CHAPTER 29 #2
The vision swirled and twirled. She watched the ghost of herself on the dance floor with Asmodeus, the emerald velvet of her dress catching the ghostly light.
He leaned down, his charming smirk promising everything, his baby-blue eyes locked on hers.
He was so close, his lips almost brushing her own, a moment suspended in intoxicating, reckless anticipation, but he didn’t quite reach her lips.
The image fractured, spinning in a dizzying circle, a beautiful, unfulfilled promise that left her perpetually wanting more, the essence of his lure.
Then, the cold, grounding presence of Alaios’s loyalty and honesty. His dark, intense eyes met hers in the reflection, a fleeting moment of fierce certainty—a vision of his hand in hers, the raw, possessive kiss on his desk, the unspoken demand for her to be the chaos, not flee it.
Lyra’s hand reached down to try to touch Alaios but was only met with cold water.
She watched as his eyes softened as he lifted her up and headed toward his private chamber.
Alaios’s dark eyes, momentarily unguarded, filled with a fierce, possessive love as he carried her into the secret room—a crystalline memory projected onto the water’s surface, haunting and beautiful.
It was a moment of respite from the world, and her hand was drawn to it, yearning for the solid reality of his warmth.
But where his broad, powerful chest should have been, there was only dampness.
The last clear image of his retreat into privacy, the hidden door sliding shut with silent finality, left a profound ache in her chest, a sudden sharp loneliness in the sterile light of Aetherfall.
Even the phantom rain of her memories, still defying gravity, seemed to weep for the distance between them.
The swirling storm intensified, and the reflections fractured, pulling the internal conflict out of her mind and casting it into tangible forms. Three figures materialized ahead, shimmering, distorted echo-versions of herself cast in mercurial glass.
The first was Obedient Lyra, dressed in an immaculate white gown, her posture stiff, and her face serene and utterly hollow.
She was the one who would have married Adrian, the one who would have kept her mouth shut and her head bowed, earning the pantheon’s shallow approval.
Letting others decide her path, her wants, her likes. The easy path.
The second was Reckless Lyra, dressed in emerald velvet, a glass of champagne in her hand and Asmodeus's hand in the other, her eyes blazing with careless defiance and abandoned passion. The version who chased every high, choosing desire over dominion, the one who would burn brightly and briefly under Asmodeus’s careless ownership.
The third was Broken Lyra, the mercurial glass riddled with cracks, dressed in the simple gray hoodie she wore to the temple, her shoulders hunched, her hands stained with the metaphorical blood of all her failures.
She was the sum of every humiliation, every tear, and the wreckage of her mortal life.
The true, honest self that she had seen in the mirror for years when she looked at herself.
A powerful gravitational tug pulled Lyra toward the Obedient and Reckless echoes—the easy version, the reckless one with no abandon.
But she knew that version was not right.
The storm demanded a choice as the wind picked up and howled around her.
The true test was not in choosing a perfect future, but in accepting the messy, broken truth.
She knew this, but a part of her still wanted to choose the easy paths.
Taking a deep breath, she fought the urge for the easy way out. Lyra reached up, her hand passing through the mirrored rain. With a slow, deliberate movement, she pressed her palm against the shattered, trembling image of the Broken Lyra.
The moment her hand made contact, the reflected storm scape imploded.
The mirror shattered into hundreds of pieces.
She flinched, blocking her face from the shattered pieces, but none cut her.
The three echoes dissolved, and the ascending rain reversed, now falling with the heavy, cleansing force of a final downpour.
Washing away the silence and the lies, the sound was a deafening roar.
Then the sound faded. Lyra was alone, standing once more in the crystal-clear waters of the Aetherfall pool into which she had first fallen.
She turned, wondering what was next, but then the rain slowly stopped.
She looked to the sky above, and the clouds slowly faded into a great big nothingness of inky black.
She looked down at herself and realized she was dry. The white silk dress, though stained moments ago in her memory, was now pristine, the fabric cool against her skin.
Then she heard a soft cough. She looked up at Eldric. He smiled and said, “You have passed the first trial."
She looked at him and halfheartedly laughed, saying, “That wasn’t so bad."
He shook his head, his ancient eyes solemn beneath his flowing white brows. “That was just the first. Wait before you decide this is easy."
She opened her mouth to say easy wasn’t what she meant—it had been agonizing, a deep, soul-shaking confrontation—but then she closed it, not saying the words. She knew there was no point arguing the nuances of fear and self-loathing with a god.
He swiped his hand through the air, and the shimmering pool of Aetherfall retreated, pulling back like a curtain.
In its place, a massive archway formed, leading to a door forged of polished, dark wood—rich mahogany, but with a strange, oily sheen that seemed to absorb the light.
The door was framed in delicate veins of gold.
“Do you think we can take a small break before going through the next door?” A shaky sigh escaped her lips; her gaze locked on the imposing door. A cold dread, like ice water in her veins, washed over her as she stared.
He shook his head in response.
Eldric stood at the edge of the new path, his gentle smile returned.
“You chose your truth, Lyra. The Trial of Reflection is complete.” He walked toward the door, pausing just before its ominous threshold.
He looked back at her and stated, with an unsettling mix of kindness and warning, “Want is easy.
Sovereignty is not. Now, let us begin the Trial of Want. "