The whisper uncoiled through the dark like a chain sinking into water.
Myrren spun, but the alcove was empty. No Corven, no door, only the spirals on the walls glimmering faintly, as though inked with moonlight. The black book lay open where she had dropped it, its pages fluttering though no wind stirred.

Then the floor tilted. Shelves stretched upward like pillars. The scent of foxglove thickened until it burned her lungs. The spirals carved into the stone began to glow, pale as bone, their grooves catching her gaze and pulling.

Her pulse slammed in her wrists, the tether. It dragged her forward, or downward, she couldn’t tell. Her fingers clawed at stone that now felt like velvet beneath her hands. Voices rose from the spirals, first her own, then others she knew, Ori’s gasp, Seliora’s warning, Thane’s vow, Corven’s low murmur all merging into one verdict: guilty, guilty, guilty.

She tried to speak, but the air had turned to smoke. Her words broke apart into ash.

When the smoke cleared, she was no longer in the archives.

High stone walls soared above her, hung with banners she half-remembered from another life. Nobles ringed a hall like a tribunal, their faces half-hidden by masks. Somewhere in the haze a throne loomed, and on its dais, light and shadow twisted together like chains.

And at the center of it all.. her. Bound, accused, waiting for judgment that felt already decided.

The scent of foxglove still clung to the air, but beneath it came others, rose oil, sweat, candle soot, the faint metallic pulse of fear. A court. Her court. Yet wrong. The faces watching her were painted too bright, eyes hollowed like wax masks left near a flame.

“Myrren Vale,” intoned a voice she recognized as the Queen’s, but colder, as if spoken through water. “You stand accused of poisoncraft against the crown and kin. What defense can you offer?”

Her throat moved, but no sound emerged. The marble beneath her knees was slick with reflection, her own image staring back, pale and trembling, the same ink smudged across her fingers from the black journal.

Prince Thane stepped from the crowd, radiant as ever, sunlight made flesh. But when he smiled, the corners of his mouth didn’t reach his eyes. “I believed in you,” he said, warmth sharpened to accusation. “Until the vials appeared in my chamber.”

“That isn’t..” Her voice cracked.

“And yet,” the Queen murmured, “the evidence burns brighter than devotion.”

Shadows gathered behind Thane’s feet, coiling like serpents. Corven’s figure emerged within them, unbound by light, his eyes unreadable. “You should have followed the scent,” he whispered. “Not the heart.”

The nobles murmured approval, voices blending into one chorus, guilty, guilty, guilty..each syllable echoing the pulse in her wrist. The tether throbbed like a brand.

“Myrren,” Thane said, stepping closer. “Speak. Tell them you are innocent.”

But when she opened her mouth, blood, not words, spilled onto the floor. It ran in spirals around her knees, tracing the prophecy into the marble: One shall break, one shall bind, one shall wear the crown of ash.

The crowd gasped.

And the Queen smiled. “Then it is decided.”

The torches flared white, then went out all at once.

In the darkness, only Thane’s voice remained, soft, tender, terrible.
“Forgive me.”

Chains of light snapped around her wrists, burning hotter than flame. The scent of foxglove turned to smoke.

Somewhere beyond it, a whisper, Corven’s, or her own rose from the dark:
“This isn’t real.”

She tried to believe it, but the fire hurt too much to be a dream.

The marble floor rippled. The chains binding her wrists flickered, first gold, then gray, then vanished altogether. The torches flared back to life, but now the hall was empty.

The Queen’s throne had dissolved into smoke. The nobles’ benches were ash mounds collapsing inward. Only Thane remained, standing at the center of the ruin, sunlight breaking through the phantom roof to crown him.

“Myrren,” he said again, voice too steady, too perfect. “You have to understand. I did this to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Her laughter cracked. “You condemned me.”

“No,” he said, stepping closer. His hand reached for her face, warm and unreal. “You were never meant to die. Only to be cleansed of your mistakes.”

The word cleansed hit like a blade. She remembered it, spoken once before, years ago, when the child’s lungs had filled with honeyroot foam. Cleansed of sin. Cleansed of fault.

She stepped back. The warmth of his hand followed anyway, brushing her cheek though he stood meters away. Light poured from his fingers, wrapping around her throat like silk. “You can still be saved, Myrren,” he whispered. “You only have to choose me again.”

The banners on the walls stirred. Faces formed within the folds of silk, nobles she knew, servants she loved, their mouths moving in silent chants. Each voice joined the Queen’s whisper now echoing through the ruin:

Light binds. Shadow breaks. The crown devours all that loves.

The words pressed against her skull until her vision swam. She staggered. The scent changed again, no longer foxglove or blood, but frostmint. Familiar. Her antidote base. But it was wrong: sharp, corrupted, mixed with ash.

She realized with a cold lurch, she was smelling her own poison, the same one she’d refined years ago for painless sleep. Spiral Dust. Not real air, not real scent, but memory gas, hallucinogen from the Silent Veil’s rites.

Her stomach turned. The court had never existed. She was trapped inside a conjured trial, an echo of her future death.

From the smoke behind Thane, a shadow coalesced, Corven again, though this time his eyes gleamed silver instead of gray. “I told you,” he murmured. “They’re rewriting you. You’re not meant to wake.”

The two figures, the golden prince and the shadowed warden began to mirror each other, every move one made echoed by the other. Light and dark orbiting her like twin moons.

“Which of us will you choose?” Thane asked.

“She already did,” Corven said, voice a quiet blade.

The prophecy carved itself into the air between them, glowing words looping endlessly:

One shall break, one shall bind, one shall wear the crown of ash.

“Myrren,” Thane pleaded, his light flickering now. “Say my name. Anchor here. Stay.”

Her lips formed a word, but it wasn’t his. “Corven.”

Light shattered. The entire court split apart like glass hit by a hammer. Shards of banners, faces, and flame spun upward into spirals of smoke.

In their wake, only silence remained, and a single whisper from the void:
You’ve seen this before.

The whisper looped inside her skull until it became heartbeat, until heartbeat became thunder.

She fell. Or the floor rose. There was no difference. The world folded in on itself, arches bending inward, banners curling like burning leaves. Every sound, every breath twisted into that single pulse: You’ve seen this before.

Her body convulsed. Frostmint filled her lungs, then scorched into smoke. She clawed for air. The marble floor beneath her dissolved into water, ink-black and rippling with her reflection. Faces surfaced within it, Ori’s tear-streaked, Thane’s shining, Corven’s shadow, all breaking apart as she reached for them.

Then the ink turned to blood. The scent hit her like a slap: iron and roses, sharp, sweet, wrong. She gagged.

Something warm clamped over her wrist, familiar. The tether burned through her veins, not a chain now but a lifeline. She followed it blindly through the dark, dragging herself up from the collapsing spiral. The voices screamed as she broke through, like silk tearing.

Light.

Cold air.

A hand on her shoulder.

“Myrren”

Her eyes snapped open.

The ceiling above her was low, plastered and dim. A single candle guttered beside a bed. Sheets tangled around her legs, damp with sweat. Her pulse thundered like a drum still echoing the dream.

For a heartbeat, the courtroom lingered, Thane’s voice, the Queen’s verdict but they faded like breath on glass. Only the frostmint smell remained, faint but real this time.

“Easy.”

Seliora sat beside her, hair unbound, night robe cinched loosely at the waist. In the candlelight, her face was stripped of politics, just sharp worry, human and raw. “You were thrashing again.”

Myrren tried to speak, but her throat ached, scraped raw as if she’d been screaming. “How long..?”

“Only a few minutes.” Seliora’s hand hovered near her wrist. “You stopped breathing. Ori fetched me.”

Myrren stared at her. “It wasn’t real.”

Seliora didn’t answer right away. Her gaze flicked to the nightstand, where a small black smear of ash marred the linen. The scent rising from it was unmistakable: foxglove and frostmint. Spiral Dust residue.

Her expression didn’t change, but her voice gentled, as if coaxing a confession. “Did you see it again?”

Myrren’s pulse stuttered.

She looked down, and saw faint bruises encircling her wrists. No dream burns. Real.

Outside, a bell rang at midnight. Each peal felt like a heartbeat slipping out of sync.

In the silence that followed, Myrren whispered, almost to herself:
“It’s getting closer.”

Seliora’s eyes flickered, recognition, or fear. “Then we have less time than I thought.”