She tucked it back under her shirt and walked toward the stairs. The trial was over. But the choice—to go deeper into truth, or to live it—would follow her all her days.
“That’s your future if you turn back,” the voice said. “Go deeper, and you might not come back as you are. Choose.” Deeper - Kenna James - Choose Your Trial -21.12...
Kenna drew her short sword, but her arms felt slow. The first knight lunged. She parried, but instead of clashing steel, her blade passed through him like smoke. Then she felt it—a memory, sharp as a shard of glass, forcing its way into her mind. Her mother, crying in a locked room. Kenna, age seven, pressing her ear to the wood. “I’m sorry,” her mother had whispered. “I have to go deeper.” She tucked it back under her shirt and
The third knight didn’t attack. It knelt and removed its helm. Inside was not a face, but a mirror. Kenna saw herself—not as she was, but as she could be: hollow-eyed, sitting alone in a room full of unsolved mysteries, old before her time. “That’s your future if you turn back,” the voice said
Kenna reached out and touched the mirror-face. It shattered. The knights dissolved. Beyond them was a single door, unadorned, with the numbers 21.12 burned into the wood.