The first ripple came from Mira's reflection.
She stood closest to the pool, her face pale in the dim light of the Core. The faint glow of her mark flickered with uneasy rhythm, like a candle fighting wind. The surface of the pool shimmered—not with water, but with something stranger: light bending and distorting like heat rising from scorched stone.
The reflection changed.
It wasn't her anymore.
It was a woman standing tall in radiant armor, silver filigree glinting across a robe of white and gold. Her skin was sunlit bronze, her eyes full of quiet sorrow, as if she had seen a thousand battles and remembered each one. She was not wielding a weapon—but a staff bound in crystal and light. And her lips moved.
No sound came.
But Mira understood the words.
"I saw her fall… and I did nothing."
The woman in the reflection reached upward—hand open, trembling.
And for a heartbeat, Mira's fingertips met her own across the pool's mirrored surface.
The light flared.
The image shattered.
Mira staggered back, gasping. Her pulse thundered in her ears as though something ancient inside her had awakened—and recoiled.
"That was her," she whispered. "The first Lightbearer."
Ash stepped up beside her, hand hovering near her shoulder. "You okay?"
"No," she said, dazed. "Because I think I was her."
Lina approached the next pool, each step more reluctant than the last.
The chamber around them was shifting. The stillness was gone, replaced by a subtle vibration in the stone beneath their feet, a hum in the air like the breath of something sleeping with one eye open.
She leaned over the surface of the pool. At first—only darkness.
Then, a forest bloomed into view.
But not Hollowmere. This place was older, vaster. Towering trees with silver bark and leaves that shimmered like starlight. The wind here sang—a song of beginnings, wild and unafraid.
At the center of a clearing stood a woman with a crown of thorns and leaves, speaking to roots that rose and coiled around her feet like tame serpents. She turned, and Lina saw her own face.
Her—but not.
Eyes calmer. Older. Hands glowing with power that pulsed in rhythm with the soil beneath her.
Then the flames came.
Behind her, the forest caught fire—unnatural fire, white and cold. And the woman turned again, weeping not for herself, but for the trees, the song, the silence that would follow.
Lina's voice was barely audible. "I remember that wind. That song."
Ash was already moving past her to the next pool.
He didn't expect to see anything.
Ash had always believed he wasn't one of them. Not a seer, not a blooded one. He was a sword. A shield. A consequence of other people's choices.
But when he looked into the water, the pool did not hesitate.
It became a battlefield.
White mist. Black blood. Screams muted by distance.
He stood back-to-back with another figure—young, unscarred, but with the same eyes as Rylan. And they were surrounded by creatures of smoke and fang, advancing in near silence. His reflection turned and met his gaze, face pale with fear.
"I wasn't a knight," Ash whispered. "I was a shield. For him."
Rylan stepped closer, the echo of memory in his eyes. "You always were."
Varyon came last.
He didn't approach the pool as much as let it come to him. The surface was already awake—no ripples, no hesitation. As if it had known he would come.
He stared down, emotion unreadable.
In the reflection stood a man in robes of deep gray and violet. His face was the same, but older. Weathered by choices, by consequence. A blade dripped crimson in one hand. And behind him, etched into the wall, was the same sigil Varyon had found carved beneath the earth weeks ago.
But in this memory—he was carving it.
"You broke the seal," Rylan said behind him.
"I was told to," Varyon replied. His voice was flat. Distant. "By the Veyr."
Rylan stepped back like he'd been struck.
"I asked you to?"
"Not you." Varyon turned to him, eyes hard. "The one before."
The chamber dimmed.
The Core seemed to inhale.
The Gate pulsed.
Red light surged across its surface, veins of crimson crawling like blood vessels through bone. The sigils shimmered, then shivered. Then—a crack. Clean. Sharp. A fracture down the center of the Gate.
Mira cried out and collapsed to her knees. Her mark flared—light and shadow battling across her skin. It raced up her arm, across her shoulder, branding itself into her collarbone.
The voice rose again.
It was no longer inside her. It filled the chamber.
"Five stood before me. Five failed. This time, the Gate will not seal."
Rylan was at her side in an instant, gripping her hand. "Fight it."
"I am," she hissed, trembling. "But she's everywhere. The stone, the mark… the blood. She's not just trapped. She's woven into the gate."
Varyon stepped forward, face grim. "She is the Gate."
"And the only thing that can hold her…" Rylan said, voice low, "is fire."
The Gate cracked again.
A deep, thunderous snap that echoed into the stone.
Ash raised his blade. "We're out of time."
Something moved.
Not footsteps.
A shudder.
A pulse from behind the Gate—like something vast shifting its weight. The floor beneath them vibrated as shadows pooled at the base of the door, stretching outward.
The pools rippled again.
Not with images.
With depth.
Ash's mouth went dry. "The reflections are gone."
"Because we're done remembering," Lina murmured. "Now we choose."
Suddenly, the Gate lurched. Bone groaned, sigils bleeding red light. A web of fractures spread down its center, pulsing in time with Mira's mark.
Mira rose, staggering, but standing. Her eyes were glowing now—one gold, one violet.
"She's breaking through," Rylan said. "If she gets out—"
"She was me," Mira whispered. "Once. But she's been here too long. Changed too much. She's not a person anymore—she's momentum. She only knows how to keep moving forward. To consume."
"We have to stop her here," Varyon said.
Ash squared his shoulders. "Or die trying."
The Gate split.
Not fully—but enough.
A fissure wide enough to see through.
Beyond the door, darkness churned. No shapes. No figures. Just shadow and pressure and sound—like bones grinding in the distance, like voices echoing through a void where language was never meant to go.
From the darkness, a hand reached through.
Slender. White. Clawed.
It gripped the edge of the Gate and pulled.
"No," Mira whispered.
She stepped forward—alone.
"Mira—!" Rylan shouted.
She raised a hand, stopping him. "If I am her… then I can end her."
Light burst from her palm.
Not just light—memory.
The image of the First Lightbearer appeared behind her, cloak billowing in spectral wind.
Lina stepped beside her. "You won't go alone."
Then Ash. "You never do."
Rylan drew a sigil in the air—one that glowed blue and gold. "Together."
Even Varyon stepped forward. "One fire. One fall. One choice."
The Gate opened fully.
From it, a figure emerged—tall and robed in twisting shadows, face hidden beneath a mask of bone. Her presence buckled the air. Her voice was the grind of time itself.
"You came again. You always come again."
Mira stepped forward.
This time, she reached out.
Their hands met.
And the mark on Mira's skin flared to its brightest yet—then turned black.
She screamed.
And shoved the figure back.
"Not again."
Rylan flung fire.
Lina rooted the shadow's feet.
Ash carved runes in the floor with his blade.
Varyon whispered a binding.
And Mira—
Mira burned.
With every memory, every echo, every version of herself that had walked this path before. The Lightbearer. The gatekeeper. The girl. The vessel.
She drew it all in.
And collapsed it into a single, brilliant point of fire.
When the Gate closed, it did so without a sound.
Just a gust of warm wind, and the faint smell of ash.
The pools faded. The pillars ceased to hum.
And in the center of the chamber, Mira stood.
Whole.
Changed.
No mark.
No shadow.
Just herself.
She turned.
Her voice shook. "It's done."
But Rylan, watching her eyes—her soul—wasn't so sure.
"Then why," he asked quietly, "does it feel like something else just began?"