The Hollow Judgment
Kael didn't blink. The Revenant's claws gleamed with voidlight, descending faster than thought. He didn't dodge, didn't raise a shield—he simply stood as if daring it to strike.
A blinding flash cracked the air.
The claw halted an inch from Kael's throat, frozen in place. A hiss like ice boiling on steel shivered through the cathedral.
> "Oathbearer. You are not yet worthy."
The voice wasn't spoken. It resonated—inside bone, blood, and memory. Kael gasped as the Shard pulsed against his chest, responding with a surge of violet fire.
Elarin's spell shattered under the weight of the Revenant's presence. Riven lunged again, blade catching the creature's side—but the weapon passed through it like fog. Maera's spear hurled lightning—but it arced away, deflected by a barrier Kael hadn't summoned.
"No more!" Kael shouted, fists clenched. "This fight isn't theirs. It's mine."
The Revenant turned its stitched face toward him. The world dimmed.
> "Then face your Echo."
The cathedral dissolved.
Suddenly, Kael stood in a blackened field beneath a sky that churned with dying stars. The ground pulsed, threads of Shard-light coiling beneath his boots. Before him stood another figure—his own form, but... wrong. Pale, cracked, draped in violet chains, eyes hollow with betrayal.
The Echo of who he might have become.
"I don't need a trial," Kael growled. "I've already made my choice."
"You haven't," the Echo said. Its voice mirrored his own, but colder. Ancient. "You speak of purpose, but you fear what it demands."
Kael's hand went to his chest, feeling the thrum of the Shard. "Purpose isn't surrender. It's direction."
The Echo raised its hand—and from the air, a blade of shadow formed. A weapon shaped from broken time and memory.
"Then fight me. Prove the future you've chosen is stronger than the past you ran from."
Kael summoned his Shardfire, the violet glow crackling like living lightning around his arm. He didn't conjure a weapon.
He became one.
The Echo moved first—each step a blur, each strike a whisper of annihilation. Kael met it blow for blow, memories flashing behind his eyes: his sister's laughter, the fall of the Warden Order, the Veil's first fracture.
And Aelith.
Her voice—her pain—sang through the Shard.
> "We bled so others wouldn't."
Kael screamed—not in rage, but in clarity. He wasn't just fighting a memory. He was defining one.
With a final clash, his Shardfire surged through the Echo's blade, splintering it into shards of starlight. Kael's fist struck the Echo's chest—and the world shattered.
---
The Revenant staggered back in the cathedral, letting out a guttural cry. The glow in its stitched mouth flickered, then dimmed. It knelt.
> "Oathbound. Rise."
Kael stood panting, surrounded by the echoes of his trial. The Revenant faded like smoke caught in wind.
Elarin stared. "You just defeated a Hollowborn. Alone."
"No," Kael said softly. "I made peace with the part of me that wouldn't have survived."
Maera stepped forward. "What did it show you?"
"A version of myself," Kael answered, "that forgot why we fight."
He looked up. Through the broken cathedral ceiling, stars bled across the sky. Not dying. Not broken.
Changing.