The courtyard had been swept clean of dust, though the scent of old rain still clung to the flagstones. The moon was just beginning to climb, casting thin silver threads across the practice ground. Lyra stood at the far end, her hands clasped tight behind her back. It felt like a scene arranged for her alone, though a half-circle of robed onlookers lingered in the shadows, their eyes bright with curiosity.
Kieran stood opposite her, a spear in hand. Not the ornate ceremonial kind used in processions, this was a weapon meant to wound. Its dark haft caught the light in jagged flashes, as if it too was hungry for something.
"I have a suspicion," he said, his voice carrying easily across the empty space.
She hated how steady he sounded. As if the entire evening were a foregone conclusion. "About what?"
He smiled without warmth. "You'll find out soon enough."
A senior disciple stepped forward at his gesture, holding a tray. On it, three crystalline orbs pulsed faintly, their light swelling and fading like slow breaths. Lyra recognized them from whispered stories, truth-scryers, relics from the First Age, capable of detecting the nature of a person's spiritual essence.
Her pulse jumped. The core inside her, the Shadow Sovereign's gift or curse, would not pass unnoticed under such scrutiny.
Kieran's gaze locked on her, as if he could already read the panic tightening her throat. "Simple trial," he said. "Touch the one that calls to you. That's all."
The lie in his voice was obvious to her, though perhaps not to anyone else.
She forced her shoulders to relax. "And if none of them call to me?"
"Then perhaps you're exactly what you claim to be," he replied.
The gathered disciples murmured at the implied insult. She ignored them, stepping forward. Each orb's light brushed her skin with a different sensation, warmth, pressure, a faint pulling. The middle one, faintly tinged with blue, flared at her nearness. That was the danger. Her instincts screamed to avoid it.
But the Shadow Sovereign's power stirred, restless and hot in her veins, urging her toward it. She could almost hear it, a whisper from beneath her skin.
Choose.
Her mind flashed with the image of Kieran's eyes narrowing, his voice calling for guards, her dragged away to some hidden chamber. The Sovereign's warning from her dreams coiled in her memory: They will strip you bare if they find you.
She let her fingers hover over the middle orb, just enough for Kieran to lean imperceptibly forward, then shifted at the last moment, brushing the far left orb instead.
A harmless glow ran up her arm, warm as sunlight. The assembled disciples relaxed, some even smiling faintly at her apparent normalcy.
Kieran did not smile. He dismissed the relics with a flick of his fingers. "Interesting choice."
"I chose the one that felt… ordinary," she said lightly.
He stepped closer. The shadows seemed to fold around his movement. "Most people are drawn to what resonates with them, not what feels safe. Unless, of course, they have something to hide."
Her breath caught, but she managed a faint shrug. "Perhaps I'm not most people."
That earned her the faintest curve of his mouth, neither approval nor amusement, something more dangerous, like acknowledgment of a worthy opponent.
The others began to disperse, their curiosity sated. Only when they were gone did Kieran speak again, softer now. "One day, Lyra, you'll slip. And I'll be there to see what's beneath the mask."
He turned away, the moonlight tracing the line of his jaw, and for a moment she imagined striking him down, ending the constant threat he posed. But her hands stayed still. Not yet.
Not while she could still feel the echo of the Shadow Sovereign's whisper in her bones.