The Veiled Ones did not attack. They surrounded Safaa and Kairen, their shadows rising like curtains.
A voice spoke from every direction:
"To read the Manuscript is to be seen. The Veil has chosen you. You will enter the Trial."
Kairen drew his blade. "We don't serve you."
The shadows laughed.
"All who hold the Manuscript serve time itself."
The world shifted. Safaa and Kairen stood not in the library but in a hall of endless mirrors. Each mirror showed them older, younger, broken, crowned, dead.
A clock without hands loomed above.
The voice boomed:
"Pass through your reflection, or remain trapped in eternity."
Kairen looked into his mirror. He saw himself as a child—alone, abandoned, holding a broken clock. Rage filled him, but he stepped forward. The glass shattered, cutting his hands, but he did not fall.
Safaa looked into hers. She saw her mother, binding her to the clock-pendant. Tears welled, but she touched the glass. It dissolved like smoke.
The trial ended. The shadows bowed.
"You are Initiates now. But remember… the Watchmaker sees his heirs."