Chapter 3: First Trials

"Even the sweetest lullabies can carry a warning."

---

I hadn't even caught my breath when the Gate of Echoes vanished behind me, its shimmer folding in on itself like a sigh. The Realm of Reflection had left me shaken—haunted, almost—but there was no time to dwell. A trumpet's call echoed through the crystalline halls of the palace, signaling the beginning of the First Trials.

We were to assemble in the Lyricarium.

It sounded gentle. It wasn't.

The Lyricarium was a great amphitheater carved from obsidian and starlight, its open ceiling giving way to a swirling storm of aurorae. Crystalline chandeliers floated weightlessly in the air, illuminating hundreds of floating music runes that drifted like dandelion seeds. At the center, the judges' dais glowed—Queen Aria's empty throne casting a long, sad shadow despite her absence. Leander sat beside it, inscrutable, his eyes flicking toward me only once before moving on. Cold. Distant.

I swallowed hard and stepped into the ring with the others. There were twenty-four of us now. A ripple of whispers passed when I entered—some in awe, others in suspicion. I could feel Seraphina's gaze like a shard of ice down my spine.

"Welcome, contestants," intoned a voice from the skies—an ethereal projection of the court's Master of Magic, cloaked in choral light. "The First Trial begins now. You will each face a Songborn Mirror."

A hush.

He continued, "The Mirror does not judge talent. It reveals the truth of your voice—its source, its strength… and its scars."

The floor rippled beneath me, and suddenly I was standing on a floating platform, isolated. A single mirror rose from the center of the stage, carved from silver and moonstone, swirling with fog.

"Sing," the Mirror whispered. "But do not lie."

My heart thundered. I opened my mouth, and—

Nothing.

For the first time in my life, the notes wouldn't come.

Panic bloomed. My voice—the thing that had brought me here—was frozen. Not from fear, but from something else. The Mirror pulsed softly.

Why can't I sing?

And then, a memory flickered. A lullaby.

Soft, broken.

Someone—a woman—humming to me under stars.

My throat unlocked.

I sang.

But this wasn't like the throne room, where magic erupted like a storm. This was raw—vulnerable. My voice trembled, not with power, but pain. It carried the weight of being left behind, of growing up without answers. It carried every dream I'd buried just to survive.

When the song ended, the Mirror glowed with silver fire, casting an image into the air above me.

It was… me.

But not just me now—me as a child, standing barefoot in the snow, singing to a dying tree under a frozen sky. Alone.

A hush fell. No applause. Just silence.

Then Leander stood.

"Truth," he said. One word. No more.

But his eyes… they were different now.

Then the platform sank and another rose—Seraphina's turn.

She stepped forward like a queen already crowned. Her song was immaculate, every note flawless, shimmering like a blade. The Mirror responded in kind—flashing her image in fire and light, regal and golden.

But something was off.

The Mirror cracked.

Just slightly.

Just enough to make the judges exchange glances.

And Seraphina saw it.

And she saw me.

Later, after the performances ended and we were led to the waiting chambers, Ronan found me.

"You okay?" he asked quietly. "That was… powerful."

"I don't know what it was," I admitted. "But it was real."

He reached out, touching my wrist gently. "That's what they're afraid of."

Before I could ask what he meant, the lights above flickered.

A scream echoed from the Lyricarium.

We ran back, along with guards and staff—but one contestant was missing.

Her Mirror lay shattered. Her name was Lysandra. And all that remained was a single black feather, floating where she'd stood.

"She vanished," someone whispered. "Like the Mirror swallowed her."

The judges were already convening. Leander's knuckles were white against the edge of the dais. Seraphina stared at the empty spot with narrowed eyes.

The Gate of Echoes had changed the rules.

Now the game has begun for real.

And we were singing for our lives.

---

The Lyricarium had turned quiet—too quiet.

Lysandra was gone. No trace, no whisper, no echo. Just that feather, as dark as an omen. The floating runes that once glided above us now dimmed, flickering like dying stars. A veil of unease settled over us.

The judges called for calm. But there's no calming a group of competitors when one of them just… disappears.

"She didn't fail," said one girl, trembling. "She sang beautifully. She—she even made the Mirror glow."

"Then what happened to her?" another snapped. "What if the Mirror isn't showing truth, but taking it?"

I glanced back at the shattered remains of Lysandra's mirror. The crack that appeared on Seraphina's flashed in my mind like a warning bell. These weren't just tests. They were traps. Filters. And someone—or something—was watching.

We were escorted out by the palace guards, but not to our rooms. Instead, we were taken down a winding stairwell that led deep beneath the Lyricarium, through a narrow stone corridor lit by flickering lanterns. The Trial Hall of Echoes, they called it—a place where the judges convened and contestants were called one by one for review.

I was the first summoned.

Inside, the air was heavy with incense and judgment. The five judges sat in a crescent, their faces half-shadowed by candlelight. Leander was at the center, beside the empty seat meant for Queen Aria.

"Lyra," intoned the Master of Magic, "do you understand what your song revealed?"

I hesitated. "That I've suffered," I said carefully. "That I've survived."

"No," said another judge—a sharp-eyed woman with a braid of silver. "It revealed that your voice is bound to memory. That your magic is emotional. Wild. Dangerous, if left unchecked."

"Isn't that the point?" I said before I could stop myself. "To test not just our voices, but our hearts?"

Leander leaned forward. "The Mirror doesn't lie. But it doesn't reveal everything either. You need to be careful, Lyra."

It wasn't a threat. It was a warning.

I was dismissed, heart pounding. Outside the chamber, Ronan was waiting. His jaw clenched the way it always did when he was angry but didn't want to show it.

"They called you first," he said. "They're scared of you."

"They should be," I said, not entirely sure if it was bravado or truth.

We weren't returned to the main palace. Not yet. Instead, we were led to the "Harmonium," the old dormitory towers where the contestants were to stay until the next round. The halls were lined with magical sigils that pulsed with energy, enchanted to protect—or to trap. I couldn't tell which.

Later that night, I stood on the balcony of my room, watching the stars wheel above Aeloria's sleeping skyline. The city glowed softly beneath a magical dome, like a snow globe frozen in time. Somewhere out there, Lysandra had vanished.

And somewhere deeper still, the kingdom waited for a voice to wake it.

A knock.

I turned, expecting Ronan.

But it was Leander.

He leaned against the doorway, hands tucked behind his back, expression unreadable.

"You shouldn't be alone," he said quietly. "Not tonight."

"You're a judge," I said. "Is this allowed?"

"No," he admitted. "But I'm not here as a judge."

I hesitated. "Then who are you here as?"

His gaze was steady. "Someone who's beginning to believe in your voice… and what it might mean."

He stepped forward, holding something out.

It was a silver brooch—shaped like a lyre with a sapphire at its center.

"This belonged to someone once," he said. "A singer from Aeloria's past. She wore it during the last war. Before the curse."

"Why give it to me?"

"Because I think the past is starting to wake up," he said. "And you… might be part of it."

He turned and left before I could ask more.

And in the quiet that followed, I pinned the brooch to my dress.

It hummed.

Softly.

Like the memory of a song waiting to be sung.

---

Morning came like a sigh through the curtains, golden light streaking across the marble floors of the Harmonium. But there was no warmth in it. Only the heavy tension of unspoken fears and unshed tears.

The breakfast hall was quiet, more hushed than it had been the day before. Contestants whispered in corners, eyes darting toward the empty seat where Lysandra once sat. No announcement. No explanation. Just… absence.

And absence, I was learning, was sometimes louder than presence.

I took a seat beside Ronan, who pushed a piece of fruit across his plate without eating it. Seraphina arrived moments later, her hair tied in a severe braid, her face a perfect porcelain mask. Her cracked mirror had vanished from the Lyricarium overnight—replaced with a polished one.

Untouched. Pristine.

But I'd seen the truth beneath that surface. Whatever Seraphina showed the judges… it wasn't the whole of her.

A chime rang from the ceiling. Dozens of crystal bells shaped like bird feathers lit up with runes.

The next trial had arrived.

"Trial Two: The Harmony of Hearts," the enchantment intoned in a melodic voice. "Pairing begins now."

My breath caught.

Pairs?

Everyone froze.

And then the room shimmered.

Strings of light emerged from the walls, coiling like threads of golden silk and snaking through the hall. One by one, they wrapped around contestants—binding pairs together with glowing bonds.

The thread stopped before me.

Two strands hovered, trembling… indecisive.

Then, in a twist that made the air vanish from my lungs, the first thread darted toward Ronan.

The second shot across the hall and wrapped around—

Leander.

There was a collective gasp.

A judge had been chosen.

The golden threads encircled us both, flickering as if uncertain, but held firm. Leander looked just as stunned as I felt.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," one of the instructors muttered.

But the enchantment didn't care for rules. Magic followed instinct. And instinct had chosen us.

"The Harmony of Hearts," the voice echoed again. "You will sing not alone, but together. For this trial, your voices must entwine, your souls must resonate. Sing in sync—or fracture."

Seraphina's eyes locked on me, narrowed to slits. Not just rage. Panic. She hadn't been paired with Leander. She'd been denied him.

And for a moment, I wondered if that had been her goal all along.

---

We were escorted to the practice chambers—each pair to a room of their own. Ours was a domed atrium filled with sound crystals, instruments enchanted to record and replay, and a hovering conductor's wand that tapped the air like a heart skipping beats.

Leander sat across from me, silent.

"You don't have to do this," I said finally. "You're a judge. You could refuse."

He shook his head. "I think the magic made a decision we're not meant to understand yet. But I trust it."

"Why?"

His gaze was steady, but there was something unreadable in his eyes. "Because I've heard hundreds of voices, Lyra. None made the world pause like yours."

The room felt smaller after that.

We began rehearsing, awkwardly at first. Our voices clashed—mine too emotional, his too reserved. Like flint and flame. But slowly, our melodies found a center. We adjusted. Listened. Learned.

And then, during a quiet moment, when our notes rose like morning mist, something clicked.

Our voices didn't just harmonize.

They merged.

Like they were always meant to.

A low rumble echoed through the room. The conductor's wand froze mid-air. The crystals around us lit up in a spiral of color, glowing white-hot—reacting not just to music, but to magic.

We stopped, breathless.

"I felt something," I whispered.

"So did I," Leander murmured. "Like… like the veil between worlds thinned."

In the silence that followed, a new sound emerged.

A faint, haunting melody.

But neither of us was singing.

It was coming from the far wall—where an ancient mural had begun to glow, revealing a hidden doorway behind an illusion of vines and stone.

We stepped closer. Leander reached for my hand.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No," I said. "But let's go anyway."

The door creaked open.

And inside, a spiral staircase of crystal and shadow led downward… into a place no contestant was ever meant to find.