The Hollow didn't welcome her. It didn't need to.
Seraphina had come by carriage with Dorian. He remained behind when the path narrowed, giving her space. When the terrain turned too rough, she borrowed his horse for the last stretch and left him behind to guard the entrance and make sure no one followed.
She dismounted at the edge of the valley. The air was colder than it should have been, unnaturally still. Crystalline formations jutted from the cliffs, catching what little light filtered through the mist.
She walked the rest alone.
No guards. No escort. Just her and the weight of everything she now carried.
She could feel the Hollow watching her. Not with eyes, but with presence—thick and old, like the air held judgment. Every step closer made her skin tighten, her heartbeat slow. It didn't feel like a place meant to kill, but it also didn't feel safe. It felt like truth.
And she knew the truth wasn't always kind. Whatever lived in this place, whatever test it held, it wouldn't care about her fear or her history. Only her choices. Her strength. Her truth.
So she straightened her spine. Pressed one hand against the phoenix pin over her heart.
She had come this far. She wasn't here to ask for acceptance.
She was here to prove she didn't need it.
At the entrance, the stone wall split into a narrow passage lined with pale crystals. As she stepped closer, they began to pulse. Not with magic, but with recognition.
She moved forward.
The ground shifted beneath her boots. Not enough to unbalance her, but enough to remind her this place was alive. A voice, low and distant, echoed from the stone.
"Prove yourself, Warden-blood."
She didn't answer. She kept walking.
Inside, the light vanished. For a few seconds, she was blind.
Then the crystals lit from within, and the Hollow revealed itself.
A massive cavern stretched ahead, lined with mirrors,tall, wide, and perfectly still. They reflected not the present, but possibilities.
Different versions of her.
She saw the girl who stood too still when the flames rose, who had trusted the wrong man and paid the price. She saw the Seraphina who bent instead of breaking, who stayed silent too long, who let others speak for her. One version wore a crown, but her eyes were hollow. Another bore scars too deep to hide and walked with a limp she hadn't earned yet. Each version told a story, not of what could be, but of what already had been—or nearly was.
And it struck her just how close she had come to becoming each of them. A wrong turn. One moment of doubt. One betrayal too many.
She felt them all press in. Not to frighten her, but to remind her. The price of survival wasn't just strength—it was choice. Deliberate, repeated, painful choice. And every version reflected just how close she had come to becoming someone she wasn't sure she'd recognize now.
One mirror pulsed brighter than the others.
She approached it.
It showed her in black and red. A crown on her brow. Blood on her sleeves. Her eyes were cold, detached.
This Seraphina had taken the throne by force. Ruled by fear. Chose fire over mercy.
It should have unsettled her.
But it didn't.
A part of her understood.
She had felt that pull before—the temptation to burn it all down, to stop asking for justice and take it by force. That version of her, the one in the mirror, had made no compromises. She had chosen power over patience, vengeance over healing. And there was a fierce kind of freedom in that. No waiting, no hoping, no more wounds hidden behind diplomacy. Just fire and the clarity it brought.
It wasn't that she wanted to become that version.
But she understood why someone would.
And that scared her more than anything.
"Take it," a voice whispered, this time from within the glass. "Take what they owe you."
Her hand lifted, almost without thought.
But the mirror changed. A second figure appeared behind the crowned version of herself, a small girl, clinging to her mother's hand.
Before the fire. Before betrayal. Before all of it.
The sight hit her harder than the blood-stained crown ever could. That child didn't know power or pain. She only knew trust. Safety. A world where love wasn't a weapon. Seraphina remembered that girl. Remembered the way she used to hold her mother's hand like it was a promise. That version of her hadn't yet learned to guard her heart, hadn't buried pieces of herself to survive. And standing here, facing the queen who ruled with fire, it was the child's presence that broke her.
She wasn't just choosing between strength and mercy.
She was choosing whether she'd honor the hope her younger self once had—or burn it down to keep herself from ever being hurt again.
"Which will you be?" the voice asked. "The one who destroys, or the one who endures?"
Her hand dropped.
She turned away.
Another mirror called to her. Simpler. It showed her as she was now. Tired. Scarred. Still standing.
Still fighting.
She placed her palm against it.
The mirror didn't flash or speak. It simply accepted her touch. There was no perfection in the reflection, no promise of grandeur—only truth. The truth of who she was now, who she had become, without masks or crowns.
The glass trembled beneath her hand. A soft, cracking sound echoed around her as the other mirrors began to fracture. They didn't shatter completely, but lines split across their surfaces. Possibilities breaking. Paths closing.
Light bled from those fractures, pouring into the Hollow like dawn pushing through darkness. The ground beneath her shifted once, solid and steady.
Then everything fell away—light, glass, weight.
Mist swept through the cavern. Cold and absolute. When it cleared, the mirrors were gone. So were the voices.
In their place stood a single stone altar.
She didn't need to ask what it meant.
The test was done.
And she had passed, not by proving power, but by choosing restraint.
The Hollow hadn't tested her strength in battle or her command over magic. It had tested her identity. It had laid out all the versions of her she could have become—the vengeful queen, the broken girl, the survivor who had stopped surviving. And it had asked her to choose. Not which one was easiest, or strongest, but which one was true.
By turning away from the version that ruled with fear, she had refused the lie that power meant domination. She had rejected the temptation to take vengeance at the cost of her own soul. She had accepted the hardest path of all: to keep going as herself, to lead without losing who she was.
That was what the Hollow wanted to see.
And it had given her its answer.
A single object lay at the center of the altar: a phoenix-shaped pin, forged in gold and dark silver.
She picked it up. It was warm to the touch, and pulsed once in her palm, like a quiet heartbeat.
The Hollow exhaled, like it had been holding its breath.
She stood in silence, letting the weight of the moment settle. The mirrors were gone. The trial was complete. And still, the warmth of the phoenix grounded her.
She pinned it to her coat, just above her heart.
Not because it claimed her.
But because it reminded her who she chose to be.
She left the Hollow the way she came.
But she wasn't the same.
The trial hadn't broken her—it had clarified her. She had walked through her past, faced her darkest temptations, and chosen a version of herself that was not perfect, but real. The Hollow hadn't given her a crown or a prophecy. It had given her something harder to carry: conviction. Now she knew exactly what she stood for, and exactly who she would not become.
Each step away from the Hollow felt lighter, not because the burden had vanished, but because she was no longer carrying doubt alongside it. She had faced herself and survived the truth.
And that, more than any weapon or title, made her ready for what came next.
She mounted her horse.
That's when the second vision struck.
No slow buildup.
It hit her like a wave—sharp, immediate, and all-consuming.
A banquet hall. Candlelight. Laughter.
It was the capital. One of the Empress's formal dinners. She recognized the columns, the golden drapes, the sound of string music tucked beneath the murmur of polished conversation.
Caelan stood near a corner table. Formal wear. Hair tied back. Expression unreadable, but alert. He was watching the room like a soldier even now, scanning faces, cataloging exits.
Then Evelyne appeared.
She moved with purpose, her every step a performance. Her dress shimmered like the surface of poisoned water, and the wine she carried sparkled in the crystal goblet. Her smile was too smooth, her approach too easy.
Seraphina's focus narrowed.
She saw the wine before it reached Caelan's hand. Felt the hum of woven spellwork wrapped inside it. It wasn't made to kill him. It was made to disarm him. A charm meant to quiet resistance, to make the mind more malleable. To nudge him toward suggestion, vulnerability, and confusion.
It wasn't just seduction—it was manipulation. A magical trap disguised as hospitality. Evelyne was using magic to do what poison couldn't. And she was doing it with full confidence, in the open, counting on no one seeing through her act. That arrogance, that coldness, churned in Seraphina's gut. It wasn't just strategy—it was cruelty in silk.
Seraphina's fingers clenched around the phoenix pin. The metal seared against her skin.
She tore herself out of the vision with a gasp, the world tilting sharply around her.
There was no time to hesitate.
She kicked the horse hard, and they launched forward.
The memory of the wine lingered like poison in her thoughts. Caelan had always been the steady one—the blade she could trust. If that was taken from him, even for a moment, the fallout wouldn't just be personal. It would shake the foundation of everything they'd been building.
Not just because of what he meant to Seraphina.
But because of what he was to the cause.
He was her blade. Her constant. The one man who never asked her to be anything but herself.
And she wasn't going to let him fall, not to lies, not to sorcery, not to Evelyne.
She leaned forward, urging the horse faster.
He had saved her once.
Now it was her turn.
Branches whipped her arms. Mud splashed her legs. None of it mattered.
This wasn't about strategy anymore.
This was about someone she couldn't lose.
She had already died once.
She wouldn't let someone else fall in her place.
Not again.
The Hollow vanished behind her. The court was ahead.
Far back, Dorian waited where she had left him.
When he saw her fly from the Hollow like fire chased her, he didn't ask.
He moved.
Climbed onto the carriage. Took the reins.
He would follow.
He always did.
But as he watched her disappear into the trees with fire in her eyes, something shifted in his chest. He'd followed Seraphina through war zones, courts, and betrayals, but he had never seen that look before. Not desperation—conviction. A personal kind of fury.
He tightened his grip on the reins.
He didn't know what she'd seen, but he knew her well enough to recognize the signs. Something was coming. Something dangerous.
And he wasn't going to let her face it alone.
Not now. Not ever.
She rode harder. Dorian would drive faster.
And whatever Evelyne had planned, she would not let it succeed.
Not this time.