er 28B — The Amber Trial: Veil Two (The Choice That Binds)
The path narrowed.
Not in the obvious way—there was still space to walk, still room to breathe—but the world felt tighter. As if the Amber Hollow was drawing closer around Myra with every step, wrapping a slow, invisible band around her chest and twisting.
The trees changed first.
They weren't just trees anymore. Their amber-glass surfaces no longer showed her face in fragmented flashes. Each trunk became a window—thin, tall, rippling with scenes that weren't happening here and now.
They were all happening in some other Myra's life.
She passed the first one without meaning to look—and still saw enough.
She was running ahead of a caravan in pounding rain, mud splashing up her boots, lungs burning. The world behind her was nothing but storm and shouting. She turned back, mouth open—
No one followed.
No Aiden. No Nellie. No anyone.
Just empty road.
Myra's throat tightened. She tore her gaze away and forced her legs to keep moving.
The second tree caught her from the corner of her eye.
Torchlight. Smoke. Stone. Myra kneeling in a tunnel half-full of dust, coughs wracking her body, tears cutting clean rivers down her dirt-streaked face. Her hands were locked around someone's wrist, shaking it.
Small wrist. Small hand. A faint greenish glow clinging to the fingers.
Nellie.
In the reflection, Myra whispered over and over:
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry—"
She didn't stay to see if that Nellie woke up.
She couldn't.
She kept walking, jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
More trees.
More futures.
One showed her sitting alone by a campfire, older, hunched, staring at a broken storm crystal in her palms like it was a gravestone.
Another showed her entering the Academy courtyard from a distance. There was no one at her side, no one trailing behind. Students parted to let her through, respectful and distant.
Alone, alone, alone.
"I get it," she muttered, voice frayed. "You're very poetic. Can we move on?"
The Hollow didn't answer.
The next trunk did.
Her feet stopped on their own.
Because the reflection in this one wasn't blurry or distant.
It was sharp.
Close.
And it wasn't her.
It was Aiden.
Standing in the amber forest. Arms folded. Expression quiet. Stormlight faint and blue under his skin, eyes holding that soft, stubborn steadiness that always made it hard to look away.
"Myra."
Her heart jumped.
"Aiden?"
She stepped closer before she could stop herself.
He didn't step out of the glass.
He smiled.
It was wrong.
Not because of his face—because of his eyes. They held no warmth, no quiet humor. Just… tiredness. And something like disappointment.
"You're slowing us down," he said.
The words were so gentle they almost didn't feel like an attack.
Almost.
"I—" She let out a nervous laugh. "Cute, Trial. Ten out of ten for cruelty. Aiden would never say it like that."
The reflection tilted his head.
He didn't blink.
"You're slowing us down," he repeated. "You pretend to be brave. But you're scared, all the way through. You hide behind jokes. You talk until you drown out your own thoughts. You're… exhausting."
Her skin felt too tight.
"That's not fair," she snapped. "I kept us moving. If I hadn't pushed, if I hadn't—"
"You think you're pulling us forward," the false-Aiden said calmly. "But you're just dragging yourself. And dragging us with you."
Every word landed like a pebble in her chest.
Small.
Building.
He stepped forward.
The surface of the amber didn't crack. His projection just slipped out of it like it had never been separate.
He stopped an arm's length away.
"You don't know when to stop," he said. "You rush. You force. You decide things for us because you're afraid we'll freeze."
"That's not wrong," she shot back. "If I don't pull, people die."
His expression didn't change.
"Oh, there it is," he said. "Your favorite lie."
Her breath stuttered.
"Stop," she whispered.
"You tell yourself the world needs you to be strong," the false-Aiden continued. "Because the moment you admit you're scared, you'll have to stop moving long enough to feel it."
"I said stop."
"You're not strong, Myra. You're not fearless. You're not—"
"I SAID STOP!"
The shout ripped out of her like lightning.
Literal lightning answered.
Amber leaves overhead flared gold-white for a heartbeat, each one thin as glass but echoing with electric light. Static snapped across her arms, raising goosebumps, lifting a few strands of her hair.
The reflection stilled.
Silence folded around them.
For a heartbeat, she could hear nothing but her own breathing—shaky, ragged—and the faint hum beneath her ribs when her emotions scraped against the System's sleeping edge.
The reflection's eyes softened.
"Is it really me you're angry at?" it asked softly.
Myra's hands were fists so tight her nails dug into her palms.
She wanted to say yes.
Say it was the Trial. Say it was the forest. Say it was the world.
Her voice betrayed her.
"No," she whispered.
The word felt like glass in her throat.
"I'm angry at me."
The amber forest pulsed.
A slow wave of warm light rolled outward from her boots, climbing the mirrored trunks, bending the hanging leaves. The whole Hollow reacted to the confession like a living thing.
The false-Aiden waited.
No mocking.
No push.
Just… space.
Myra swallowed hard.
Her heart hammered.
She forced herself to keep going. "I push people because I'm terrified. Okay? Happy now? I push because if I stop, if I let anyone's fear actually sink in, including mine—if I let myself think about how close we came in that Hollow, how close Aiden came in the Gate, how close Nellie—"
Her voice cracked on that name.
She bit down on it and pushed through.
"—then I'll freeze too. And then who pulls? Who screams we have to move? Who makes the choice no one wants but we all need?"
Her hands shook.
She forced her fingers open.
The marks of her nails were little half-moon crescents in her skin.
"I don't push because I think I'm better," she said quietly. "I push because I'm scared no one else will push hard enough. And then everyone dies, and I'll have to stand there and know I watched it happen."
Amber light flickered all around them.
The reflection took another step closer. Now they were only inches apart.
"Say the rest," it murmured.
The rest was the part she'd never said aloud to anyone.
Not her parents, not Aiden, not Nellie, not the quiet strangers they'd shared fires with on the road.
"I hate myself for it," she whispered.
Something hot slid down her cheek. A tear. She didn't remember starting to cry.
"I hate that I don't know how to slow down. I hate that I don't trust anyone else not to break. I hate that I'm so scared of being too weak that I turned into—"
She choked on the word.
"—a storm no one asked for."
Amber light flared.
Not in anger.
In recognition.
The false-Aiden's features began to blur.
Lines melted.
Stormlight faded.
The face in front of her reshaped—
until she found herself staring at… herself.
Her mirrored self.
Eyes swollen from crying. Jaw stubborn. Hair a mess. Shoulders set like she was getting ready to fight the sky.
"You're not wrong to be afraid," the reflection—her reflection—said softly. "But fear isn't failure."
Myra's throat hurt.
"I know that," she managed.
"Do you?"
The reflection raised a hand.
Myra didn't flinch when it touched her cheek.
Warmth spread from that point of contact, rolling down her jaw and throat, settling somewhere deep behind her ribs.
"Myra Lynell," the reflection said, voice firm now. "You are not dragging anyone. They are walking beside you. They chose this. They chose you. You're not allowed to steal their choice because you're scared."
That hit harder than any insult.
It sank straight into the core she pretended didn't exist.
Her knees wobbled. "If I slow down…"
"You won't break," her mirrored self said. "You'll give them room to stand with you."
The warmth deepened.
Amber light rippled outward again.
Words appeared in front of her, etched into the air itself:
[TRUTH ACCEPTED]
[VEIL TWO COMPLETED]
[PERSONAL ATTRIBUTE: WILLPOWER +1]
[RESOLVE: CLARITY (MINOR)]
A tiny System ping prickled in the back of her mind, quieter and gentler than anything she'd seen around Aiden. She almost laughed.
"Great," she sniffed. "I get +1 to not melting down. Very on theme."
The reflection smiled faintly.
Then it fractured into a million tiny motes of golden dust and drifted away.
The amber forest shifted.
The path in front of her narrowed to a single point.
Roots parted like curtains.
A structure rose ahead—no bigger than a chapel, made entirely of fused amber. Its surface was polished to mirror-glass. There were no windows. No obvious doors.
Just a single square of amber in the center with a rune carved into it:
CHOICE.
Myra approached, every step heavier than any fight she'd ever walked into.
"Choice of what?" she asked under her breath. "Hairspray or death? Fight or flight? Me or lightning?"
The Hollow answered.
The square split down the center.
Two panels slid away from each other, opening into two short corridors.
The left one glowed bright: a clean, sharp light, and within its walls, the images were vivid.
Myra saw herself, older, stronger, leading a group through a storm. Always at the front. Always shouting the orders. Always moving first, sleeping last. She saw their faces following her—grateful, weary, dependent.
She saw the way the road behind her was always a little emptier than it should've been.
People fell out of step and never caught up again.
Because she never looked back.
Her stomach twisted.
The right corridor glowed softer.
Warm.
Within it, she saw herself walking… not ahead. Not behind.
Beside.
Aiden with his ridiculous, quiet stubbornness matching her pace.
Nellie stuck to her elbow, complaining about her legs and still keeping up.
Runa a step off to the side, grunting about terrain and silently catching them when they stumbled.
She saw herself slow down sometimes.
Saw herself let someone else decide where to camp. Let someone else say "We move now." Let herself sit and admit she was tired.
She saw herself cry in front of them.
Not alone behind a wagon wheel.
They didn't walk away.
She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd trapped in her lungs.
The Hollow's voice brushed her ear, not words, but meaning:
Choose the lie you will no longer live inside.
The lie that said: If I'm not ahead, everyone dies.
Or the lie that said: If I let people help me, I'm weak.
Or the lie that said: I'm only worth what I carry.
Her hands curled at her sides.
"That's dirty," she whispered. "Making me choose between two futures and neither is really about the corridor. It's about how I see myself."
The forest hummed.
She already knew which one she'd walked her whole life.
Always in front. Always on. Always louder and faster so the quiet voices didn't get in.
She looked at the left path.
She knew that road.
It would work—for a while.
Until it didn't.
Until she broke.
Until they did.
She turned to the right.
The unknown one.
Not easier.
Just… shared.
"What if I fall?" she asked the silence.
Amber light warmed against her cheek like a hand.
Then someone will catch you.
If you let them.
Her vision blurred.
Stupid tears.
She lifted her chin.
"Fine," she muttered. "We do it your way."
Her feet moved.
Not toward the road that said I alone keep them alive.
Toward the one that whispered We keep each other alive.
As her boot crossed the threshold, the amber walls lit up.
Light poured through her like warm water.
The corridors shuddered, then crumbled into golden dust that whirled around her and sank into her skin.
[VEIL TWO — CORE DECISION MADE]
[RESILIENCE: SHARED LOAD (MINOR)]
[NEW PERSONAL NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WALK IN FRONT TO MATTER]
She choked out a laugh that sounded half hysterical, half relieved.
"Okay," she sniffed. "Okay. I get it. Message received."
The last of the dust faded.
The forest ahead shifted one final time.
The ground rose gently, roots forming steps. The amber trees thinned, opening into a dome-shaped chamber filled with softer, pulsing light.
The final veil.
She didn't know what waited there.
But as she stepped toward it, for the first time in a very long time, Myra Lynell took a breath that didn't hurt—and walked forward without trying to outrun her own fear.
Because now she knew:
She wasn't supposed to be the storm dragging everyone behind her.
She was supposed to be part of the sky they all survived under.
And she wasn't going to face the last veil running ahead.
She was going to walk into it as herself.
Scared.
Stubborn.
And not alone.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Alright, real talk for a second.
WebNovel rejected Reborn with the Beastbinder System.
Yeah. They said it "wouldn't make money."
So now it's up to us to prove them wrong.
If you're enjoying the story even a little—Aiden, the lightning pup, the worldbuilding, the fights—
then please help this book climb:
⭐ Power Stones → they matter way more than people realize
📚 Add to Collection → boosts the book in the algorithms
💬 Leave a Comment → even "nice chapter" helps more than you think
Right now, every push tells the system,
"Hey, this story actually can compete."
If you want to support the journey even more (never required), my Patreon is here:
My patreon is CB GodSent
(Early chapters, and it helps me keep writing.)
Thank you for reading.
Seriously.
Let's show them what this story can do.