The first footfall sent a tremor through the design.
Light ran around the circle, tracing symbols she couldn't read. The air vibrated against her skin.
She took another step.
The hall answered.
Not with visions this time.
With a choice.
Paths lit up under her feet, faint but visible now that she stood on the central plate.
One line glowed back the way she'd come, brighter than before, as if the hall had decided to make retreat smoother.
Another line burned forward, narrower, toward a far arch where the sigil patterns grew so dense they blurred.
Between them, smaller offshoots flickered and dimmed, like options the hall did not favour.
Rhaen understood.
She could walk back along a path that would be safer now than on the way in.
Or she could take the forward line, which had no promise of safety at all, only clarity.
The hall wanted her to choose.
She laughed, a soft, breathless sound that she kept inside her teeth.
