(Caleb's Point of View)
Caleb stirred slowly, eyes adjusting to the dim gold shimmer that lingered in the air. It wasn't sunlight—this radiance pulsed, breathing as though alive. For a long moment, he lay there, listening to the silence. Not just the absence of noise—but a silence thick with meaning, like the final note of a symphony that still trembled in memory.
His chest rose with a sharp breath.
He felt different.
Not just sore or weary from the battle—but fundamentally altered. The music inside him, the one that had always been there, humming beneath his ribs and fingers, had deepened. It no longer whispered. It sang.
He slowly sat up, brushing away fine silver dust that clung to his skin. His senses were sharper. The world seemed clearer—as if his ears picked up not just sounds, but intent. Emotions had a tone. Light had a harmony. And deeper still, he could feel echoes of the Sanctuary itself resonating with his presence.
Something had changed in him since the awakening.
He was no longer merely playing the music—he was part of it.
A flicker of movement drew his gaze. Avesari stood a short distance away, her back to him, wings slightly lowered. Not limp now, but almost reverent, as though humbled by what lay beyond the gates.
Her battle-worn armor shimmered with a faint iridescence. The silver lining that had healed her injuries lingered like a second skin. She looked whole again—maybe even more than before. Stronger. But also... distant.
Caleb stood and approached, each step a quiet echo in the chamber.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Serenya's voice startled him gently from behind.
He turned. She was seated beside the Pathseeker relic, fingers idly tracing its edge. Her tone was laced with quiet curiosity, not judgment.
"Yeah," Caleb said, eyes returning to Avesari. "She is."
The admission slipped out before he could weigh it, but it felt honest. Weightless. True.
Serenya tilted her head. "You care for her."
"I don't know what it is exactly," he murmured. "She's... more than I can describe. There's something broken in her, but not shattered. Something fighting to keep hope alive. And when she stood against Serethiel, even when she could've fallen... I saw the light in her. And I think—" He hesitated, his throat tightening, "—I think that light matters to me more than I expected."
Serenya studied him for a long moment, then looked away.
"She's not like the others," Caleb added. "Not even like the angels in the old stories."
"She's not," Serenya agreed. "But neither are you."
That made him pause.
"What do you mean?"
"You touched the heart of the Sanctuary. You awakened something even Avesari couldn't. The songs you remember—they aren't just music. They're memory. Keys. Prophecy. The Council feared them for a reason."
Caleb stepped closer to the glowing crystal veins that ran along the wall, his fingers grazing their edge. The sanctuary thrummed beneath his touch.
"Then what am I?"
"A vessel," Serenya whispered. "A bridge between worlds. The mockingbird that remembers songs no one else dares to sing."
Caleb chuckled under his breath, not because it was funny—but because it was terrifying.
He turned his gaze to Avesari once more.
She stood still, facing the sealed portal at the heart of the Sanctuary's chamber. Her hand hovered above it, hesitant, as if feeling for some resonance beyond it.
"Do you think she's afraid?" Caleb asked.
"She always is," Serenya said quietly. "That's what makes her brave."
Caleb stepped forward.
Avesari didn't turn around when he stopped beside her. But her voice came, soft and low.
"You felt it too, didn't you?" she asked. "The change."
He nodded. "Yeah. Everything's louder now. Even the silence."
She turned, finally meeting his eyes. For a moment, he thought she might smile. Instead, her gaze softened.
"You're becoming what you were meant to be."
"That's a lot to live up to."
"You don't have to live up to anything," she said. "You only need to keep remembering."
Caleb's throat tightened again—not from nerves this time, but something warmer. He hadn't realized how much her faith in him mattered until now.
He wanted to reach out, to tell her something—anything—that might bridge the quiet space between them. But instead, the portal behind her pulsed.
A thin beam of light rippled across the chamber floor, casting shadows in impossible directions. Something stirred beyond it. Not a presence—yet not entirely absence, either.
Serenya stood quickly. "It's time."
Avesari nodded. "The path opens."
The portal shimmered again, revealing not a corridor, but a rift of starless space—an in-between realm. The final veil before the Sanctuary's inner heart.
And Caleb, for all his courage and curiosity, felt a chill crawl up his spine.
"You don't have to come," Avesari said, as if sensing it.
"Yes I do," he replied. "Wherever this leads... I think I'm meant to follow."
They stepped forward—
And then the light stuttered.
The rift quaked with an unnatural groan, and a shape formed in its center—a figure of mist and scorched wings, its face a hollow echo of celestial beauty. A halo of broken glass turned lazily above its head.
The Warden of the Sanctum.
Its voice shattered the stillness—not a word, but a dissonant hum, like a melody played backward.
It had no eyes, but it turned to Avesari.
"Remembered... and yet forgotten. You carry his guilt."
Avesari flinched—not physically, but internally, as if a wound long buried had been touched.
"I've passed your judgment once," she said firmly. "I will not bow again."
The Warden's wings unfurled, trailing mist and memory. Caleb felt something squeeze his chest—his heartbeat began syncing with a rhythm not his own. The phantom wasn't attacking. It was drawing them into a memory—a trial.
"This is what remains of the ones who failed the Sanctuary," Serenya whispered. "Phantoms caught between remembrance and oblivion. If we lose ourselves in its song, we never leave."
Caleb grabbed Avesari's hand.
"We face it together," he said.
The Warden's mouth split wider, and the sanctuary darkened—
—As the trial began.