The trials began at moonrise.
In a sealed chamber beneath Elmara's library, Thorin Cyreth stood bare-chested, runes of restraint carved into the floor around him. Lira watched from behind a crystal screen, the breathing book open in her lap.
"Remember," she called, voice steady despite her fear, "the Unlight answers to memory, not will. Don't force it. Invite it."
Thorin closed his eyes. He thought of his grandmother—Lyria Valtharis—who used to sing him lullabies in a language no one else understood. He remembered her hands, gray at the fingertips, warm when they held his.
A flicker.
His right hand darkened—not fully, not like Darien's—but enough. Veins of violet pulsed beneath the skin.
He exhaled. "It's… cold. But familiar."
Then he tried to shape it.
He willed his fingers to dissolve into ash, to reform as a blade.
But the ash scattered like dust in wind.
He growled in frustration—and the violet veins flared violently. Pain lanced up his arm. He cried out, collapsing to his knees.
Lira rushed in. "Stop! You're fighting it!"
"It's weak," Thorin gasped, sweat on his brow. "Like trying to hold smoke."
Elyar Morindel's trial was gentler—but no less revealing.
He sat cross-legged in the Heart Chamber, a sapling of the Great Tree before him. He placed his palms on the soil and whispered the old words his ancestor had written:
"From shadow, root. From root, bloom."
His hands turned gray slowly, evenly. The sapling responded—its leaves shimmering silver, its roots stretching toward his touch.
"It understands me," Elyar murmured.
But when he tried to draw the Unlight beyond his hands—to shield the sapling from an imagined threat—the gray receded instantly. His breath hitched. "It won't go further. Like a leash… tied to my blood."
Lira nodded grimly. "Your line carries only a thread of the true name. Enough to touch the Unlight… but not command it."
News of the trials spread like wildfire.
By dawn, the Hall of Whispers buzzed with voices.
Lord Selvor of House Narell slammed his fist on the marble table. "So only those with Valtharis blood may guard us? What of loyalty? What of skill?"
Lady Ilyra of House Thalrian added, voice sharp as glass: "My daughter healed three hundred during the siege. Does her blood count for nothing?"
Prince Kaelin tried to reason: "It's not about worth. It's about compatibility. Would you give a fire-wielder water magic?"
But the damage was done.
That evening, graffiti appeared on the walls of the Valtharis estate—scratched in charcoal:
"One blood. One power. One throne."
On the eastern ridge, Darien watched the city burn with quiet fury.
Lira joined him, cloak pulled tight against the wind.
"They're turning it into a dynasty," she said bitterly.
He didn't answer at first. Then:
"Valenthis didn't choose his bloodline. It chose him. Just as mine chose me."
He looked at her, eyes filled with sorrow. "Power reveals what's already in the heart. Not all hearts are ready for balance."
Below, in the dwarven quarter, King Borin received a raven from Khaz-Dûmhar.
Its message was short:
"The Deep Halls tremble. The seals weaken. It was never the Hollow we feared… but what the Hollow contained."
Borin crushed the parchment.
"The real war hasn't even begun."
And in the shadows of Lyothara's noble houses, jealous eyes plotted—not against orcs,
but against their own.