The Three Doors of Zephyrinth
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The tower loomed like a blade piercing the sky.
Kael reached its base as the Veilstorm writhed behind him, distorting the world in fits of impossible logic. Time fractured around the spire — clouds ran backward, shadows moved independently from light.
This was no place built by mortal hands.
The entrance was a single archway with no door, framed in obsidian glass. As Kael stepped through, the air thickened. Each breath tasted of metal and memory.
The Shard inside him pulsed once.
Then the world changed.
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He stood in a long corridor of mirrors.
Each wall reflected not him — but versions of him. Kael as a scholar. Kael as a tyrant. Kael as a corpse.
A voice echoed through the tower, cold and ancient:
"Three doors await. One shows your truth. One offers power. One offers peace. Choose only one — or be unmade."
Kael moved forward.
Three archways stood at the end of the hall, each bearing a glowing rune:
Truth — etched in deep blue, like ink in water.
Power — burning red, humming with veiled energy.
Peace — golden, warm, deceitfully comforting.
The Shard inside him vibrated violently as he neared.
Truth, it seemed to whisper. See what they took.
Kael stepped into the first door.
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Trial One: The Forgotten Betrayal
He found himself in a quiet chamber of silver walls. A child stood in the center — Kael as a boy, no older than nine, eyes wide with wonder. Before him knelt his father, draped in Echo robes Kael had never seen.
The man spoke with a soft voice:
"I had to leave. If I'd stayed, they would've taken you too."
Kael's fists clenched. "This never happened."
The vision smiled sadly. "No. It should have."
The room shattered.
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Trial Two: The Cost of Power
Now Kael stood in a battlefield of ash. Blackened bones littered the ground. A throne rose in the distance, formed from the fused remains of the Shardbearers who came before.
He sat upon it.
The world knelt.
Behind him, Elara's voice echoed: "You saved no one. You ruled everyone."
Kael looked at his hands.
They dripped with molten Veil.
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Trial Three: The Quiet Life
A cottage. Rain on the roof. Elara laughing at a dinner table. Theron sharpening wood by the fire.
No war. No Shards. Just peace.
Kael's heart pulled toward it.
He stepped forward—
And then stopped.
Because peace bought with ignorance is just a longer chain.
He turned away.
---
When Kael emerged from the trials, he fell to his knees.
His eyes burned with new knowledge.
His blood hummed.
A mark glowed on his palm — a new rune, deeper than any he'd seen. His link to the Shard had evolved.
He was no longer its prisoner.
He was its bearer.
The Veil whispered in triumph:
"The Third Awakens."
---
Meanwhile, outside the tower…
Theron's blade clashed with Aenya Drae's.
Steel screeched across Veilglass. Sparks burst. They moved like echoes of a forgotten war — fast, brutal, relentless.
"You've improved," Aenya said between strikes.
"I've had a good reason," Theron growled.
"Kael?"
She slashed low, forcing him back. "He'll die in there. The Dynasty doesn't share power."
Theron smiled grimly.
"Then we're not sharing."
Their swords locked again as the tower behind them pulsed — a beam of energy erupting into the heavens.
A new Shard had awakened.
And the world would never be the same.