The light that rose from the cracked floor engulfed Kahel like a living tide, soft and warm at first, then pressing inward as though it carried gravity. His limbs grew heavy, not from exhaustion, but from some deeper, more ancestral pressure. He tried to draw breath—it came shallow, resisted by a world not built for lungs or flesh.
He stepped forward.
Or rather, the world pulled him. There was no ground, no sky, only an endless expanse of pale illumination. Not white, but not colorless either. The kind of light one might imagine on the day of judgment.
Then, suddenly, a sound.
Breathing.
Not his own.
Kahel turned.
Behind him stood a throne.
It wasn't carved from jade or stone, but from bone and dust. Atop it sat a figure cloaked in shadow. No features were visible, only a presence, vast and oppressive, like a mountain watching from behind the veil of fog.
It raised one hand, and Kahel collapsed.
The pressure didn't come from the body. It came from inside—a weight dragging his soul downward, as if every mistake he'd ever made was now a link in a chain wrapping around his essence. He tasted ash in his mouth. His mother's scream rang faint in his ears, distorted by memory and guilt.
"You seek power," the figure said, its voice echoing through Kahel's bones.
Kahel looked up, his hands trembling. "I seek... to protect."
The figure tilted its head slightly. "And would you burn the world to do it?"
Kahel didn't answer.
Not immediately.
"If the world tried to take from me again," he said finally, "then yes. I would."
A second voice whispered in the space around them. Softer. Female.
"Would she want that from you?"
Kahel's heart skipped.
He turned again.
Another throne had appeared. And seated there was Mara. Alive. Whole. Her eyes carried no judgment—only sorrow.
"You carry my death like a blade," she said. "But what will you do when it begins to cut those who still live?"
He wanted to answer. But he had no answer.
He fell to his knees, the weight of the space bearing down harder. He could feel the Ashen Flame resisting, trying to shield him, but it could not shield the soul. Not here. Not from this.
The figure on the throne stood.
"Let us test the core of your being, Kahel Stormborn. Let us see if the soul you claim to protect... is your own."
Kahel looked up again. The figure's shadow peeled away, revealing not a stranger—but himself.
An exact mirror.
Not older. Not corrupted.
But him.
This version stepped forward, barefoot, robed in cloth that shimmered with the same pattern as Kahel's flame. It did not speak. It only raised one hand—and the flame emerged, pure and full.
Kahel rose as well.
There would be no blade. No battlefield.
Only this test:
One soul.
Divided.
Their flames met not in violence, but in merging. Pale fire wrapped around each form, coiling like serpents, biting, twisting. Kahel felt his memories unravel and relive all at once—the first time he had channeled energy through broken fingers, the whisper of his mother singing, the sensation of seeing Lyren smile through pain.
And then the darkness.
The echo of his father's absence.
The rage at fate.
He screamed, not aloud, but within. The trial wasn't about resistance. It was about embrace. He didn't reject the pain. He welcomed it. He let it burn through every crevice of his soul.
The false Kahel began to fade.
And when the final ember of flame dissolved into his chest, the thrones crumbled.
Kahel stood alone.
The world brightened—this time, not with judgment, but recognition.
And far above, a gate opened.
He stepped toward it.
His soul, his flame, and his purpose... finally aligned.
The moment he crossed the threshold of light, Kahel was returned to the Garden. But the space he emerged into was unlike any he had seen before. Towering spires rose like crystal stalagmites, their forms refracting light into rainbows that danced across the air. Floating platforms hung motionless above a placid lake of silver mist.
Waiting there was the old man.
He gave a small bow. "Few reach this place. Fewer still leave it changed."
Kahel said nothing. His body felt lighter than it ever had, yet his chest held a fire that was deeper, quieter, and utterly unshakeable.
"Three trials," the man said. "Each meant to temper a piece of you. Body. Mind. Soul. You did not defeat them. You endured them."
Kahel stepped onto the platform, glancing up at the spires.
"Was it all... real?"
"The truth always is. Even if it speaks in symbols."
From the mist below, something began to rise—a stone pedestal, and upon it, a lotus of pale flame. It looked cold, but the moment Kahel's eyes touched it, he felt the Ashen Flame stir.
"Your flame is no ordinary fire," the old man said, watching Kahel carefully. "It is a fragment of something older. Something bound not to elements or destruction... but to truth."
Kahel reached out. The flame did not burn.
It curled into his palm like it had waited centuries for the touch.
And when he closed his hand around it, the Garden pulsed.
Across its many halls, flowers bloomed. Statues cracked. Ancient lights flickered to life.
Far above, in the Sect Master's pavilion, an old bell began to ring.
Kahel stood at the heart of the garden, eyes closed.
And the heavens took notice.