The creature behind him breathed in silence.
Not the silence of absence — but of something vast holding its breath. Like the pause between thunderclaps. Like the moment before a scream.
Noctics remained kneeling in the mire, soaked to the ribs in black water that pulsed faintly with crimson veins. His fingers trembled. Not from cold.
The Spiral was still turning.
Beneath the surface, beneath his skin, beneath thought.
Something had awakened when the brand scorched his chest — not pain, but process. A motion not his own. A presence folding him inward.
He wasn't dreaming.
He was becoming.
The sound of chains shifting behind him cut across the water like a blade dragged through stone. Noctics didn't turn.
He couldn't.
Some instinct — deeper than thought — screamed not to move.
That thing behind him was no beast. It was concept. It was punishment. It was the weight that waited at the bottom of a condemned man's fall.
A whisper rippled through the water:
"You should not be here."
Noctics opened his mouth to speak.
No sound came.
He swallowed thickly. His throat felt made of ash. His tongue — unfamiliar. His voice, sealed.
The Spiral has not yet chosen your voice.
He didn't know where the thought came from. It wasn't his. But it fit. Like a coat he didn't remember stealing.
His reflection in the water was wrong again. Warped. Not from ripples — but from disagreement. As if the world itself was unsure of what to make of him.
One moment, his eyes were narrow and sharp, like they were in the Hollow. The next, wide and silver. Then gone entirely.
A shadow leaned over the reflection.
Lantern-eyes.
A face like a wolf made of iron hooks.
"Fateless," the beast said.
The word echoed not aloud, but through the water, the air, the spine. It struck like a verdict.
Noctics's limbs seized.
Fateless. The word rang again.
Not cursed. Not chosen. Untethered.
The Spiral flared.
Around him, the world changed. Trees twisted. Water flattened into glass. The Moon cracked again, and from it dripped not light, but something darker — a black ichor that coiled in the air and began to write.
Runes. Spirals. Symbols older than memory.
Each one hovered. Each one burned a little hole into Noctics's skin as they passed.
THE FIRST TRIAL BEGINS.
Noctics stood without meaning to.
Chains coiled around his arms — not binding him, but dragging him forward.
The shadow-beast stepped aside, revealing what lay ahead.
A corridor of mirrors.
No walls. Just endless columns of reflective glass, each the height of a tower, vanishing into horizonless dark. The water beneath them rippled in circles, as if unseen footsteps echoed still.
Noctics hesitated.
The Spiral burned in his chest again.
Not pain.
A command.
Step forward. Face yourself.
He did.
The first mirror shimmered. His reflection blinked at him — alive, aware.
But it wasn't him.
This Noctics wore a brass mask. Spoke in riddles. Moved like a puppet. In its hand: a red notebook marked with an eye that bled ink.
The figure smiled. And said nothing.
The mirror shattered.
Noctics stumbled back as glass sliced the air in spiraling arcs — but none struck him.
They hovered. Froze.
And watched.
The shards bent like flower petals, curling into a ring.
The next mirror rose.
Another Noctics.
Older. Dressed in funeral robes. His eyes hollow. In his arms, he cradled a corpse.
The corpse was himself.
Again, the glass cracked.
Noctics stepped back — but this time, the shards didn't hover.
They pierced.
One drove into his shoulder.
He screamed.
Black smoke poured from the wound instead of blood — thick, oily, writhing. It writhed up his throat. Coated his tongue.
Then vanished.
The Spiral turned.
This is not pain. This is recognition.
More mirrors appeared.
Hundreds.
A thousand.
Each showing a version of himself.
A tyrant. A slave. A beast. A ghost. A beggar. A king.
One dragged chains made of stars.
One burned on a pyre and laughed.
One sat on the Moon, unmoving, staring down at a crimson sun.
All of them possible. All of them him. All of them unchosen.
The corridor twisted.
Became a spiral.
Of course.
Noctics walked.
He didn't know how long. There was no time. Only steps. Only reflections.
Only possibilities.
And each one hurt.
Each reflection cost him something. A memory. A breath. A scar.
Until he no longer remembered why he'd been in the Hollow at all.
Had he ever stolen?
Was he ever hungry?
Was that name — Noctics — even his?
He paused.
The Spiral spun faster now.
At the center of the corridor, a mirror waited.
Not cracked. Not shrouded.
Clear.
He stepped to it.
And saw himself.
No masks. No chains. No tricks.
Just him.
Thin. Pale. Bruised. Burned. Marked above the heart with a still-glowing spiral scar.
He reached out.
The mirror stayed firm.
Then, a voice — his own, but deeper — spoke from the other side.
"Do you believe in fate?"
He hesitated.
The Spiral churned.
"No," he whispered.
The mirror responded:
"Then why are you here?"
He opened his mouth.
Paused.
The answer wasn't in words.
It was in the weight in his bones.
In the ache in his teeth.
In the hunger that had never been just for food.
He wanted to live.
Not survive.
Not escape.
But live.
To become.
Whatever the Spiral was.
Whatever the Moon wanted.
Whatever the Sun feared.
To reach.
To take back what was stolen. Or what had never been offered.
He pressed his hand to the mirror.
It melted.
The corridor collapsed into ash.
The Spiral bloomed.
---
He stood once more in black water.
The beast watched him.
Noctics was whole.
Different. But whole.
The Spiral no longer twisted — it pulsed. Beating with him.
Still incomplete.
Still closed.
But now it knew his name.
And in that moment, Noctics knew this:
The Trial was not a place.
It was a seed.
And it had been planted.
The Spiral Nexus had accepted its first coil.
And the Moon — whatever it truly was — had begun to smile.