The cold, hard stone of the temple melted away into the warm glow of torchlight, and suddenly I was standing in a grand hall. The vaulted ceiling rose above me, draped with banners bearing the Vale crest—a crescent moon circled by stars. The air was thick with incense, and somewhere in the murmur of unseen voices, secrets whispered.

  At the center of the hall stood a young man who looked like my father, though he no longer wore the silver streaks in his hair. His stance was as stiff as a drawn blade, and flanking him were figures in black armor with faces lost in shadow—the Dusk Legion. My breath hitched. I'd heard the stories about my father's ties with the Legion, but seeing him there—cold, calculating—sent a shiver down my spine.

  "The Gor Temple must fall," he declared, his voice slicing through the low murmur like a razor's edge in the twilight. "Its power festers like poison in our midst. The old gods are dead, yet their decay clings to these ruins—an echo we cannot ignore. We must stop them from rising again."

  At his command, the huddled soldiers parted like shadows at dawn. From within the shifting darkness stepped a towering Legion commander, his presence formidable and unapologetic. He inclined his head to my father—a silent salute that was not submission but recognition. His armor, crafted of dark, burnished metal, lent him the stature of a living colossus, and his obsidian helmet, crowned with jagged peaks, seemed forged from the very night itself.

  The commander emerged from the veil of shadows. His voice, low and dangerously smooth, carried the weight of countless battles. "And what of the child? You swore on her life!" he intoned, his words dripping with an unspoken promise of retribution. "The Legion's strength is not a charity—it is bought in the currency of blood, paid with the lives of those who dare defy us."

  One of the Legion swordsman stepped forward, his voice a low growl. "Will you keep your word?"

  Corwin's eyes burned with a dangerous intensity as his youthful face darkened. "I will keep my word," he vowed, his voice low and unyielding. "But the child—this child—will never know the truth. They will be raised in a delicate web of lies, shielded from the coming darkness. And should they ever dare show even a glimmer of the old power, I will erase it myself."

  My heart froze. Unborn—and he meant me.

  In an instant, the vision shattered. I saw my father striding through the ruins of the Gor Temple like a dark sovereign, his magic crushing ancient stone pillars until they crumbled into dust. Before him, priests, scholars, even innocent children fell without mercy, their spilled blood staining the cold flagstones a vivid scarlet. And there, at the very edge of the carnage, stood my mother—her face pale and etched with sorrow, hands pressed protectively against her swollen belly.

  "Corwin," she whispered, her voice trembling with disbelief and grief. "What have you done?"

  He turned to her with an inscrutable mask of resolve. "What I had to do," he replied coolly. "For our future. For her." His hand reached out, resting disturbingly gentle against her stomach despite the blood that still clung to his fingers. "She will never bear the weight of this truth. I will see to it that her innocence remains unbroken."

  The vision shifted once more, and I found myself standing amid the ruins of the temple. The air was thick with smoke and the acrid tang of blood. My father stood before a shattered altar, his hands stained with ash and soot, while the Dusk Legion's shadows stretched long over the broken stones.

  The words crashed over me, a black, suffocating wave, sending me reeling. My father's oath, a monstrous thing born of my mother's stolen peace, echoed in the hollows of my soul. He'd bartered lives, a sacred temple, an entire people, for the cold, unyielding throne of his legacy. Each whispered lie, a link forged in darkness, shackled the truth deeper within its prison. Just as the horrifying vision threatened to dissolve, a flicker ignited within me—a phantom heartbeat, a pulse of forbidden power, silent yet undeniable. It crept through my chest, a treacherous warmth, like a slow-burning ember. My hands, trembling, shimmered with an eerie luminescence, a dance between light and the encroaching shadows.

  Then, the power erupted, a feral beast unleashed, threatening to shatter my very being. A strangled gasp escaped my lips as it clawed at the fragile edges of my sanity, too wild, too vast to be contained. Panic, a freezing tide, swamped me, and I stumbled, the world narrowing to a pinprick of terror.

  "Aziel!" I screamed, my voice a ragged, desperate plea, a raw echo in the suffocating darkness. "Help me!"

  For a moment, I feel the burning in my chest consume me. My skin sizzles with undeniable heat. Aziel materializes, a phantom in the storm, his hands clamping onto my shoulders, a desperate anchor in the swirling chaos. "Breathe, Tia," he commanded, his voice a low, urgent rasp, a fragile thread of control. "You must master it. Do not let it devour you."

  His eyes are searching mine as I wrestle with the tempest within, trying to corral the wild energy, but it was a losing battle against a raging inferno. The light radiating from my fingertips flared, a blinding beacon, and the very stones of the temple groaned, a tortured symphony under the strain of the unleashed power.

  "I... I can't—" I choked, my voice a broken whisper as the power threatened to obliterate me. "It's too much!"

  Aziel's grip tightened, his eyes burning into mine, a fierce, desperate plea. "You will," he hissed, the words like a physical force. "You are more than a vessel. You are the key, Tia—the bridge between worlds. This is what he tried to take from you, Tia. Claim this power, or it will consume you utterly."

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  His words, sharp as shards of ice, ripped through the suffocating terror, a brutal, necessary awakening. I gasped, a raw, shuddering breath, clinging to the fragile thread of my sanity. Slowly, agonizingly, I wrestled the power back, a desperate, visceral struggle against a monstrous, thrashing thing. The blinding light dimmed, the crackling energy retreated, leaving behind only a faint, ominous tremor, a sleeping predator coiled within my very core.

  For a long, breathless moment, I stood there, trembling, the echoes of the raw power still vibrating through me, a phantom limb I never knew I had. Then, Aziel released me, stepping back, his gaze searching my face, a turbulent mix of fierce pride and deep, unsettling concern.

  "You see now," he said, his voice a low, resonant whisper, "the truth?"

  I stared at him, my mind a chaotic storm of fragmented thoughts, a desperate tangle of questions. "But the judges—they declared me mortal. They swore I possessed no magic." Like Judge Liren said, remnants of old magic, I thought, the familiar coldness creeping into my bones.

  Aziel's expression darkened, a shadow of grim understanding crossing his features. "The judges see only what they are permitted to see. Your father ensured that. He bound your power, veiled it from their sight—and from your own. But the Spire knows the truth, the ancient heart of all things. And now," he paused, his gaze intense, "so do you."

  His words fell upon me like a crushing, suffocating weight. Another layer of the lie peeled away, another reason to distrust everything I thought I knew, I realized, the familiar bitterness rising in my throat. My father, the man I trusted, had woven a tapestry of lies, not just about the desecrated temple, but about the very essence of my being. He had stolen my birthright, shackled my power to preserve his fragile, blood-soaked peace. And now, standing amidst the ghostly ruins of the Gor Temple, the echoes of the slaughtered innocents ringing in my ears, I felt the full, devastating weight of his betrayal—a betrayal that cut deeper than any blade, a wound that would forever scar my soul. They want to control me. They always want to control me, I thought, a silent vow forming in the depths of my being. But I won't let them.

  "What do I do now?" I whispered, my voice a fractured echo in the vast, ruined space, trembling with a fear that went deeper than any I'd ever known. The words hung in the air, fragile and desperate, as if the crumbling temple itself might swallow them whole. My chest tightened, each breath a struggle against the suffocating weight of the unknown. The shadows around me seemed to pulse, alive and watching, as though the very walls were waiting for my decision.

  Aziel's gaze softened, a flicker of something almost human breaking through the ancient, unyielding depths of his eyes. For a moment, I could almost believe he understood—that he felt the same gnawing uncertainty that clawed at my insides. But no, I reminded myself, he's seen too much, fought too many battles, to be truly human anymore. The centuries had carved him into something else, something harder, colder. And yet, that fleeting glimpse of vulnerability in his expression was unsettling, a crack in the armor of a being who had long since transcended the frailty of mortal emotions.

  "You choose," he said gently, his voice a low rumble that seemed to resonate with the very stones beneath our feet. The simplicity of his words belied their weight. "You can walk away, return to your life as a scribe, and let the truth remain buried." He kicked a loose shard of stone across the temple floor, the sharp, hollow crack of it reverberating through the silence. The sound mirrored the emptiness within me, a void that seemed to grow wider with every passing second. He paused, his gaze hardening slightly, a hint of steel emerging beneath the gentleness.

  "I guess this is the part where I mention," he added, his tone almost casual, "you'd kill us both by doing that." His lips parted in a nervous grin, but the humor didn't reach his eyes. They remained dark, unreadable, like the depths of a storm-tossed sea. My stomach churned, a suffocating dread coiling in my gut. Kill us both? The words echoed in my mind, each repetition more chilling than the last. My hands trembled at my sides, the weight of his statement pressing down on me like a physical force. How could walking away—choosing to live the quiet, unremarkable life I'd always known—lead to such a catastrophic end? The thought was paralyzing, a labyrinth of fear and doubt with no clear way out.

  Aziel's voice broke through the chaos in my mind, steady and unwavering. "Or," he continued, his tone shifting, "you can embrace the power, claim your destiny, and risk everything to uncover the secrets your father has hidden." His words hung in the air, heavy with implication. The power he spoke of was no mere abstraction; it was a force I could feel humming in the air around us, a current of energy that seemed to pull at the very core of my being. It was terrifying, intoxicating, and utterly inescapable.I stared at him, my mind racing. The choice before me was impossible—a fork in the road where both paths led to destruction, yet only one offered the faintest glimmer of hope. To walk away was to condemn us both, to let the truth rot in the shadows where it had lain for so long. But to embrace the power, to step into the unknown and claim the destiny that had been thrust upon me... that was to risk everything. My life, my sanity, the very essence of who I was—all of it would be on the line.The temple seemed to hold its breath, the air thick with anticipation. Somewhere in the distance, a faint breeze stirred, carrying with it the faint scent of decay and the whispers of long-forgotten voices. They seemed to urge me forward, their words indistinct but their meaning clear: Choose.

  I swallowed hard, my throat dry as dust. "And if I fail?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.

  Aziel's expression didn't change, but there was a flicker of something in his eyes—respect, perhaps, or maybe pity. "Then we die," he said simply. "But at least we'll die fighting."The words struck me like a blow, their stark honesty cutting through the fog of fear and uncertainty. There was no comfort in them, no false promises or reassurances. Only the cold, unvarnished truth. And yet, in that truth, I found a strange kind of clarity. My hands clenched into fists at my sides, the trembling subsiding as a resolve I didn't know I possessed began to take root. The fear was still there, a constant, gnawing presence, but it no longer controlled me. I met Aziel's gaze, my own steady for the first time since we'd entered the temple.

  "Then I choose," I said, my voice stronger now, though it still carried the weight of my fear. "I choose to fight."Aziel nodded, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. It wasn't a smile of triumph or relief, but one of grim acceptance.

  "Good," he said. "Because the world doesn't need another scribe. It needs you."

  The words settled over me, a mantle of responsibility I wasn't sure I was ready to bear. But ready or not, the choice had been made. The path ahead was shrouded in shadow, but for the first time, I felt a spark of something other than fear. It was small, fragile, but it was there—a flicker of hope, of determination.