One trial down. But something tells me the next one won't be as straightforward.
The chamber reconfigured itself, walls shifting to reveal a new arrangement of space and purpose. The crystalline formations dimmed while new light sources activated.
"You will now enter the second stage," the Guardian continued. "The Trial of Compassion."
Jasmine straightened, preparing for whatever test awaited.
Compassion. After everything I've witnessed from Sylvia, this should be simple.
The Guardian's pause seemed weighted with knowledge of what was to come.
That doesn't sound encouraging.
Light engulfed the chamber, preparing to reshape reality once more. Jasmine took a deep breath and stepped forward into whatever judgment awaited.
Second trial. Whatever it is, I'll face it.
The potential heir of Sylvia prepared to meet her moment of choice, unaware that this trial would define not just her powers, but her very soul.
The light faded, revealing a scene that made Jasmine's blood freeze in her veins.
She stood in a makeshift battlefield sort of clinic, the kind hastily erected when proper medical facilities couldn't reach the wounded. Canvas tents stretched in ragged lines across muddy ground.
The air reeked of blood, infection, and approaching death.
This feels too real. Too familiar.
Groans of agony echoed from every direction. Soldiers lay on stretchers, some missing limbs, others clutching wounds that seeped life onto stained bandages.
The sheer volume of suffering threatened to overwhelm her enhanced empathic abilities.
A test of healing under pressure? I can handle this. I've been fighting monsters and healing for weeks now.
But as Jasmine moved deeper into the medical camp, details began registering that made her steps falter. Banners hanging from tent poles bore familiar crests.
Uniforms carried insignia she recognised from childhood nightmares.
No. This can't be what I think it is.
A voice called out from a nearby tent wracked with pain.
"Healer! Please, someone help me!"
Jasmine's heart stopped.
Had heard it in her father's presence during better times, before the betrayal, before everything collapsed into exile and suffering.
This bastard... my father's former friend.
Against her better judgment, she approached the tent entrance.
Inside, a man lay on a blood-soaked cot.
His expensive armor had been cut away to reveal a gaping wound in his abdomen. Without immediate treatment, he would die within the hour.
"Thank god," The man gasped when he saw her. "You're a healer, aren't you? Please, I can pay whatever you ask. My family—they need me to survive this."
Your family? What about my family when you helped destroy it?
Jasmine's hands trembled as memories flooded back.
The man in front of her at their dinner table was laughing with her father.
The same man who betrayed Regulus. The final meeting where he'd voted to send her father on the suicide mission that broke their family.
"I know you," she said quietly.
The man squinted through pain-glazed eyes. "Do you? I'm sorry, I don't recall—please, does it matter now? I'm dying."
You don't even remember the daughter of the man you betrayed.
"You were friends with Regulus," Jasmine continued, her voice growing colder. "The prodigy of the Magic academy, Regulus. The man you sent to die."
Recognition flickered across the man's features, followed immediately by fear.
"You're... you're his and her daughter. The girl who disappeared after—" He tried to sit up, wincing as the movement tore his wound wider. "Listen, child, whatever you think happened—"
"I think?" Jasmine's laugh held no warmth.
"I know exactly what happened. I was there when Father came dying. I watched him waste away while you and your conspirators celebrated your success."
The man who helped destroy everything I loved, begging for the mercy he never showed.
The man's face had gone pale beyond what his injuries alone could account for. "Please, I had no choice. The others, they—we thought he was becoming dangerous."
"His powers that would have saved lives," Jasmine cut him off.
"Yes, but—" The man coughed, blood speckling his lips. "The political situation was delicate. We couldn't let him destabilise everything. Sometimes hard choices—"
"Hard choices." Jasmine's voice dropped to a whisper. "Like choosing to let you bleed out on this cot?"
Terror filled the man's eyes as understanding dawned. "You can't. You're a healer. It's against your nature, your oaths—"
"What oaths did you take when you betrayed a friend? When you orphaned a child? When you forced a family into exile?"
He's right about one thing. Healers are supposed to help everyone.
But the fury burning in Jasmine's chest demanded otherwise.
This man had helped engineer her father's death. Had voted to send Regulus into a trap with insufficient support.
Why should I save him when he let my father die?
A commotion outside the tent interrupted her internal struggle. More voices calling for medical attention, growing more desperate by the moment.
"Healer! We need you here!"
"This one's critical!"
"Please, anyone who can help!"
Jasmine stepped outside to find chaos spreading through the medical camp. More wounded had arrived—dozens of them, all bearing the same noble insignia that marked the man's armor.
All of them. Every single conspirator who voted against her father.
Every single one of them is here...damn it. What is this trial? Even if they aren't real...I can't.
"I CAN'T POSSIBLY HEAL THESE BASTARDS!" She shouted, unable to control her emotions.
"Please," Another man called out when he spotted her healer's robes. "My arm—if you don't reattach it soon, I'll never fight again. The kingdom will lose against the demons, and my children..."
"Your children? Who cares about your children, you bastard! You took my father away from me, made my mom a widow! The princess!"
"Help me," Another wheezed. "I can barely breathe. There's something wrong with my chest."
"The pain—I've never felt anything like it. Please, show mercy."
Jasmine stood in the center of the camp, surrounded by the architects of her family's destruction.
Each man who had voted for Regulus to fight at the front line, now lay broken and dying, begging for salvation from his daughter's hands.