight. Please… please just food. Please…"

Then came the laughter.

That awful, distant laughter—cruel and echoing, bouncing across the glass walls. She knew that laugh. Royal guards. Nobles. Her tormentors. Men who used to beat her for entertainment, bet on how long she'd last without water. The ones who called her "beast-blooded mutt." "Half-breed mistake."

Nyra didn't blink. Couldn't blink.

She was looking at herself.

But the moment she recognized the memory.

It morphed.

The bruises faded. The wounds vanished. The dirt wiped away as if the child had never suffered.

And in her place stood a polished vision of royalty.

Celeste.

But not just Celeste. This was Celeste as Nyra. Dressed in tailored violet robes lined with silver trim. Her hair fell in soft, noble curls. Her posture was flawless. Her silver eyes had shifted to ice blue.

And she was kneeling before the King.

"I am what he wants," she said softly, not even turning to face Nyra. Her voice was velvet and venom.

"I am the obedient daughter. The refined heir. The girl without rage. Without scars. Without you."

Nyra didn't move.

Her chains tightened around her arms, like they too were listening.

The illusion-Celeste finally rose and turned.

It wasn't just Celeste's face now.

It was Nyra's.

A perfect version of herself—if she'd been born royal. Coddled. Trained in palace etiquette instead of blood and dirt.

"This is what he dreams of," the mirror-Nyra cooed. "A daughter who kneels. Who smiles when he speaks. Who doesn't terrify the court with her fire, her scars, her defiance."

Nyra clenched her jaw. Her magic simmered beneath the skin.

The throne behind the illusion cracked, vanished, and in its place came a battlefield of glass. The walls shimmered.

And the mirror-Nyra attacked.

No warning. No emotion. Just speed.

Their chains collided midair, clanging like steel on steel. The mirror form moved like her, fought like her. Same stances. Same fluidity. Same lethal rhythm.

But something was wrong.

Her strikes were flawless—but lacked weight. Her footwork was precise—but lacked emotion.

She mimicked Nyra's rhythm, but not her rage.

Not her depth.

Not her pain.

Nyra ducked a blade, pivoted into a low sweep, then leapt backward, her breath ragged. The clone came again, swinging wide, her chain slicing like a whip of light. Sparks lit the corridor. Mist hissed and flared.

"You think you're strong because you survived?" the mirror-Nyra laughed, her voice split with echoes. "You're not. You're broken. You were made to suffer. You're just too stupid to stop fighting."

"You're not real," Nyra said through clenched teeth. "You don't know me."

"I am you."

"No. You're what they wanted me to become."

And that's when Nyra let go.

Her rage flared, crashing through her spine like molten lightning.

The Amethyst Inferno ignited.

Her chains burned with violet flame. Her eyes turned to silver stars, and her scars glowed like divine marks. Fire spiraled around her like a serpent set free, warping the glass corridor into a dance of destruction.

She didn't just fight now—she moved. Like rhythm incarnate.

Like vengeance.

Like royalty reborn.

Her chains lashed outward. One wrapped around the illusion's leg, the other around its throat. The flames consumed the false Nyra, bit by bit, until the skin cracked and the illusion screamed—a voice not hers.

"You'll never be enough," it hissed one last time.

Nyra stepped forward, yanked the chains.

"I already am."

And she pulled.

The clone shattered. The corridor pulsed. The mirrors broke into a storm of violet shards, and the flames roared louder—consuming more than just the illusion. They reached inward.

But instead of burning her memories away—

They gave one back.

A flicker. A warmth.

Her mother.

Not just a voice—but a memory she'd thought lost forever: soft hands brushing her cheek in the dark, the scent of lavender and storm rain, a lullaby in a language no one spoke anymore. Her mother's eyes—silver and fierce, full of sorrow and flame.

The fire hadn't stolen it.

It had restored it.

Nyra fell to her knees, breath caught between sob and silence. Her vision blurred—not from pain, but emotion. That forgotten touch… it ached. It healed.

A piece of her that had been carved away by time and cruelty had returned.

She wasn't empty.

Not anymore.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

"I remember," she whispered.

She didn't cry.

She didn't scream.

She simply stood, a single tear trailing down her cheek.

And as the corridor darkened behind her, she stepped forward, one foot after the other, her chains trailing softly behind her, lighter now—not because the burden was gone.

But because she remembered who gave her the strength to carry it.

The corridor sealed behind him like a crypt.

Violet mist pooled around Riven's boots, slick with memory and menace. The air stank of iron and ice. Cold bit into his skin, but it wasn't natural—it was the kind of cold that curdled the soul. Every breath felt like he was inhaling someone else's last.

There were no footsteps but his own. No dragging chains, no howls or voices from beyond. Just silence. Dense. Absolute. The kind of silence that waited, poised like a knife in the dark.

The corridor was lined with mirrors, but they didn't reflect him. Not properly. Not anymore.

The glass shimmered, twisted, as though rejecting the shape of him. It pulsed with veins of black ichor, spreading beneath the surface like corruption in a dying body. The walls were alive—watching, remembering. Judging.

And then—

A shape formed.

A woman's body, pristine and posed, lay draped in the middle of the corridor, shrouded in pale starlight. Her face was frozen in serenity. Her hands folded over her chest. Her mouth sewn shut with golden thread that glimmered faintly with magic.

His mother.

Riven stopped cold. His lungs forgot to function. His heart tried to pretend it didn't recognize her. But it did. Even in death. Even sewn shut.

"Riven," came a voice, though her lips did not move.

It slid into his mind like a dagger wrapped in silk.

"You wear his colors. You smile at his court. And all the while, you bury me deeper. You hide my truth beneath your masks."

The body moved. Twitched. Her fingers cracked at the joints as they stretched out toward him like claws.

"You were supposed to avenge me."

Riven flinched. He didn't want to. But he did.

"You chose them. You always choose them. The nobles. The Crown. That wretched girl."

Nyra.

The whisper wasn't hers. But it dripped with contempt as if his mother had spat her name.

"You let them make you their weapon. You let them feed on the pain I died to escape. And you think you wear that pain with pride."

Golden threads snaked out of her mouth, curling into words that weren't words. Images burned into the mirror walls—his mother's deathbed. Blood. Screaming. Her eyes wide with terror.

"You were never fast enough to save me."

And then the floor split.

Nyra's body fell through the mist above, crumpling at his feet like a puppet with cut strings. Her throat was torn wide open. Her chains shattered. Her silver eyes glazed and lifeless.

He stumbled back, heart racing, breath catching in his chest.

Seraph followed.

No scream. No struggle. Just silence. Her body landed beside Nyra's—limp, broken. One hand still outstretched, like she'd been reaching for him.

His hands were drenched in blood.

The glass trembled.

Reflections swam back at him—hundreds of them—each one showing him with a different expression. Wide-eyed. Smiling. Laughing. Covered in Nyra's and Seraph's blood.

"You always arrive too late."

Riven exploded.

Shadow burst from his form, cloaking him in venomous mist. Twin daggers of serrated void-metal formed in his palms, glowing green with poison. He didn't speak—he screamed.

He charged at the mirrors, slicing through their surface. Glass shattered into slivers of memory, but each piece revealed more of him.

A killer. A betrayer. A noble. A liar.

He spun into a flurry of strikes—daggers flashing, chains erupting from his aura, blades of mist slicing across every wall, every corner. The corridor fought back.

Blood poured from the mirrored ceiling like rain.

The ground pulsed with veins of light, rising like tendrils. They wrapped around his ankles, his wrists, trying to bind him.

He broke them.

He kept fighting.

The image of his mother rose again, this time walking on broken feet, the golden thread now bursting from her mouth like roots.

"You think killing me again will absolve you?"

He struck—shattering the illusion's jaw.

But another took its place. Nyra again. Then Seraph. Then both.

Dead.

Always dead.

And him—always standing above them, always holding the blade.

He dropped to his knees. His breath ragged. His magic unstable. The poison thick in his throat.

Nothing was working.

Because this wasn't a battle of weapons.

It was truth.

"I'm afraid," he whispered, the words ripped from him like confession through broken glass.

The corridor froze.

His voice echoed, fragile.

"I'm afraid I'll lose them. That I'll fail them. That I'll be too slow. That I'll never be enough. I wear the mask because I have to. Because without it, I... I don't know who I am."

The blood stopped falling.

The images faded.

The glass stilled. And in it, he saw not a killer.

But a boy.

Wide-eyed. Trembling. Holding a broken dagger.

A woman stepped forward from the shadows of the reflection.

His mother.

Not bleeding. Not bound. Just her.

"I didn't want vengeance," she said softly. "I wanted you to live. I wanted you to choose. Not wear a crown or hide in shadow, but choose who you are."

Riven stood. The poison mist dissipated around him. He looked down at his hands. No blood. Just scars.

The corridor opened ahead, the mist pulling back like a curtain.

He didn't run.

He walked.

Not as a killer. Not as a noble. Not as a mask.

Just as Riven.

And this time, he wasn't late.

The mist recoiled when they entered.

Seraph stepped into the corridor like a shadow learning how to walk. Her bare feet didn't make a sound against the glass floor, but the space responded to her presence. The air shifted. The silence deepened. Even the light folded in on itself, warping like memory.

Then Nyx opened her eyes.

Their shared body paused as a second soul stirred beneath the skin.

A heartbeat pulsed. Once.

Twice.

And then the corridor came alive.

It was not like the others. This corridor didn't haunt. It didn't reflect. It invaded.

The mirrors didn't shimmer with false memories or long-buried pain. Instead, they twisted with impossible geometry—bent angles, fractured space, reflections of versions of themselves they had never been and never wanted to be.

The Phase III Trial knew better than to fracture them.

So it tried something worse.

It tried to fuse them.

Seraph's breath stilled. Nyx's pulse roared.

A pressure curled around their mind, clawing at the separation between them. Thoughts blurred. Emotions tangled. The clarity between self and other—between calm and chaos—began to bleed.

"No," Seraph whispered, her voice thin but resolute.

Nyx hissed. "We're not supposed to be one. We were never meant to merge."

But the corridor didn't listen.

The world shattered.

They were flung in opposite directions, violently split. Seraph was hurled down a corridor of endless light. Nyx plummeted into a tunnel of endless dark.

Seraph's Path

The light was blinding. The air too warm, too perfect. The walls glowed with radiant softness, whispering promises of peace and serenity.

She walked barefoot on polished crystal.

Images surrounded her—visions of the life she could have had. Her hair grown long and wild in the sunlight. Her voice soft, untouched by the screams of war. A house in the mountains. Flowers in bloom. A lover with silver eyes and a crooked smile. Nyra, laughing beside her, safe. Whole.

No Nyx.

Just Seraph.

Just peace.

But her stomach twisted.

Every step into that future felt like a betrayal.

Because it wasn't real.

Because Nyx's voice was gone.

Nyx's Path

She ran through the dark. The corridor twisted around her like intestines, slick and shifting. Blades jutted from the walls. Screams howled from invisible mouths. The mirrors here didn't show futures.

They showed crimes.

Her crimes.

Villages burned. Children crying. Bodies torn open. Blood soaked the images as she laughed, lost in the carnage. A beast unleashed with no chain to pull her back.

No Seraph.

Just Nyx.

Just madness.

She swung at the walls with her scythes, snarling through clenched teeth. "I'm not this! I'm not—this!"

But the images bled onto her skin. Her scythes curved inward, nearly severing her own reflection. She stumbled, panting.

"Where are you, Seraph?"

The Choice

A whisper echoed through both corridors.

"Only one survives."

Their bodies moved, drawn like magnets toward the corridor's core.

And then—

they collided.

Thrown into a great chamber of fractured glass and pulsing shadowlight, they stood face-to-face.

One body. Two souls.

One mirror.

From its surface emerged a third version of them.

A corrupted being. Perfect fusion. One voice. One face. One mind. It bore Seraph's serenity and Nyx's fury. It wore a crown of bone and eyes like mirrors.

"I am what you should have been," it said. "Singular. Pure. Powerful."

It struck first.

The corrupted being moved like lightning—twisting blades in hand, wings of glass erupting from its back. The ground split beneath it as it rushed forward.

Seraph moved left, Nyx snapped right.

They switched in midair.

Seraph's fans met a blade. Nyx's scythes curved into its side. But it healed—instantly. Its voice split into multiple tones.

"You share too much. You weaken each other."

"No," Seraph said, leaping into a crescent kick, blades flowing like silk.

Nyx finished, spinning with a scream, dragging her whip around the being's throat.

"You don't understand," she growled. "We aren't halves. We're a storm."

The battle blurred. Wings clashed. Mirrors shattered. The chamber cracked beneath their feet.

The corrupted version split into multiple forms, clones made of glass and regret. They attacked from every direction.

Nyx roared, taking three at once, carving a path with her twin scythes.

Seraph moved between dimensions, phasing through blows, landing precise, beautiful strikes.

Blood—not theirs—splashed across the floor.

They were untouchable.

Together.

And the mirror couldn't contain it.

The final strike came not with a blade, but with a truth.

They looked at the corrupted version and saw it for what it was.

Not a god.

A compromise.

Seraph reached forward.

Nyx placed her hand over hers.

"We choose both."

The mirror-being screamed. Their hands ignited with moonfire and shadowflame.

And they split it in two.

The chamber collapsed.

The mirrors fractured inward. Light and dark spiraled like torn silk.

And when it all settled—

Seraph and Nyx stood alone.

No voices. No mirrors. No illusions.

Just silence.

And unity.

They exhaled together.

"Still with me?" Seraph murmured.

Nyx chuckled, voice raw. "Where else would I be?"

They turned.

And walked forward.

One step.

Then another.

Together.

The corridor didn't shift for Kierian Voss.

It collapsed.

One step inside, and the world around him convulsed. Light fractured. Gravity inverted. The air folded like a dying thing—thin and sharp, cutting his lungs with every breath. Shadows peeled off the mirrored walls, writhing like serpents in oil. There was no mist here. No illusions gently forming from fog.

This corridor didn't reveal fear.

It became it.

And yet—Voss said nothing.

His boots clicked once against the obsidian glass.

Silence followed. Not the kind that suggested calm.

The kind that waited to break.

His Graviton Veil pulsed in and out, unstable beneath his skin. It was reacting. His body wasn't sure where the ground began or ended. The corridor didn't obey physics or space. This place wasn't built to challenge the weak. It was forged for the strongest—for those whose minds couldn't be undone by pain alone.

No monsters. No voices.

Just her.

A figure appeared at the far end of the corridor.

Nyra.

Not the real one.

An echo. A vision. Her chains gone. Her posture regal. Her violet armor gleaming like liquid fire. She stood with her back to him, head tilted just enough for a sliver of her face to be visible in profile.

The Amethyst Inferno swirled around her in slow motion, dancing along her arms, gentle like a lover's touch.

"You never say anything," she said. Her voice didn't echo—it pierced.

"Not when it matters."

He didn't move.

But he wanted to.

When he took a step forward, the corridor shattered.

Reality twisted, and suddenly he stood in a field of glass blades.

And at his feet—Nyra's body.

Broken. Still.

Her silver eyes stared at nothing.

Her wrists torn open.

He was holding the blade that killed her.

Behind him—the King.

Behind the King—Queen Selene.

Watching. Smiling.

And then the whispers came.

"You were made to protect her."

"And one day, you will be the one to destroy her."

He staggered.

The corridor twisted again. The walls surged like waves. Blood ran up the ceiling, dripping backward in unnatural rhythm.

Then a second vision—

Nyra again, but different. Smiling. Laughing. Sitting in the courtyard beneath sunlight. Her chains wrapped like jewelry. Her hair wild, wind-kissed. Her eyes unguarded.

Peaceful.

Happy.

And she wasn't looking at him.

She was looking at someone else.

Someone he couldn't see.

Someone who had earned that laugh.

"You're not her shadow," the voice whispered.

"You're just... fading."

Voss stumbled.

And for the first time in his life—

He felt it.

Not fear of death.

Not fear of pain.

Fear of being forgotten.

Fear that he would never be enough.

Not for the King.

Not for Nyra.

Not even for himself.

He dropped to one knee.

The weight crushed him from all sides. Gravity warped. Space bent. The pressure of unspoken feelings, unshed guilt, unclaimed love—all of it condensed into a single point beneath his sternum.

He couldn't breathe.

He couldn't move.

And then—

A hand reached toward him.

But it wasn't hers.

It was his.

A boy's hand. Fragile. Calloused. Shaking.

Kierian.

Not the assassin. Not the phantom.

Just the boy.

The boy who had no name, no family, no purpose—until one was given to him.

The boy who had buried every emotion beneath silence.

"You love her," the younger version whispered.

"And you think that makes you weak."

Voss didn't look up.

The boy's eyes burned like silver fire.

"But it doesn't. It makes you afraid."

The boy drew a blade.

And lunged.

The blade sank in.

Not deep. Not lethal. Just enough.

Pain bloomed behind Voss's ribs—sharp, real, anchoring.

He gasped, and the breath came out ragged, trembling on the edge of a scream he didn't know he was holding.

The boy's face didn't change. No triumph. No anger. Just clarity.

"You think silence keeps you safe," the younger Kierian whispered, twisting the dagger slowly. "But silence is how you forget who you are."

The mirrored walls pulsed, convulsing as if choking on his unspoken truth. Then, they shattered inward with a sound like bones breaking beneath a boot.

And the world cracked.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

The ceiling split wide, revealing not sky but a vortex of stars screaming silently through a void that didn't belong to this plane. The corridor twisted. Gravity folded. Voss's body tilted ninety degrees. He should have fallen sideways. Should have hit a wall.

But he didn't fall.

Because there was no floor anymore.

Only memory.

He tore the blade from his gut. Blood poured like molten ink, hot and slow, curling in the air like a ribbon. The wound pulsed, then sealed partially, his Graviton Veil flickering in confused defiance. The boy—his younger self—watched in silence as he faded into dust.

"You finally told the truth," he said.

Then he was gone.

And everything changed.

The mirrors flattened into a single obsidian wall.

A pulse.

A heartbeat.

The corridor fell away entirely.

And Voss was standing in a place that didn't exist.

The Courtyard.

Still. Moonlit. Unreal.

Ash drifted like snowflakes from a sky too quiet to trust.

Nyra stood at the center.

The real Nyra.

She didn't move.

She didn't speak.

She didn't even know he was there.

Her chains wrapped around her forearms like jewelry—polished silver glinting with starlight. Her posture was relaxed. Head tilted slightly. She gazed skyward, hair falling across her cheek, eyes soft in a way he rarely saw.

Not fierce.

Not guarded.

Just... present.

And in that silence—

Voss cracked.

Not visibly.

Internally.

His hand twitched. His heart stuttered. All the things he'd buried—fear, longing, love—rose like a flood behind his ribs.

He wanted to call out.

He didn't.

He wanted to reach for her.

He didn't.

Because if he did, he would unravel.

But then she smiled.

Not the cold smile she gave in battle.

Not the venomous grin she wore around nobles.

But a real smile. Gentle. Fragile.

And it wasn't for him.

It was for someone else.

A shadow stood beside her. Faceless. Featureless.

But present.

Nyra leaned toward it. Spoke words he couldn't hear.

Laughed softly.

The figure reached out—touched her shoulder.

And Voss watched himself disappear.

"You're not her shadow," the Trial whispered from behind his teeth.

"You're just... fading."

His knees hit the ground.

The wound in his chest throbbed, silver-blue light glowing faintly beneath the skin. The pain wasn't from the blade. It was from the truth.

"I love her," he whispered to the air.

Nothing responded.

He said it again.

"I love her."

The Trial held its breath.

"I love her. Not because I was ordered to. Not because she reminds me of the person I was supposed to be loyal to. I love her because she makes me feel alive. Because in a world of ghosts and blood and silence, she's the one thing I can't kill."

The stars above twisted into a spiral.

His sigil ignited.

Not across his back, like all his prior brands.

But across his heart.

It burned through his clothes, bleeding light through flesh, a symbol carved in ancient geometry—a collapsing star bound in chains.

The Trial didn't mark him with fear.

It marked him with truth.

And in that moment, he wasn't an assassin.

Wasn't a ghost.

He was just Kierian Voss.

And he was in love.

The courtyard dissolved like sand in wind.

And he emerged.

Last.

Blood still streaked his side. The wound pulsed but didn't bleed—it shimmered. His walk was slow, deliberate. Not tired. Transformed.

The others had already returned.

Nyra sat on the courtyard steps, arms wrapped around her knees, her face unreadable. Her silver eyes were dulled by exhaustion—but sharpened the moment she saw him.

Riven stood nearby, a haunted look in his eyes. Seraph and Nyx—unified in one body—were silent, a faint crackling of moonfire and shadow still lingering around them. They didn't speak.

The air was still heavy. No one had broken the silence.

Until Voss did.

He stopped in front of Nyra.

She stood.

Opened her mouth.

But before she could ask, he said it.

"Don't die on me."

His voice was hoarse. Sharp. Not pleading. Demanding.

"Ever."

Nyra's eyes widened, just slightly.

Then Voss turned away.

And vanished into the shadows.

The maze was over.

But the silence that followed was worse.

They stood—four survivors of the Phase III Trial—still wrapped in the psychic debris of what they'd endured. No clock marked their return. No instructor welcomed them. The air itself held its breath.

The corridor behind them had sealed shut, vanishing into obsidian stone like it had never existed. No exit rune. No sigil. Just cold walls soaked in ancient magic and judgment.

Seraph/Nyx sat alone near the edge of the blackstone fountain in the courtyard, water long since dried into stillness. Their eyes were half-lidded, staring into nothing—Nyx humming low under her breath while Seraph traced silent sigils against her thigh.

They hadn't spoken since returning.

Riven leaned against a cracked marble column, head bowed, fingers twitching absently at his sides like he was still holding blades. His eyes—normally glinting with sharp mischief—were hollow now. Not broken.

Wary.

Watching.

He hadn't said a word either.

And Nyra—

She hadn't moved.

She sat on the lowest step of the grand stairway that led to the upper levels of Dominion's inner sanctum, knees drawn to her chest, face blank. Her silver eyes had dulled into steel. Her chains were limp at her sides.

Her hands hadn't stopped shaking.

No one knew what she had seen.

No one dared ask.

Because whatever it was had carved something out of her.

And she hadn't yet decided if it would heal.

Then—

Footsteps.

Slow. Controlled. Bleeding authority with every measured impact.

Headmaster Xypher Rhaegis emerged from the shadowed archway at the far end of the courtyard, robes trailing like smoke, his onyx eyes unreadable.

He stopped.

And surveyed them.

Each one.

A flicker of magic passed across his gaze. An evaluation spell. One glance told him everything.

They had survived.

But not untouched.

"You have passed," he said finally, his voice like obsidian cracking under pressure. "But passing is not the same as returning."

None of them replied.

"There is no medal. No recognition. No audience."

Still, silence.

Xypher's gaze lingered on Nyra. For a fraction of a second—so quick it could've been imagined—his expression shifted.

Not pity.

But something colder.

"Phase III is not meant to test strength," he continued. "It is meant to remove illusion. To strip the soul to its rawest form. Those who leave with something broken have done it right."

His hands folded behind his back.

"From this day forward, you are no longer considered First-Year initiates. You are now recognized as Ascending Candidates. You will no longer be observed."

That made Seraph/Nyx finally blink.

Riven's fingers stilled.

"From this moment, you are watched only by those who fear what you may become."

The air shifted.

And with that, the Headmaster turned—and walked away.

The silence returned.

But it was not the same.

The Phase III Trial had ended.

And something had changed between them all.

Not visibly.

Not spoken.

But woven into the way they breathed the same air. Into the way Nyra's gaze lingered on Voss's last words. Into the way Riven looked at her like he didn't know whether to protect her or run.

Into the way Seraph and Nyx no longer argued inside their shared mind—but moved in eerie synchronization.

The maze had forced them into their own hells.

And now?

Now they were no longer just students.

They were weapons in waiting.

They didn't speak.

Not yet.

But the next time they did—

The world would listen.