The cave did not rage when its first tactic failed.

It adapted. The fucking piece of rock took my memories from inside my mind, which, by the way, was supposed to be more secure than any treasure vault, or that's what the useless voice in my head had told me. The fact that the cave could still access my memories even after Bastard reassured me that it wouldn't happen frightened me.

That, more than anything else, terrified me.

The corridor did not change shape. The stone remained the same, dead black, the darkness still swallowing what little light I carried. My footsteps continued to echo, steady, rhythmic, proof that I was still moving forward and not trapped in some looping nightmare. But the air shifted, subtly, intelligently, like a mind recalibrating its approach.

Then the images began.

They didn't appear on the walls. That would have been too simple, too easy to ignore. Instead, they unfolded in front of me, layered into reality itself, translucent and undeniable, as though the corridor had decided to remember things for me.

Alectra.

My breath hitched before I could stop it.

She stood a few paces ahead, frozen in a moment that had never existed here and yet had existed all the same. Black hair tied back too tightly, yellow eyes dulled by exhaustion far beyond her years. She looked younger than I remembered her—not by much, but enough to hurt. seventeen, maybe.

Thin.

Too thin. Like she had been starving herself to look like that.

SLAP

Her head snapped to the side.

The sound of the slap echoed like a gunshot.

Rentt Ardent stood over her, brown hair disheveled, green eyes sharp with irritation rather than regret. His hand was still raised. Alectra staggered but didn't fall, her teeth clenched, her eyes locked stubbornly forward like she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

My hands curled into fists.

I flinched, but I didn't stop walking.

It's fake, I told myself, even as my heart began to pound. It's not happening now. It never happened, Rentt would never hit her, he knows better. This is bait.

The image shattered like glass struck by a hammer, fragments dissolving into smoke before reassembling into something worse.

Alectra again.

Smaller still this time.

She knelt in the dirt, hands cupped together, her shoulders hunched inward as if trying to disappear into herself. Around her, faceless figures passed by, boots crunching gravel, shadows stretching long and indifferent. Someone tossed a crust of bread at her feet. Someone else laughed.

"Please," she whispered, her voice thin and hoarse. "My brother hasn't eaten."

The word brother landed like a blade.

I swallowed hard and kept walking.

I remembered this.

Not the exact moment, the cave was inventing details, dramatizing the angles, but the truth beneath it was real enough to rot my insides. Alectra had begged. Had humiliated herself in ways I never fully understood at the time. All so I could eat. All so I could live.

I had let her.

The image shifted again.

This time there were three boys.

Seventeen. Maybe older. Broad shoulders, cruel smiles, the kind of confidence that came from knowing no one would stop them. Alectra stood backed against a wall, blood at her lip, her arms raised in a futile attempt to protect her face.

One of them shoved her.

She hit the ground hard.

They laughed.

My vision blurred, rage and shame burning so fiercely it felt like acid in my veins. My step faltered for half a second, just half, and the corridor groaned, stone tightening as if eager to seize on the weakness.

I forced myself forward.

Don't stop. Don't look away. Don't react.

That was the cruel genius of this trial. It wasn't asking me to deny what I saw. It wasn't asking me to pretend these things didn't hurt. It was demanding that I acknowledge them without surrendering to them. To accept pain without letting it dictate my actions.

I hated it.

I hated the cave for knowing exactly where to dig.

The previous Sebastian—the boy I had been before I came here—had known about some of this.

Enough to feel guilty.

Enough to feel helpless.

He had known Alectra was being bullied, had seen the bruises, the way she flinched at raised voices.

And he had done nothing.

Too weak. Too scared. Too small.

I despised him for it.

But the hatred didn't stop there.

I hated myself now, too.

Because if I had died earlier—if I hadn't been so stubborn about surviving, about dragging myself through that miserable life—maybe I could have spared her more suffering. Maybe I could have taken her place.

I would have.

Without hesitation.

That was the truth I didn't like to admit.

I loved my sister enough that my own life had felt… expendable.

The images followed me as I walked, rotating through moments of cruelty and desperation, never quite repeating but all circling the same core wound.

Alectra crying silently into her hands.

Alectra standing between me and danger when she should have been protected instead.

Alectra smiling at me with bruises hidden under long sleeves, pretending everything was fine.

My chest ached so badly it felt hollow.

Still, I did not stop.

I didn't close my eyes.

I didn't look away.

Because to do so would be to reject the lesson this place was forcing into me: that looking away from pain does not erase it. It only delays the cost. The cave didn't punish fear, it punished avoidance.

And punishment was something I could not afford.

Eventually, the images began to fade.

Not all at once. They thinned, lost detail, their edges fraying as if the cave were reluctantly conceding that this angle, too, had failed. One by one, the different Alectras dissolved into smoke, their forms unraveling until there was nothing left but the corridor and the sound of my own breathing.

I slowed.

Just slightly.

Enough to draw in a deeper breath, to steady the tremor in my limbs. Sweat clung to my skin despite the cold, my body caught between fight and endurance. Every muscle was taut, ready for the next blow.

I didn't relax.

Because I knew.

The cave had only shown me wounds it thought would cripple me. It had not yet shown me the one that could break me.

The silence stretched.

No footsteps behind me.

No gaze at my neck.

No voices calling my name.

Too quiet.

I knew what was coming long before it arrived, a sick certainty settling into my bones. I had learned something about myself recently, something I hadn't wanted to examine too closely, something I had tried to file away under later and after this is over.

The cave didn't believe in later.

It believed in now.

The air warmed.

Not with comfort, but with familiarity.

The corridor brightened just enough for shapes to form, and there, standing ahead of me, framed by the narrowing path, was a figure I had no excuse not to recognize.

Belle Ardent.

She did not look wounded. She did not look broken. She stood tall, composed, her black hair falling neatly down her back, her posture relaxed in that effortless way that had always made her seem untouchable. Her blindfold was gone.

She was looking directly at me.

My heart stopped.

This was different.

The cave had used cruelty before.

Guilt.

Shame.

Love twisted into pain. But this, this was precision. It wasn't showing me Belle as a victim or a monster. It was showing her as she was in my memory.

Calm.

Powerful.

Unreachable.

The person I wanted to save more than anyone.

The person I was afraid I never could.

I felt the crack appear then, deep in my chest, spreading outward like a fracture in glass. Not sudden. Not dramatic. Just the slow, terrible realization of how much of myself I had anchored to her. How much of my purpose revolved around the idea of fixing what had been done to her.

If the cave could make me stop for anyone—

It would be her.

I kept walking.

Each step felt heavier than all the others combined. My legs trembled, my vision swimming as emotions surged dangerously close to the surface. Belle watched me approach, her expression unreadable, her eyes, uncovered, unguarded, seeing me fully in a way that felt far too intimate.

"Sebastian," she said.

Not a trick.

Not distorted.

Her voice was exactly right.

The rules echoed in my head, louder than ever.

When something calls your name, don't reply.

I clenched my jaw until it hurt.

I walked past her.

The moment I crossed the space where she stood, the image shattered violently, fragments of light and shadow tearing apart as if the cave itself screamed in frustration. The warmth vanished, replaced by biting cold once more.

I staggered, but didn't fall.

Behind me, the corridor rumbled, rearranging itself for whatever came next.

I couldn't turn around

Because I understood now.

This trial wasn't trying to make me forget what I loved.

It was trying to teach me how to carry it without letting it control me.

And that lesson, painful as it was, was the only way forward.

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