Deeper - Kenna James - Choose: Your Trial -21.12...

“That’s your future if you turn back,” the voice said. “Go deeper, and you might not come back as you are. Choose.”

“Good girl,” her mother said, smiling. “The deepest place isn’t down. It’s the courage to return.” Deeper - Kenna James - Choose Your Trial -21.12...

Her mother held up the shadow-cloth. “That I didn’t vanish. I chose to stay here. Because out there, I was only your mother. In here, I am everything. Every lost version, every buried hour, every path not taken. And now… so are you.” “That’s your future if you turn back,” the voice said

Inside was not a monster, not a treasure, not a trap. It was a small, round room. At its center sat a woman in a white dress, sewing a shadow into a cloth. The woman looked up. She had Kenna’s eyes, but older. Weary. Peaceful. “The deepest place isn’t down

Kenna drew her short sword, but her arms felt slow. The first knight lunged. She parried, but instead of clashing steel, her blade passed through him like smoke. Then she felt it—a memory, sharp as a shard of glass, forcing its way into her mind. Her mother, crying in a locked room. Kenna, age seven, pressing her ear to the wood. “I’m sorry,” her mother had whispered. “I have to go deeper.”