"The stone stayed silent.
But something in her had already started to burn".
The chamber was colder than it should've been.
Torchlight shivered along the marble walls, but even the fire looked uneasy, flickering like it didn't belong.
The Shadows stretched across the floor, reaching limbs.
Isla knelt on the stone tiles, unmoving, the weight of the black stone heavy in her palm.
She stared at it. Still.
Veined with gold, but lifeless.
Not even a flicker.
Her grip tightened.
"Still nothing," she hissed.
Her voice came out sharper than she meant. Too raw. Too close to breaking.
Across the room, the King sat.
Arms crossed. Shoulders rigid. Eyes on the floor.
"As expected," he said flatly.
"The stone does not lie."
She looked up, furious.
"It hasn't said anything."
"It doesn't need to. It has already been chosen."
"Then it chose wrong."
A pause.
His lips twitched, but the tiredness in his gaze didn't budge.
"The stone doesn't make errors."
Isla's pulse spiked.
Her voice cracked.
"And what if it did? What if I was meant to pass, meant to be more, and this cursed rock just stayed quiet?"
The King looked at her now, really looked.
His eyes grew darker with something ancient and unspoken.
"The gods have spoken. That ends the matter."
"Trial," she snapped.
"You think this was a trial? Like a test, you fail once and walk away? No. No. I'm not done. There has to be something else. Something you can do.
Father."
The word tasted sour.
He didn't reply.
But another voice did.
"Trial is the right word."
The Empress drifted in, silk like moonlight around her.
She moved like silence, deliberate and slow, and the temperature dropped with her entrance.
Isla stiffened.
Her fury shifted to something tighter, something colder.
"Then why do you both sit there, watching me break and offering nothing?" Isla snapped.
"Why no guidance? No path forward? Just silence."
The Empress cast a glance toward the King.
Something unreadable passed between them, something old and splintered.
"Support isn't owed," the Empress said coolly.
"It's earned. Not all fires burn the same. Some catch fast. Some wait."
Isla gritted her teeth, fingers pressing hard into the stone's smooth surface.
"And if mine never lights? What then?"
The Empress stepped closer, her presence dark and soundless.
"You are the flame beneath the glass," she said.
The words hit like a bruise.
Familiar. Unwelcome.
Isla looked away.
Her throat felt tight.
"Then why does it feel like I'm being suffocated?"
The King spoke again, voice like ash.
"The path isn't ours to choose.
We walk what's laid before us."
She laughed once, bitter, short.
"And if the path is wrong? What if I was made for something beyond all this?"
He looked at her then, without blinking.
"Then you'll burn through it when the time comes."
Silence crept back in, thick and aching.
The stone stayed cool in her hand.
A cruel thing.
A mirror with no reflection.
The Empress studied her again.
"Patience, Isla. Fire that burns too early consumes its own vessel."
"I can feel it," Isla whispered.
"It wants out. It's waiting."
"Then hold it. Learn it. Shape it. That is your trial."
For a moment, Isla faltered.
Maybe they were right.
Maybe the stillness in the stone was a sign not that she wasn't ready, but that she wouldn't ever be.
But then.
A voice.
Not theirs.
Not in the air.
In her bones.
Her mother's voice.
You were never made to wait.
The King stood.
His shadow reached across the room.
"Until then, trust the gods."
But Isla didn't rise. Not yet.
Her fingers flexed around the stone, its chill more insulting than painful.
Unworthy.
That's what they'd call her.
A vessel too cracked to carry fire.
No.
She drew in a breath.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Then she stood.
"I won't beg," she said.
"Not for power. Not for approval.
If this isn't my trial, I'll forget one that is."
The King didn't answer.
The Empress's eyes narrowed.
The torches along the wall flared.
Just for a heartbeat.
And somewhere deep in Isla's chest.
A spark.
Small. Fierce. Unwilling to die.
The stone in her palm stayed cold.
But her blood?
It had begun to burn.
She turned and walked away,
silent as the doubt she left behind.