Light swallowed the void.
Not warm light.
Not home-light.
Not dawn.
Correctional light a pale, crushing radiance that felt like it wanted to rewrite every atom it touched.
Aurelianth held Solance against his chest as the three of them burst upward through the crack in the loss realm and landed Hard.
On stone.
Cold stone.
Familiar stone.
The cliffside of the village.
Lioren gasped, coughing on air.
Aurelianth staggered to one knee, cradling Solance protectively.
Solance trembled in his arms, body solid now but too light, too fragile, as if the void had thinned his existence.
Lioren crawled toward them.
"Aurelianth is he...is he still..."
Aurelianth tilted Solance's chin upward.
Solance's eyes fluttered open.
Faint.
Shaking.
But alive.
"…Aurelianth…?"
Aurelianth's breath broke.
He pressed his forehead to Solance's.
"Yes.
Yes, I'm here.
I've got you."
Lioren wrapped her arms around them both, sobbing quietly.
"You made it.
You came back.
Oh stars you came back..."
But Solance's glow flickered nervously.
"…Something is wrong."
Aurelianth pulled back.
"What?"
And then the village began to vibrate.
Softly.
Then violently.
The ground quaked as if every stone were trying to crawl away from something approaching.
Lioren's breath froze.
"…No."
Aurelianth's chest tightened.
"It's him."
Solance clutched Aurelianth's tunic desperately.
"…It feels angry…"
Lioren whispered:
"No...it feels worse than angry...it feels..."
The sky split.
Not a seam.
Not a crack.
A fracture, jagged and trembling as if the heavens themselves were terrified of what was emerging.
From the break in the sky descended the Arbiter.
Not in calm form.
Not in readable law-shape.
Its body was distorted.
Its sigil was spinning too fast.
Its limbs trembled as if barely containing
the pressure of its own principles.
Villagers screamed and fell to their knees.
The Arbiter's voice hit them like a collapsing building:
"UNACCEPTABLE."
Aurelianth shielded Solance's head.
Lioren covered her ears.
The Arbiter rose higher over the cliff, its form flickering between white law, empty silhouette, and a blinding sigil of rotating rings.
"THE TRIAL OF LOSS
WAS NOT SURVIVED
IN THE CORRECT MANNER."
Aurelianth shouted up at it:
"We passed your trial!"
The Arbiter's sigil flared violently.
"SOLANCE WAS MEANT
TO BE REMOVED."
Lioren screamed:
"You TRIED to kill him...!!"
Solance curled into Aurelianth tighter.
"…I didn't want to go…"
Aurelianth held him fiercely.
"He didn't go.
He chose us.
We chose him.
We found him.
We brought him back."
The Arbiter's voice cracked through the air:
"YOU INTERFERED IN A REMOVAL."
Aurelianth spat:
"Then your removal failed."
The Arbiter's form warped grotesquely law buckling under its fury.
"YOU BROKE THE OUTCOME."
Aurelianth stood up, lifting Solance with him, Lioren gripping his arm.
"We BROKE nothing.
We FIXED what YOU tried to destroy."
The Arbiter screamed.
Not with sound.
With reality.
The air tore open.
The sea froze mid-wave.
The cliff shook.
And Aurelianth felt it....
A searing pain in his chest as the bond surged in self-defense.
Solance wailed:
"Aurelianth...!!
It hurts...it hurts...!!"
Lioren clutched her heart.
"Aurelianth...it's tearing the bond...
IT'S TEARING...!"
Aurelianth wrapped his arms around both of them and roared back at the Arbiter:
"STOP...!!
STOP HURTING THEM...!!"
The Arbiter's rotating sigil expanded rings splitting, duplicating, colliding.
"THE TRI-LINK IS A VIOLATION."
Aurelianth shouted:
"The bond evolved BECAUSE YOU TRIED TO BREAK US...!!"
The Arbiter's voice dropped to a lethal whisper:
"THE BOND IS UNFIT."
Lioren gasped.
"Aurelianth...it's deciding something...
I can feel it...
it's DECIDING...!"
The Arbiter's sigil expanded again.
"THE TRI-LINK MUST BE ERASED."
Solance screamed:
"NO...!!
NO NO NO...!!
PLEASE...
DON'T...
DON'T TAKE THEM...
DON'T..."
Aurelianth stepped forward, shielding Lioren and Solance.
"You erase ANY of us, I swear...I swear I will tear down every law you've ever written."
The Arbiter paused.
Reality itself held its breath.
A fracture split across the Arbiter's torso a visual glitch of pure fury.
"…DEFYING THE ARBITER IS NOT PERMITTED."
Aurelianth's eyes burned.
"I'm not defying you."
He pulled Lioren and Solance closer.
"I'm redefining your world."
The Arbiter screamed again this time, its voice splintered.
The cliff split beneath their feet.
Villagers clung to their homes.
The sky dimmed.
The air warped.
Solance convulsed, clutching Aurelianth's chest.
"…Aurelianth something...something is HAPPENING..."
Lioren gasped, eyes wide:
"THE BOND...
IT'S RESPONDING...
IT'S CHANGING AGAIN...!!"
Aurelianth felt it too.
The bond the new, braided tri-link was not breaking.
It was fighting back.
A surge of gold, silver, and amber exploded from the three of them a wave of light so fierce
the Arbiter staggered back in the sky.
The Arbiter hissed:
"IMPOSSIBLE."
Aurelianth shouted:
"No.
INEVITABLE."
Another pulse surged outward.
The cliff steadied.
The villagers gasped.
Even the sea resumed motion as the tri-bond's wave pushed back reality.
The Arbiter's sigil dimmed for a single heartbeat.
It was not retreat.
It was recalculation.
A moment where law reevaluated fate.
The Arbiter whispered:
"…THE TRI-LINK HAS MUTATED BEYOND DESIGN."
Lioren clutched Solance.
"So what now?"
The Arbiter stared down at them.
"A NEW TRIAL IS REQUIRED."
Aurelianth growled:
"Name it."
The Arbiter rotated its spinning rings like a judge preparing a sentence.
"THE TRIAL IS NOT FOR YOU."
Aurelianth stiffened.
"Then for who?"
The Arbiter pointed...
Not at him.
Not at Solance.
At Lioren.
She froze.
"…Me…?"
Aurelianth moved in front of her instantly.
"No."
But the Arbiter's voice boomed:
"THE HUMAN IS THE ANCHOR.
THE LINK'S FOUNDATION.
THE MOST STABLE POINT."
Lioren trembled violently.
"The anchor...me…?"
Solance clung to her, crying.
"…No…
NO...Lioren is gentle...she's not a fighter...she's not...don't take her...
DON'T...!!"
The Arbiter extended a hand.
A cage of amber-white law formed around Lioren.
Aurelianth grabbed her...And the law burned his skin.
He screamed.
Lioren cried out:
"AURELIANTH...!!
LET GO...
IT'S HURTING YOU...!!"
He held on harder.
"NO...
I WON'T LOSE YOU...
I WON'T LOSE ANY OF YOU...!!"
Solance threw its arms around Aurelianth trying to pull him back.
"Aurelianth...!!
Please stop...
PLEASE...!!"
But Aurelianth screamed through the pain:
"LIORRRRREEEEEENNNNN...!!!"
Lioren sobbed:
"AURELIANTH...
SOLANCE...
HELP...!!!"
The Arbiter's sigil flared so bright it bleached color from the world.
"NEXT TRIAL :
THE ANCHOR'S FALL."
The cage snapped shut.
Lioren vanished.
Aurelianth collapsed to the ground, arms smoking from the burn.
Solance screamed into the empty air:
"LIORRREEEEENNNNNNN....!!!"
The Arbiter's voice whispered:
"THE TRIAL BEGINS NOW."