CHAPTER 134: TRIAL OF FLAMES

Athena’s POV

The trial wasn’t announced. It simply began.

Flame lashed out from the stone, circling me in a halo of wild heat. I didn’t scream—not when the fire kissed my skin, not when my power rebelled against the pressure. I let it come.

Then the shadows followed. They poured from the cracks in my mind, coiling around my ankles, my wrists, my throat. The voices came louder now.

You are not her.

You are not real.

You were made from pain.

And worse—memories. Of blood on my hands. Of screams that sounded like my own. Of Caelum’s knife twisting into my ribs as I gasped for a name I couldn’t remember.

"You can’t have me," I whispered.

But the shadow grinned. We already do.

The fire turned cold.

Then—

A mirror. Floating in front of me. Shimmering silver. And inside it?

Me.

But not the version I’d come to know. Not the goddess. Not the weapon.

Just a girl.

Shaking. Bleeding. Lost.

I stepped toward it.

And it shattered.

The trial splintered time.

Every breath was another world, another fracture. I fought monsters made from memory. I faced myself, again and again, until the edges of my identity were blurred with those I’d killed.

I relived every betrayal.

Kieran’s silence.

Lucas’s lies.

Caelum’s blade.

The shadows fed on it all.

But when they reached for my heart again, I held the fire tighter.

"Burn," I said.

And they did.

I don’t know how long I screamed.

When the flames finally died down, the stone beneath me was scorched black. My knees were raw. My voice gone.

Lucas stood at the edge of the circle. Silent. Still breathing. But barely.

"You stayed," I rasped.

His eyes were glassy. "I always will."

Something inside me cracked again.

But this time—it was light that poured through.

The shadows whispered. But they didn’t scream.

They bowed.

And the fire... it obeyed.

Later, I stood outside the temple and looked at the horizon. The sky was bruised purple and red, like the gods themselves had bled there.

Lucas joined me.

I didn’t turn.

"You know what this means, don’t you?" I said.

He nodded. "You’ve tamed it."

"No." I smiled, barely. "I’ve made it mine. But it’s not tamed. Just waiting."

"Then we keep it waiting. Together."

I didn’t answer.

Because far beneath us, something stirred in the deep.

A name I hadn’t heard yet.

A throne I hadn’t claimed.

And a voice... calling me again.

The sky above the god-realm cracked like old bone.

Stars bled light that pulsed and flickered, as though warning of a presence that didn’t belong. Or perhaps... one that had been forgotten too long.

I stepped into the Vale of Echoes—an ancient pathway carved between realms. Only gods walked here. And only with permission.

But I wasn’t waiting for anyone’s permission anymore.

The fire inside me burned quietly, a steady rhythm in my core. The shadow curled behind my shoulder like a second spine, watching, always watching. We were no longer at war. Not quite allies either. But there was a mutual understanding now: I was the blade, and it was the edge. I could feel its thoughts bleeding into mine. Not words—intent. Hunger. Memory. Vengeance.

Lucas walked beside me.

No longer just a guardian, no longer fully mortal.

He had crossed realms with me, not because he was allowed—but because the gods had once touched him in the womb, marked him with prophecy, and then abandoned the truth of it. Like all forgotten truths, it had sharpened in the dark.

He walked with a limp from the trial I’d endured. And yet he never faltered.

The Vale narrowed ahead.

At its end: the Gates of the Evercourt.

And beyond them, the gods who had exiled Caelum.

And the throne that whispered my name.

They were waiting.

All of them.

Not just the seated gods—air, fire, bone, time—but the Old Ones. The nameless. The ones who had fallen silent when the mortal world no longer needed their cruelty. I felt their attention like a weight across my spine.

A hall of silence.

Until the eldest one spoke. A god shaped like a tree, with eyes like carved obsidian and branches for a crown.

"You should not be here."

His voice cracked across the sky.

I held his gaze. "Then why did the realm open for me?"

The god to his left—slender and made of smoke—answered in a rasp, "Because your name is etched into the Evercourt."

I frowned. "What does that mean?"

Lucas took a step forward. "It means your ascension was always fated. The exile of Caelum left a vacancy not just in power—but in order."

Another god hissed, one made of stone and starlight. "You wear both light and shadow. You bring fire into memory. You are chaos."

"No," I said. "I am balance."

My voice echoed like a strike of iron.

And the throne behind them responded.

A low, ancient hum. A pull in my chest like a heartbeat not mine.

I turned—and saw it.

The throne.

Black metal carved with runes that bled gold and ash. Flames danced at its feet. Shadow poured from beneath it like silk.

It was waiting for me.

No god moved.

Then the ancient one spoke again. "Your claim must be tested."

"Tested?" I asked coldly.

He inclined his head. "One throne. One truth. If you are not the rightful heir... it will unmake you."

Lucas grabbed my hand. "Athena—"

I pulled away. "I didn’t come here to ask. I came to remember who I was."

Then I walked.

One step. Another.

The gods watched. None interfered.

The moment my foot touched the first stair, the entire realm pulsed. Not just with light or heat—but with memory.

Not mine.

The world shifted.

Suddenly—I was elsewhere.

Standing on a battlefield of gods.

Ashes rained from the sky. A man knelt before a burning crown, a blade through his chest, eyes wild with betrayal. I didn’t know his name—but the gods around him wept.

Another memory.

The Bleeding Realms

A girl with my eyes standing before the throne. Not me. Not Athena. But someone older. Someone who had been the throne once. Her voice echoed with power and grief: "Only in dying shall the line awaken again."

And then—I was back.

Breathless.

The throne now roared with recognition.

The shadows around it bent in worship.

The gods fell silent.

I reached the top stair.

Placed one hand on the throne’s edge.

The shadow inside me howled.

The fire in me surged.

A perfect balance.

A perfect storm.

The throne accepted me.

It didn’t burn. It didn’t consume.

It bowed.

I sat.

And in that moment, I knew the truth:

I had never been born mortal.

I had always been a god.

I had only needed to remember.

The realm shifted to accommodate my presence.

The court—those seated immortals who had ruled for eons—did not kneel. But they watched with something close to fear. Something ancient.

"I remember now," I said aloud. "Who I was before I fell. Before the exile. I was born in fire and sealed in flesh. You buried me. But my shadow found a way to return."

Lucas stood below, eyes locked on mine.

"Do you know what this means?" he asked.

"I do," I said.

Caelum had not risen by mistake.

He had risen because I had fallen.

And now that I remembered—I would finish what I began.

"Call the Hunt," I said to the court.

A low gasp rippled through them.

"You would pursue him?" the stone god asked. "In the Bleeding Realms?"

I stood. Power surged around me.

"He summoned me with my own shadow. He walked in my name. He broke every law you were too cowardly to enforce."

I descended the steps.

Lucas met me halfway.

"We’re going into the Bleeding Realms?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, the shadow crackling like armor on my skin. "And we’re bringing him home. In pieces."

The sky bled crimson.

The stars above me were foreign—wrong—twisting slowly in shapes that no mortal or god should ever name. The trees here were hollow things that screamed when the wind pushed through them. And the wind—it carried more than sound. It carried memory. Emotion. Hunger.

The Bleeding Realms were not built. They were punished into existence. Every rock screamed of some forgotten god’s agony. Every river ran red with old curses. The soil reeked of ash and godbone. This was the prison where the oldest truths were buried. And now it called my name.

"Athena..." the wind rasped. Not as a greeting, but as a dare.

I didn’t blink.

I didn’t break stride.

I carried Caelum’s blood on my skin like war paint and a new power within me that didn’t belong to just the gods. I had shadow in my bones now—ancient, crawling, shifting—alive. It whispered of devouring. Of undoing. It had tasted Caelum’s fear and wanted more.

Good.

Let it feast.

Because I wasn’t here to survive.

I was here to end him.

But the Bleeding Realms don’t give without cost.

The first trial waited where the trees thinned into a clearing. A single obsidian mirror stood there, suspended in the air, spinning slowly. No frame. No base. Just hovering like a thing watching me breathe.

I approached.

The reflection was not my own.

It was her.

The version of me that had bled for nothing. The girl who had begged the king for mercy. The one who cried out when Caelum drove the blade through her stomach. That broken, sobbing creature with wide, innocent eyes and trembling fingers.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

"You could’ve died," she said. "It would’ve been easier. Quieter. No pain. No shadow. No gods. No war."

"I’m not here for quiet," I said.

Her lips curled into a grin. "But you miss it. You miss who you were before you became this."

"No," I whispered. "I mourn her. But I do not want her back."

A crack split the mirror.

And then she screamed.

The glass exploded outward, slashing into my arms, my face—but I didn’t fall. I let the blood drip. Let it mark the soil.

Trial One: The Mirror of Before—passed.

But the Realms weren’t done with me.

They never would be.

I walked until the sky above me turned completely black and something growled beneath the earth. A second trial waited—hot, brutal, and ancient.

A temple of teeth.

That’s the only way I could describe it. A ruin shaped like a wolf’s jaw, its walls built of bone and its doors forever gnashing.

Inside waited temptation.

It wore the face of someone I didn’t expect.

Lucas.

He stood there, shirtless, golden-eyed, mouth soft with some impossible sorrow. But I knew it wasn’t him. Not really. The Realms were cruel—not stupid. They knew who I’d once yearned for.

"You’re tired," the false Lucas said gently, stepping toward me. "Let me carry it for you."

I said nothing.

"You don’t have to bleed anymore," he continued. "Let me love you. Let me fix what the gods broke."

I laughed—dry and low. "You aren’t real."

"But what if I was?" he asked. "What if I said I forgave you for forgetting me? For walking past me like I was a stranger?"

I froze.

His voice changed—deeper, sharper. "You think vengeance will fix you. But it won’t. You’ll finish Caelum and then what? You’ll be alone. Empty. Broken beyond recognition."

The shadows inside me snarled.

"Then I’ll rebuild myself out of ash," I said coldly.

The false Lucas smiled—and then his body burst into crows, screaming as they flew apart.

Trial Two: The Voice of Longing—passed.

I staggered out of the temple of teeth with blood on my tongue and fire in my breath. My arms were shaking. My soul felt like it had been scraped raw.

And still I moved forward.

Because I had to.

Because vengeance was a song now, and I was the blade dancing to its rhythm.

The third trial came not with a warning, but with a choice.

Three doors stood before me in a field of ash.

One burned endlessly.

One was carved entirely from ice.

One was made of shadow, pulsing gently like a heartbeat.

Choose.

I stepped toward the shadowed door, but it hissed.

"Not yet."

I turned to the ice—but my fingers froze the moment I neared it.

Only the fire welcomed me.

So I stepped through.