The air was thick with heat.
Vesper staggered forward, her breath catching as smoke curled around her. The plateau had vanished. In its place, an inferno raged, stretching endlessly in every direction.
Flames licked at the blackened ground, their glow casting long, flickering shadows. The sky above was split in two—one half a swirling storm of embers, the other a vast emptiness, hollow and consuming.
This was not a battlefield.
This was ruin.
She turned, scanning the burning horizon. Then she saw it.
The castle.
Or what remained of it.
The towering spires of Aurelia's great stronghold—her home—were shattered, crumbling beneath the weight of unseen devastation. The banners that once flew proudly now lay in tattered remnants, swallowed by flame.
Panic clawed at her chest.
"No."
This wasn't real. It couldn't be real.
Yet the air carried the unmistakable scent of charred earth. The distant cries of battle still echoed.
And then—
"Help us!"
Vesper whipped around. The voice was familiar.
Through the fire and smoke, she saw them.
Figures locked in combat—soldiers, knights—her people, fighting against an enemy she could not see. And among them—
"Rowan!"
Her heart lurched as she saw him struggling, his blade flashing against the chaos. His face was streaked with soot, his body moving with the desperate energy of someone outnumbered.
She ran toward him.
But an invisible force stopped her.
The world around her warped, shifting like a mirage. No matter how hard she tried, the battlefield remained just out of reach.
"You cannot change what has already been lost."
The voice slithered around her like smoke. Cold despite the heat.
Vesper's breath hitched. "This isn't real," she forced out. "This is another test."
The voice chuckled, low and knowing.
"Is it?"
She turned back just in time to see Rowan fall.
A sword struck his side. His eyes widened in shock, his mouth opening—but no sound came.
"NO!"
Vesper struggled against the unseen force, her hands clawing at nothing.
Then another figure emerged from the flames.
Her father.
Duke Lindell stood at the gates of the castle, his sword raised, his stance unyielding. But even as he cut down an unseen foe, she saw the exhaustion in his frame—the blood that stained his armor, the weight that bowed his shoulders.
A shadow loomed behind him. A figure clad in darkness, its blade raised high.
Vesper screamed.
She fought with everything she had, but her body would not move.
She could only watch.
"This is the cost of your failures," the voice whispered. "This is the fate you have wrought."
The sword fell.
Her father collapsed.
The battlefield dissolved into silence.
Vesper dropped to her knees, her body trembling.
Her hands curled into fists, her nails biting into her palms. "It's not real," she whispered. "It's not real."
"But the pain is, isn't it?"
The fire flickered around her, warping, shifting—until the battlefield was gone.
In its place stood a single figure.
Vesper's breath stilled.
It was her.
A reflection of herself—but different. This Vesper wore no armor, bore no weapons. Her eyes were dull, her shoulders heavy with something unseen.
Regret.
"You blame yourself," the other Vesper said, her voice quiet but sharp. "For every loss. For every mistake."
Vesper clenched her jaw. "I fight to protect those I love."
The shadowed version of herself tilted her head. "And yet, they keep falling."
Vesper's chest ached.
It was the same fear that had always lurked beneath the surface. The same voice that whispered in her moments of weakness.
"You will never be enough."
Her shadow stepped forward. "If you were stronger, smarter, faster—maybe your father would still be alive. Maybe Rowan wouldn't have fallen. Maybe—"
"STOP."
The word erupted from her like fire.
The shadow-Vesper stilled.
"I am not defined by my losses," Vesper said, her voice shaking, but strong. "And I will not let them own me."
The weight of the words settled deep in her bones.
She had spent so long carrying the burden of the past, believing that every failure, every loss, was hers alone to bear.
But grief was not a chain.
And regret was not a cage.
The shadowed version of herself regarded her for a long moment. Then—
She smiled.
The flames around them flickered once.
Then, they went out.
The Return
Vesper gasped as the trial shattered around her.
The night air rushed back in, cool against her sweat-damp skin.
She was back on the plateau.
The dragon stood before her, watching in silence. Its great wings shifted, sending a gust of wind across the ground.
"You have faced the Trial of Regret," it rumbled. "And you have survived."
Vesper let out a slow breath, the weight in her chest lighter than before.
She had not erased her past. She had not undone the losses.
But she had accepted them.
The dragon inclined its head. "One trial remains."
Vesper straightened.
She had come this far.
She would not stop now.
"Then I will face it."
The dragon's eyes gleamed.
"Then prepare, Vesper Lindell. For the final trial will not be one of the past."
It spread its wings wide.
"But of the future."