The light from the sanctum dimmed.
Not by shadow—but by something older, something alive.
Kael raised his hand toward the pool, and it shimmered, then split—spilling threads of light outward in three distinct paths.
"This is the Trial of Memory," Kael said. "Each path is yours alone. You'll walk into who you once were. You'll see the moment that splintered everything. Only through truth can the Bond be mended."
They hesitated, each path pulsing to their soul's rhythm.
Liara looked at Aeron. Then Cassian.
"I'll see you on the other side," she whispered.
Then stepped into the left path, vanishing into golden mist.
Liara
She emerged into a battlefield cloaked in twilight. The air smelled of scorched earth and dying magic.
Her hands… were not her own. They shimmered with ancient rings. Her gown was celestial white, streaked with ash.
Before her stood Kael, blade in hand, eyes full of agony.
"You chose him," he said. "You chose light over shadow. Me over truth."
"I tried to save all of us," Liara heard herself say, her voice regal but trembling.
"And you doomed us," Kael whispered, dropping his sword. "I never stopped loving you. But you broke the Trinity the moment you feared what we could become."
She stepped closer—but the memory collapsed, pulling her back into the mist.
Aeron
His path led to a temple engulfed in flame.
Inside, two bodies lay lifeless. A child—his brother, and the mage who had tried to save him.
Aeron's past self screamed, raw with grief.
Kael appeared, younger, cloaked in shadow. "You lit the fire to stop them."
Aeron fell to his knees in the vision, unable to look away.
"You said it was the only way," he whispered.
Kael's voice echoed: "You burned the bond to protect it. And in doing so, severed what made you whole
Cassian
His memory was not a battlefield.
It was a throne room.
Cold. Empty.
He stood there as a boy—barely fifteen, blood on his hands, a crown dropped at his feet. Kael stood behind him, older, cloaked in silver and shadow.
"You killed him," Kael said softly.
"He betrayed her," Cassian spat. "He would've torn her soul apart."
"You didn't do it for her," Kael whispered. "You did it because you couldn't bear being second."
Cassian turned to strike him—only to find himself facing a mirror, the blood still fresh on his own blade.
One by one, they emerged from the paths—shaken, silent.
Liara's hands trembled. Aeron's flame flickered dim. Cassian's eyes brimmed with things he hadn't let himself feel in centuries.
Kael looked at them—not with judgment, but with sorrow.
"Now you see," he said. "It was never about power. It was always about choice."
"What now?" Liara asked, voice hoarse.
Kael turned toward the chamber's far wall—where a door shimmered, carved with the Trinity sigil now glowing blood-red.
"Now," he said, "you choose again."