[Reminder: Novel is still undergoing editation]
The moment Verena stepped into the light beyond the archway, it was like waking up from a fever dream.
No more stone walls shifting like a mad god's puzzle. No more celestial glyphs pressing down like judgment. Just open air. Blue skies. Grass that smelled like it belonged in a memory. The academy's central courtyard stretched out before her, familiar yet somehow unreal, like it had been copied from a version of the world where nothing bad had ever happened.
The Trial of Ascendance was over.
There were no trumpets. No dramatic fanfare. No glowing "CONGRATULATIONS" hovering over their heads in golden letters. Just the distant hum of birds, the rustling of leaves—and a heavy, bone-deep silence of people who had seen far too much in far too little time.
