The chamber of judgment was neither court nor temple, yet it bore the gravity of both. Carved into the stone heart of the Fractured Citadel, its walls seemed to listen, holding the weight of centuries of sentences passed. Pale torches burned without heat, their flames bound by unseen strings. Above, a single tapestry hung—not woven of thread, but of silence itself. Its shifting emptiness absorbed every sound, reminding all who entered that the Severed did not rule with words but with verdicts.
Ahri stepped forward. The stone beneath her sandals was cold enough to bite through skin. She kept her chin level, though her spirit trembled. Before her stood the triune figure known only as The Arbitrator—a severed judge whose body was split into three forms, each staring with a different truth. One eye saw the past, one the present, and one the fractures of futures that might never come.
"You have walked into the citadel of judgment carrying threads unspooled," the voice boomed, layered and discordant. "The crime: resisting severance. The punishment: to be unwoven."
Mino gripped the hilt of his hammer, his knuckles white. Aya whispered prayers that curled into threads of frost. Yun Sol's lantern pulsed weakly, as though fearful of burning in this place. But Ahri raised a hand to still them.
"I stand here not as prey to your verdicts," she said. "I stand as witness—to the fate you've hidden, to the tapestry you've twisted." Her words echoed strangely, as though they carried weight the chamber itself could not refuse.
The Arbitrator tilted its three heads. For the first time, silence cracked. A strand of silver light wove itself across the floor, pulling itself taut between judge and accused. The trial had begun, and Ahri realized: here, words were not mere arguments. They rewove reality itself.