Chapter 4: The Cursed Invitation, Prison of Sand and Secrets (PART 3)

The centre of the Mirage Cradle was not a place meant to be walked. It was meant to be remembered. Or perhaps, more fittingly—relived.

Lysander emerged into the crystalline arena first, his boots striking the mirror-smooth surface with a sound that wasn't quite an echo—more like a memory being summoned. Each step sent concentric rings through the floor, refracting beneath him like ripples across still water. But these ripples didn't fade. They remained, stacked and mirrored, forming faint silhouettes beneath the glass.

His reflection stared back at him. But it wasn't just his own. Not anymore.

Below his feet played a layered theatre of the past. One reflection showed him as a child, barefoot and bloodied, huddled beneath a burning archway, a woman's scream cut short behind him. Another showed him cloaked in royal garb, silver embroidery curling down his sleeves like frost, a crown of embers above his brow. Yet another flickered in and out, revealing him not at all—a void where a person should be.

He knelt for a moment, breathing deeply.

The arena felt vast, larger than the corridors he had walked through, and far too quiet. His heartbeat resounded through the chamber in thick pulses, and with each throb, the sword strapped across his back vibrated gently—not in alarm, but in harmony. This place knew him. Not by name, but by blood.

Behind him, the echo of a second presence swept in like a tide.

Seraphine's footsteps were slow and deliberate. As she entered the space, her reflection blossomed around her—not one, but dozens. Each pane of glass in the floor and walls refracted a different version of her: one cloaked in white, with flame-rimmed eyes; another shackled, bloodied; a third standing upon a dais as masked figures knelt around her in supplication.

Her arrival caused a shift in the crystalline structure—runes flared briefly in a golden web across the dome, recognizing her as something once marked, now returned.

"Where's Mira?" Lysander asked without turning, his voice gravel-thick.

"She's coming," Seraphine answered, her voice quiet, yet firm. "The Cradle only permits the ready."

Lysander turned to face her, noting the tightness in her shoulders, the distant gleam in her eyes.

"You saw something."

She didn't deny it. Her gaze wandered across the arena.

"I saw every version of myself," she said. "Not just the lives I might have lived—but the truths I never wanted to face. Each one begging me to choose it."

"And did you?"

"I walked past them all." She took a step forward. "Because none of them were free."

Lysander nodded slowly.

Then the third presence descended.

It wasn't subtle. Mira arrived like a dropped pebble into a pond of glass—her entrance sent arcs of gold and silver spiralling through the arena floor. Her small frame glowed softly, as though she were less corporeal now and more an echo carried across centuries.

But it was her eyes that struck them both still.

They glowed with dual irises—one gold, one violet—and at their centre shimmered the crest they had seen etched in her pendant: a crescent cradled between two wings.

She walked with grace too practiced for a girl so young. Not stiff. Not rehearsed. But ancient.

"I remember," she said, her voice sounding not just from her throat but through the chamber itself.

Seraphine turned sharply. "What do you mean?"

Mira's eyes locked on her. "My name. My purpose. My inheritance."

The words she spoke next sent vibrations through the very walls:

"Miravelle Caelun. Last daughter of the Twin Bloodlines. Keeper of Seal Two."

The lights in the chamber flared with her words.

Above them, the crystalline dome reshaped itself, forming a constellation of runes and lawscript. Contracts. Pacts. Forgotten edicts. Names lost to history etched themselves in fire. Each flare of language pulsed with judgment.

Then—

A gate opened at the far end of the arena.

A robed figure stepped through.

"Ahhh, the 'prince' awakens," the old man croaked, dragging his cane across the glass. "Welcome, little litigant."

Lysander narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"

"Call me Grendel. Or don't. It matters not. I'm only here to announce the terms of your delightful little stay."

Old Grendel.

He was more bent than ever, his spine like a hook, fingers gnarled and spotted with ink blots and age. His robes—threadbare red and bone-white—trailed across the glass like shrouds of funerals long past. But his presence was heavier now. Solid. Real.

"You brought your blood," he said, voice like dry leaves. "Good. The arena was starving."

Seraphine raised her blade, but Grendel made no move.

"I'm not your enemy," he said, smile crooked. "I am the curator. The last witness. The keeper of the forgotten trial."

His eyes flickered, pale and glassy. Yet sharp.

He raised one gnarled hand, and flaming glyphs erupted across the dome: 

"Three Days to Solve the Crime. Fail, and your soul is forfeit."

Mira flinched. Seraphine instinctively reached for her blade.

"What crime?" Lysander asked coldly.

Grendel chuckled, the sound wet and phlegmy. "Why, the one you committed, of course. Or perhaps your ancestors. The Cradle doesn't care. Blood is blood."

He gestured with one skeletal hand, and from the mirrored walls, figures began to rise.

Ghosts.

Dozens of them. Soldiers in broken armour. Children with scorched wings. Priests dragging broken seals. All of them wore marks of the old demon courts—of royalty, of rebellion, of righteousness betrayed.

Seraphine stepped back, eyes wide.

"They're... the dead."

Grendel nodded. "Victims of the first Tribunal. The one that preceded the Accord. Their stories were cut out. Redacted. Buried in false parchment."

He turned to Lysander.

"Your sword is their key. Your blood is the password. Your presence reopens the file."

Grendel raised both arms.

The floor beneath them rippled and opened—not as a hole, but as a projection.

A memory emerged:

A grand hall of judgment. Azrael was in chains. Celestial scribes scribbling blindly. Vex standing atop the dais, blade pointed downward.

But something was wrong.

This wasn't history.

This was a fabrication.

Vex's blade shimmered with law-runes—but the sigils were mismatched, copied from other trials. The charges being read didn't match the accusations. Names were blotted out. Edits hovered in real time, overwriting reality.

"Forgery," Lysander murmured. "This was rewritten."

Mira stepped forward, eyes wide. "That's not just Azrael. That's... my grandfather."

Grendel smiled. "You see now. The Cradle is not punishment. It's a record. And it's been corrupted."

Seraphine's hand trembled. Her reflection flickered—and behind her, a smaller version of herself appeared. A child. Watching. Crying. Reaching toward the judgment dais as flames engulfed the room.

"I was there," she whispered. "I saw it. I saw him fall."

Grendel turned.

"You all saw. You all knew. That's why Vex buried you here. Not in earth. Not in time. But in memory. This is his vault. His archive. His eraser."

Lysander stepped forward, the sword on his back humming.

"Then this is more than a trial," he said.

Grendel nodded. "It's an appeal."

A scroll unrolled from the air. Its heading burned with celestial gold. Its text shimmered between languages—truth adapting to its reader.

At the top was one word:

Guilty.

And below it, the question:

Will you challenge the verdict?

The glass cracked.

The arena shook.

Grendel bowed low.

"You have three days. Prove that the bloodlines were betrayed. Rebuild the trial. Or the Cradle becomes your tomb."

The ghosts turned.

The arena was sealed.

And the true trial began.