The applause echoed before a single step hit the stage.
Iris blinked into the blinding spotlight, one hand shielding her face as she stepped forward onto the lacquered boards. The curtain had already risen. The audience was already seated.
And they were all familiar.
Her heart seized.
Faces from every part of her life stared back at her: her parents in the front row, her brothers beside them, the instructors from the Academy, the neighbors from her village, old classmates, even the fruit vendor she used to sneak apples from. All eyes on her. Unblinking.
They didn't smile.
They didn't clap.
Not really.
The sound of applause became something else—slow, hollow, mocking. A rhythm of derision. A beat that said you're not supposed to be here.
"Iris Valebrook," a voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere. "Daughter of House Nothing. Unremarkable. Unchosen. Tell us—how does it feel to stand where the first-born, the destined, and the honored should stand?"
The laughter began—gentle, but growing.
She turned, searching for the source, but the stage had no walls. Just endless curtains vanishing into darkness. Her feet locked into place. Her rapier was gone.
Her star-mark pulsed, faint behind her forearm. But Mara was silent.
"I—I don't understand," she said aloud, trying to hold her voice steady. "This isn't—this isn't real."
A door opened at the edge of the stage, where there should've been nothing.
Out stepped her mother.
Not as she'd looked the last time Iris saw her—but younger, severe, elegant in the red-stitched robes of House Valebrook, before it fell into obscurity.
"You always tried so hard to be seen," her mother said, stepping closer. "Even as a girl. But nothing was ever enough, was it?"
The voice struck like a slap, because it was the voice Iris had always imagined in her own head when she failed.
"I tried because I wanted to be worthy," Iris said.
Her mother tilted her head. "Worthy of what? A star that chose you as an afterthought?"
A flicker of pain ran through Iris's chest.
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?" came another voice.
Her father stepped from the other side of the stage, arms folded behind his back. He didn't speak cruelly—just plainly.
"Mara came to you after passing over others. We all saw it. You were the last to light. The last to shine. And even now, you stand beside someone the stars truly chose."
He didn't say Orion's name.
He didn't need to.
The crowd murmured. Whispered. Shook their heads.
"She followed him," said a girl from the audience—someone Iris had once called a friend. "She's only there because he is."
"She clings to his light," said someone else.
"No one really saw her until she stood beside someone brighter."
The words hit harder than steel. She turned, looking for Mara, for anything—any anchor to truth.
But her mark felt dim. Her chest ached.
"Maybe you were never meant to be a star-bearer," her brother said from the front row. "Maybe it was a mistake."
"No," she said, her voice shaking. "Mara chose me. I remember—"
"Do you?" her mother interrupted. "Do you remember the looks? The doubt? Even the Keeper at the Trial questioned you."
She did remember.
She remembered the way they looked at her when her mark first glowed. Surprise. Confusion. The way the air didn't erupt in awe like it had for others.
And she remembered thinking—
They wanted someone else.
The stage tilted suddenly.
Her feet slid. The curtains blew outward like sails, and suddenly, she wasn't alone anymore.
Copies of herself filled the stage.
Dozens of Irises. Some older. Some younger. All whispering.
"She's the extra."
"She's the tagalong."
"She wasn't supposed to matter."
"No one ever picked her first."
"I'm tired," Iris said, shutting her eyes.
The whispers grew louder.
"I'm tired of this. I'm tired of never being enough."
The world stilled.
One of the copies stepped forward.
Older. Weathered. Eyes like hers, but more tired. "Then prove them wrong," it said. "But you won't. Because deep down, you don't believe it either. You still think they're right."
She fell to her knees.
Her hands pressed against the stage floor—but it was no longer wood. It was glass. Beneath it, shadows writhed.
"I'm not…" she whispered. "I'm not supposed to be here."
And that's when she heard it.
A heartbeat.
Not her own.
Thump.
She looked down.
Her mark flickered.
Thump.
It pulsed again.
A voice—faint, like someone trying to speak underwater—drifted into her thoughts.
You are not their second choice. You are mine.
Iris gasped.
The stage cracked beneath her. The illusion faltered.
She saw not the faces of doubters—but moments.
Her memory of Mara's light—rushing toward her, wrapping her in warmth, certainty. Not waiting. Not hesitating.
Mara had chosen her in front of everyone. Not as an accident. Not as a leftover.
As the only one.
Because she was enough.
Because she was seen.
She rose.
Her real self—only one now—stood alone on the stage.
The audience began to waver, blur into shadows.
Iris stepped forward.
"No more."
The crowd laughed again—but now it sounded nervous.
"I am not your regret," she said louder. "Not your mistake."
Mara's voice filled her then, not just behind her thoughts but within her chest.
You were the first. The only. The one I reached for.
Iris extended her hand—and in a burst of blue light, her rapier appeared.
The laughter died.
She turned toward her mirrored self—still watching from the corner of the stage.
"I was never the extra," she whispered. "I was never behind."
She lunged.
The glass shattered.
The mirror-self dissolved into wind.
The crowd vanished.
And light—clear and cool and sharp like midnight wind—swept across the stage.
She stood in silence.
Then the world bent, twisted—and opened.
The stage cracked away into mist.
And she stood once more in the Trial Chamber, breath shallow, eyes wide.
Across from her—Orion.
She stepped forward.
Her Trial was over.