"The moment you stop pretending nothing hurts is the moment healing begins."
The doorway appeared clean.
Too clean.
A simple arch of pale stone, no symbols, no glow, no hum, no echo.
Just a frame and a darkness so still it felt carved from silence.
Aarav paused in front of it, the weight of the last three trials still pressing into his bones. Older Aarav stood beside him, steady but afraid in a way he hadn't been in any chamber before this.
"This is it," older Aarav whispered.
"The final piece. The Trial of Identity."
The air shifted.
Not wind.
Not movement.
Recognition.
The Vale was watching.
Aarav reached out with one hand.
The darkness inside the doorway rippled lightly, almost like it was breathing.
He swallowed.
"What's waiting for me in there?"
Older Aarav's throat tightened.
"The version of you the world believes you are."
Aarav frowned. "What does that even—"
"It's not a memory," older Aarav cut in.
"Not an echo.
Not a fear.
Not a hope.
It's the shape your life has carved into the world.
The version of you defined by everyone else."
Aarav went still.
"The world's idea of me," he said quietly.
Older Aarav nodded.
"And you have to face it without letting it overwrite you."
The doorway pulsed once.
Older Aarav stepped back, fear in his eyes.
"This is where I lost myself.
Where I stopped being me.
And where the King finally marked me."
Aarav breathed in deeply.
Then stepped forward.
The world blinked—
—and reshaped.
He stood in a circular room of polished glass.
No walls.
No boundaries.
Just an endless reflection of himself stretching in every direction.
Except none of the reflections matched him.
Some were taller.
Some younger.
Some older.
Some broken.
Some cold.
Some confident.
Some monstrous.
Millions of Aaravs, each defined by someone else's expectation.
Aarav whispered, "This is…"
The reflections all spoke at once.
_"Anchor."_
_"Failure."_
_"Weapon."_
_"Lost cause."_
_"Chosen one."_
_"Burden."_
_"Protector."_
_"Mistake."_
_"Hope."_
_"Threat."_
_"Replacement."_
_"Key."_
Aarav staggered back, hands over his ears—
but the voices weren't sound.
They were meaning.
Each reflection stepping closer, merging into one overwhelming chorus of identity he had never agreed to carry.
A childhood teacher's expectation.
A stranger's assumption.
A friend's disappointment.
A rival's fear.
A survivor's projection.
The King's longing.
Arin's awe.
Meera's worry.
The boy's adoration.
Amar's trust.
Hundreds of versions of him, all shaped by others.
Aarav's pulse spiked.
"I—I don't want this."
A dozen reflections answered:
_"You never had a choice."_
The room darkened.
The reflections changed—
faces warping, sharpening, shifting into versions of him shaped entirely by what the world needed from him.
One version stepped forward.
Aarav felt nausea coil in his gut.
It was him—
—but colder, sharper, purpose-made.
Eyes devoid of hesitation.
Shoulders square under responsibility he never asked for.
A perfect Anchor.
A flawless weapon.
The version the King wanted.
The version the Vale tested for.
The version everyone could rely on—
—but at the cost of everything human about him.
It spoke with a voice that felt like a verdict.
_"You were born to be me."_
Aarav shook his head.
"No."
The Perfect-Aarav stepped closer, reflections rippling outward like shock waves.
_"You were shaped for this."_
"No."
He stepped forward, trembling.
"I'm not you."
The Perfect-Aarav tilted its head.
_"You don't get to decide that."_
Aarav clenched his fists.
"Yes. I do."
The Perfect-Aarav stopped.
Voices rippled through the room.
_"Prove it."_
Aarav inhaled.
The hum in his chest surged—
not wild like in the Echo Chamber,
not broken like in the valley,
not burning like in the rage chamber,
not trembling like in the void.
Steady.
Whole.
Alive.
Aarav spoke clearly.
**"My name is Aarav.
Not your Anchor.
Not your weapon.
Not your prophecy.
Not your failure.
Not your savior.
Mine."**
Silence—
raw and absolute—
ripped through the room.
The reflections flickered.
Cracked.
Dimmed.
One by one, they dissolved into light.
The Perfect-Aarav remained.
Still.
Unbroken.
Unimpressed.
_"Words don't define identity."_
Aarav stepped closer.
"No. Choices do."
The Perfect-Aarav's expression flickered—
just once.
Aarav reached out—
and placed a hand on that version's chest.
"I choose myself."
Light detonated outward.
The Perfect-Aarav shattered, exploding into threads of silver that spiraled upward into the void, dissolving like stardust.
The chamber went still.
A single voice—
the Vale's—
whispered through the air.
_"Anchor."_
_"Chosen."_
_"Self."_
The doorway reopened behind him.
Older Aarav rushed in, breathless.
"You—You passed."
Aarav turned to him, eyes steady.
"No," he said.
"I decided."
The world trembled.
The floor beneath them cracked open.
Arin's voice echoed faintly from far above:
"AARAV! THE CONVERGENCE IS STARTING!"
Older Aarav's face drained of color.
"Oh no."
Aarav looked up at the trembling air, fractures forming like lightning across the sky.
"What now?" he asked.
Older Aarav swallowed hard.
"…Now the King comes in full."
A pillar of light erupted through the chamber
"He admitted the ache, and the room brightened in response."