Nora von Velkaris

The darkness swallowed me whole the moment I crossed into the second trial.

It was not the gentle kind of dark, not the quiet absence of light that lets the mind wander. This was dense, suffocating, a void that pressed in from every direction at once.

For a heartbeat, I felt weightless, unanchored, as if I had stepped off the edge of the world and forgotten how to fall. Then the sensation twisted, reality lurching hard enough to make my stomach drop, and the void collapsed inward.

The world reassembled around me.

Stone walls rose out of the dark, close and oppressive, their surfaces rough and uneven beneath my fingertips when I instinctively reached out.

The air was stale, thick with the smell of rust, old oil, and dust that had been undisturbed for years.

No, decades.

Maybe longer.

My breath caught in my throat as shapes slowly emerged from the shadows, not because light had appeared, but because my eyes had adjusted enough to recognize what I was seeing.

Armor.

Rows and rows of it, standing stiff and silent like hollow sentinels. Knight armor coated in grime, dented and cracked, their visors frozen in expressions that almost looked accusing.

Weapon racks lined the walls, most of them half-empty, the remaining swords and spears dull with neglect. Broken training dummies lay scattered across the floor, straw spilling from split seams, wooden limbs snapped and discarded like trash.

My heart skipped.

No.

The realization hit before I could stop it, sinking its teeth into me with cruel precision.

My chest tightened, breath turning shallow as the weight of memory slammed down all at once.

I knew this place.

I knew it too well.

Even now, even after everything I had survived, a cold knot formed in my gut, sharp and instinctive.

The armory.

The abandoned one, tucked away behind the imperial castle, far from the polished halls and watchful eyes of servants. A place no one went unless they wanted privacy.

Or cruelty.

Or both.

I took a step forward and nearly stumbled.

Something was wrong.

The floor felt farther away than it should have been.

My balance was off, my limbs suddenly too light, too short. Panic flared, hot and immediate, as I looked down at myself and felt it happen.

My body was shrinking. Not painfully, not violently, but steadily, like I was being folded inward.

My hands grew smaller before my eyes, fingers thinning, wrists narrowing.

My clothes shifted and shrank with me, reforming without resistance, as if the world itself had decided this was correct.

I staggered, knees buckling, and caught myself on a weapon stand that loomed far too tall now.

Ten years old.

The thought surfaced with unsettling clarity.

Not a guess.

Not an approximation.

That was how old I was the last time I had been locked in this place and truly believed I might never leave. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry, the familiar prickle of fear crawling up my spine despite myself.

Then, against all expectations, I laughed.

The sound burst out of me sharp and loud, echoing wildly through the armory, bouncing off stone and metal until it came back distorted and almost feral.

I clutched my stomach as another bark of laughter tore free, breath hitching, eyes stinging. It wasn't humor. It wasn't joy.

It was disbelief layered with something darker and far more dangerous.

Of course.

Of course, this was my second trial.

The first had forced me to confront the truth I despised most, the one I avoided even in my own thoughts.

That I hated my past self.

Hated the weakness, the fear, the way I had bent and broken without ever truly fighting back.

I had thought that acknowledging it would be the hardest part. I had been wrong. The cave wasn't done with me yet. Not even close.

This wasn't about hatred.

This was about memory.

The armory felt smaller now than it had back then, or maybe I was just seeing it with different eyes.

I remembered how enormous it used to feel, how the shadows stretched endlessly, how every creak and scrape had sounded like something coming to get me.

I remembered the cold stone biting into my bare skin when they threw me inside, remembered curling up in a corner and counting my breaths just to keep from screaming.

My brothers' laughter echoed in my ears, phantom sounds layered over the present. I could see them in my mind as clearly as if they were standing in front of me now, older, taller, armored in entitlement and cruelty.

The way they would shove me through the door, the way it would slam shut behind me, plunging me into darkness before I even had time to cry out.

Sometimes they beat me first.

Sometimes they didn't bother.

Sometimes they remembered me hours later.

Sometimes they forgot.

Food and water were optional, dependent entirely on their moods. Rats weren't. I could still feel them, hear them skittering through the dark, bold enough to brush against me as I huddled against the wall. I had learned very quickly not to scream. Screaming just made them laugh harder the next time.

My laughter slowly faded, leaving behind a strange, brittle calm.

I straightened, small hands clenching into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms.

My body felt wrong like this, too light, too fragile, but my mind was sharp, painfully aware.

I wasn't that child anymore. I had lived years beyond her, endured things she couldn't even imagine.

I had bled, fought, killed.

I had stood at the edge of death and looked back without flinching. I had even fought side by side with death himself.

This place didn't get to own me anymore.

The darkness seemed to thicken in response, shadows pooling between the armor stands, crawling along the walls like living things. I could feel something watching, waiting. The cave. The trial. Whatever intelligence guided this place, it wanted a reaction.

Fear.

Desperation.

Retreat.

I tipped my head back and laughed again, louder this time, the sound tearing out of my chest raw and unrestrained. It echoed and echoed until it felt like the armory itself was laughing with me, metal rattling faintly as if unsettled by the noise.

"Bring it on," I said aloud, my voice high with youth but hard with certainty. The words rang through the darkness, clear and defiant. "I'm not the little girl I was back then."

Silence followed.

Not the empty kind, but the kind that listens.

I forced myself to breathe before doing anything else.

The laughter still lingered in my chest, a brittle echo that hadn't quite faded, but instinct took over where emotion threatened to spiral.

I looked down at myself again, really looked this time, not with memory or fear but with the cold assessment I had learned over years of survival.

My body was small, painfully so, narrow shoulders, thin arms, legs that looked like they would snap if I pushed them too hard. When I shifted my weight, my knees wobbled slightly, muscles trembling with an unfamiliar weakness that made my jaw tighten.

This wasn't just a visual trick. The trial hadn't merely changed how I looked. It had changed what I was.

I reached inward, toward the familiar well of mana that had always answered me like a second heartbeat.

Nothing.

Not emptiness, not absence, but resistance.

Like my thoughts were pressing against a wall I couldn't see.

I pushed again, harder this time, irritation flaring as instinct demanded compliance.

Still nothing.

The unseen force didn't yield an inch.

My mana was there, I could feel it humming faintly beneath the surface of my consciousness, but it was locked away, sealed behind something absolute and uncaring.

I exhaled slowly through my nose, forcing my shoulders to relax even as unease crept in.

So that was how this trial wanted to play it.

I flexed my fingers, watching how slow and clumsy the movement felt, how my hands shook just slightly when I clenched them.

My physical strength was gone too, or at least stripped down to something barely functional.

I felt fragile in a way I hadn't in years, not since before I had learned how to fight back, how to endure.

The realization settled heavy in my gut, but I didn't let it root. Panic was a luxury I couldn't afford.

I turned in a slow circle, surveying the armory with new eyes.

Weapons were everywhere.

Swords leaned against racks, their blades dulled but intact. Spears lay stacked along the walls, shields piled haphazardly nearby.

Even broken weapons littered the floor, snapped hafts and bent steel catching faint, sourceless light.

In another situation, with another body, I could have armed myself in seconds. I knew how to use most of them. Had trained with them. Had bled with them.

Now?

I doubted I could even lift half of them.

The thought didn't frighten me as much as it should have.

Instead, it sharpened something inside my chest, a quiet certainty forming beneath the surface.

This trial wasn't about combat.

Not really.

If it were, the cave wouldn't have bothered stripping me down like this.

It wanted me exposed.

Vulnerable.

Small.

Just like before.

I swallowed, my throat tight, and forced myself to remember that I had already acknowledged this place for what it was.

A memory.

A weapon.

A mirror turned cruel.

Whatever came next wouldn't be solved by steel or spells. I doubted I would need any of these weapons at all. If anything, reaching for them might be exactly what the trial wanted me to do.

As if summoned by the thought, a sound cut through the stillness.

The doors.

I froze, every muscle going rigid as the massive armory doors groaned open at the far end of the hall.

The sound was slow, deliberate, metal scraping against stone with a weight that vibrated through the floor and up my legs. Cold air spilled in from beyond, carrying with it a familiar pressure that made my skin prickle.

Two figures stepped through. Two fucking bastards I had dealt with long ago.

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