CH. 36 The Trial of Spirit, Part VI
The chamber does not fade this time.
It erupts.
The walls split, bleeding fire.
The ground convulses like something alive — veins of molten light tearing across the floor.
The hellhound howls, claws digging into stone.
“What now?” Farro shouts. “We finished the memories! We finished the—”
“Trial’s not done,” Sorien says grimly. “It’s changing.”
The flames roar, blinding white. The air ripples with voices — not human ones, but whispers that sound like laughter and weeping at once.
The world twists.
And then it starts.
---
Shapes rise out of the fire — hundreds of them, twisting, screaming, burning without smoke.
They have faces.
Not strangers — familiar ones.
My breath stops.
They’re children.
They’re me.
Hundreds of Drews, all shapes and ages — crying, laughing, hiding. Their voices tangle, calling names I don’t remember.
Gavin stumbles back. “What— what in the hells is this?”
Farro clutches his sword, pale. “This isn’t ours.”
Sorien looks at me, his eyes narrowing. “It’s hers.”
The fire surges higher — alive, hungering.
And for a moment, I see flashes inside the flame — fragments of my past like shards of glass.
A village.
Children throwing stones, laughing as I run.
“Witch! Monster! Hideous thing!”
The words burn even now.
---
The heat spikes.
The Princes cry out as the flames lash toward them. The air turns sharp — burning, suffocating.
The hellhound roars. Even it’s afraid.
I feel it — something inside me stretching, breaking.
The fire listens again. But it’s not gentle this time.
It wants.
I look at my hands.
The red lines under my skin are glowing again — brighter, wilder. My blood hums like a forge.
“Drew—!” Sorien shouts, reaching for me, but the fire claws between us.
I hear my grandmother’s voice — soft, calm, a whisper through the chaos:
“When the time comes, child, bleed for what you love.”
I bite my lip hard enough to taste iron.
Then I draw the dagger from my belt, press it to my palm, and drag it deep across the skin.
Pain flares. Blood spills — dark red, then gold.
The flames stop.
They twist toward me instead — coiling, kneeling, bending.
And when my blood hits the ground, they shatter like glass into a thousand embers that whirl around the Princes, forming a trembling barrier.
For a heartbeat, the heat recedes.
Sorien stares. “You— what did you do?”
I grin weakly. “Something very stupid.”
The barrier cracks.
I shout over the roar, “Hellhound! Now! Lead them out!”
The beast hesitates, snarling.
“Go!” I scream. “Get them out of here!”
Sorien steps toward me. “Not without—”
“GO!”
My voice breaks — not loud, not commanding, but desperate enough to make even him freeze.
The hellhound barks once, low and guttural, then turns.
The Princes follow, the barrier flickering behind them like dying stars.
---
When they vanish into the tunnels, the chamber changes.
The flames calm — dimming to a strange, blood-red glow.
The air cools, heavy with ash and silence.
And then I see her.
Standing in the center of the room — my grandmother.
Not the frail woman I remember, but younger. Strong. Her eyes alight with fierce intelligence, her hands slick with ink and blood.
She’s chanting over a cradle.
Inside it — a baby.
Me.
I stumble forward, breath caught in my throat.
The memory unfolds around me — the cottage walls, the smell of herbs and iron. The wind outside howling like wolves.
Grandmama’s voice trembles.
“They’ll come for her. They always come for what they fear.”
A shadow moves outside — torches, angry voices, a mob.
She draws a blade across her own palm — the same way I did — and presses it to the cradle’s edge.
“By my life,” she whispers, “may her curse be her armor.”
Light explodes — red and gold. The runes on the walls flare.
The door bursts open. The mob surges in.
“Witch!” someone screams.
My grandmother doesn’t look back.
She just smiles.
And then the fire takes her.
The light burns so bright it sears through me — through the room, through time, through everything.
When it fades, she’s gone.
Only the cradle remains.
And the child inside, crying — untouched.
---
I sink to my knees.
“Grandmama…”
My voice breaks.
She gave her life — her blood — to give me this curse.
To keep me alive.
To make me untouchable.
And all I ever did was hate it.
Hate me.
---
The flames whisper faintly, like her voice in the distance.
“Don’t waste the gift, little flame. Use it well.”
Then the last of the fire fades — and with it, the memory.
The chamber goes still.
Only ash remains, glowing faintly around me like falling snow.
---
A voice calls faintly from the distance — Sorien’s, strained, echoing down the tunnels.
“Drew!”
I wipe my face, smear the ash across my skin, and stand.
“I’m coming,” I whisper.
And for the first time,
the fire doesn’t burn me.
It bows.