Mirrorwood doesn't breathe anymore, it watches.
The trees no longer sway. The mists no longer moves. Even the shadows hold their breath.
They are standing before the final trial.
A mirrored figure had stepped from the veil…not quite Elara, but close enough to make her skin crawl. The eyes were hers, but hollowed. The smile, familiar, but wrong. Like someone had copied her soul and smudged the edges.
This was it.
Where the Shard of Fear would reveal itself…if she was brave enough to face it.
Far to the north, in the deepest chamber in the Citadel of the Northern Vale, twelve cloaked figures circle a still black pool. Its surface shows no reflection, only endless darkness. Each Council member wears a distinct mask: bone, bronze, fire, ghost, silver, grey, and others carved with glyphs or melted smooth as wax. Runes shifted across some of their robes like ink in water, never settling, never legible.
At the head stands the silver mask…featureless, gleaming like ice under moonlight. Its voice rings out, quiet and sharp, like wind through broken bells.
"She has reached the final trial."
The bronzed mask tilts their head slightly. "And she might fail?"
"She won't," murmurs the one with the glyph-mask.
"She might," says the grey one, ever pessimistic.
"She mustn't," adds another, who had taken to gripping their own sleeves with melodramatic intensity.
The silver mask makes no reply, only watches the pool.
It ripples…an echo. Elara's reflection blooms on the surface. She was stepping forward into the mirror.
"She is not alone," says the Council member beneath the bone mask, their voice like dry roots tearing through soil.
"No," the silver mask agrees.
And deep, deep below them…buried beneath centuries of stone, silence, and fear…something ancient stirs.
It exhales. Just once.
The sound makes the pool tremble.
The fire mask hisses. "The deep stirs."
"It still dreams," grates the ghost-mask, as if speaking was an act of rust and frost.
The silver mask raises one gloved hand.
"Let it dream."
The silence that followed was not peaceful.
It was tense.
Back at Mirrorwood...
The Echo steps closer. Not Elara…but still her. The shimmer of her skin hinted at something insubstantial, as if she were stitched together by reflections and memory alone.
"Come...Follow me, if you want what I have."
Behind Elara, Rowan and Valen stand tense.
Moony fiddles with the edge of his vest, unsure whether to prepare a spell or a clever remark.
Fenwick appears behind them, sipping tea from a cup no one had seen him pour.
"She'll make it," Fenwick says quietly, eyes on the shimmer.
Rowan frowns. "You sound so sure."
"Oh, I read the ending already," Fenwick says with a thoughtful sip. "It's very symbolic. Bit of a twist in the middle."
Valen narrows his eyes. "You what?"
"Metaphorically," Fenwick adds, blinking.
Rowan mutters, "Symbolism doesn't stop monsters."
"She'll come back," Valen says confidently, arms crossed. "She always does."
"I'm not afraid she won't," Rowan murmurs. "I'm afraid she'll come back different."
Elara takes one last deep breath and steps forward, following The Echo into the mirror.
The mirror doesn't ripple. It simply takes her.
Inside, the world is silent. Too silent. She stands on a platform suspended in mist and nothingness, like a thought not yet finished.
Above her, below her, around her…the sound of echoes.
Faint voices. Shapes in fog. Moments she hadn't lived in years.
The Echo stands waiting. Identical. Inverted.
"No sword?" Elara manages. "No staff? No melodramatic monologue about how I'll never win?"
The Echo smiles, teeth too white. "Why waste words when doubt does the work?"
It moves…no footsteps, just a glide. Shadows form all around her, some real, some not.
Her childhood home. Her mother's voice. Her father's empty chair. Rowan walking away. Valen kissing someone else. Moony's smile, slowly dimming into sorrow. Each fear twists slightly, never quite wrong enough to dismiss. Just wrong enough to sting.
"You left your home in Metropolis, you left your work, now Westwood," the Echo whispers. "You are risking everything…and yet, you still wonder if anyone actually cares. If they'd follow you if there wasn't a war to win."
"I know they care," Elara says, though her voice trembles.
"Do you?" the Echo asks gently. "Even if you don't always like yourself or believe in yourself."
The platform cracks beneath her feet. Cold fear floods her chest. Not panic. Not terror. Doubt. Heavy as stone. Real as breath.
The Echo's hand touches her face.
"We can fix it," she whispers. "Become someone who doesn't care. Who can't be broken, leave it all behind, free from all emotions, you just have to let go, accept and it all will be gone."
Elara stares at her reflection.
She looks exhausted. Terrified.
But she stands up taller.
"No."
The Echo's eyes narrow.
"I want to care," Elara says, determined. "I want to be breakable. I want to feel things. I want to grow from them, not bury them."
A warmth begins to glow in her chest. It pulses…soft silver, like starlight underwater.
"I'm not here to erase who I am," she says. "I'm here to face it."
The Echo, "All that pain for what? To prove you're strong enough to break again?"
Elara, almost whispering. "Maybe breaking isn't the worst thing...Maybe not feeling is."
Then the light begins to glow, flooding the space in a burst of radiance. The Echo hisses…fragmenting like a shattered mirror and vanishes into dust.
In the silence that follows, something drifts down into her open hand.
The third shard.
It was almost the same as the others, black, but veined with silver, like polished iron left under moonlight. It pulsed with a heartbeat she recognized. Her own.
She steps back through the mirror, eyes blinking in the sudden light. The area doesn't look different. But it feels quieter. Like something had been understood.
She stumbles and Rowan catches her.
"Got you," he whispers.
She leans against him, exhausted.
"You smell like burnt tea leaves and emotional trauma," Valen offers cheerfully.
"I fought myself," she murmurs.
"Oh, lovely. Was she better looking?"
"She tried to convince me to abandon humanity."
Moony nods. "Ah. Classic sibling dynamic."
Rowan helps her sit. "Did you get it?"
She opens her hand. The shard glimmers, cool against her skin.
Fenwick, who had wandered back with what looked like a glowing mushroom, tilts his head.
"Well. Now you've done it."
"Done what?" Elara asks.
"Claimed the third. That's when things usually notice."
"They?" Valen asks, brushing dirt off his sleeve.
Fenwick doesn't answer. He wanders off again, muttering about needing to stir the woods before they curdle.
They make camp as twilight falls. The fire crackles. The tension eases slightly.
"So," Valen says, biting into a stolen pear, "three shards, one personal demon, and no one got eaten. Not bad."
"We're not done," Elara replies softly.
"No," Rowan agrees. "We still need the next three."
Valen leans closer to Elara. "Your mirror-self had excellent taste, by the way. That shadow armour? I'd wear it."
"She was terrifying, in an understated way," Elara mutters.
"Yes, but fashion-forward."
Rowan sits beside Elara, their shoulders barely touching.
"You alright?" he asks.
"I think so," she says. "Everything I face knows me better than I do. But maybe that's part of it. Learning to see myself honestly."
He nods, fingers brushing hers.
The moment held.
She turns towards him, drawn by the flicker of firelight on his face, the steadiness in his eyes. Their knees touch, and neither moves.
"Thank you," she murmurs.
"For what?"
"For being here. For seeing me…even when I don't know what is coming."
He smiles, quiet and crooked. "I see you."
Her breath catches. She leans in just a little…
He does too.
The distance between them narrows to a heartbeat.
The air stills...
And then...
"Hope I'm not interrupting," Valen says brightly. "But Fenwick's chewing on a pinecone and whispering to a moth. Just wanted to flag that."
Elara blinks, heart thudding. She pulls back. Rowan clears his throat and looks away too quickly.
"It's Tuesday," Moony offers. "He does that on Tuesdays."
Elara stares into the fire. The shards are in her lap, quietly pulsing. Not heavy, but not light either.
Something moves in the trees.
Not footsteps.
Just...a shift.
A tall figure, just beyond the reach of the flames. Too still. Too wrong. For a moment, it mirrors her exact posture. Then Rowan's. Then Valen's smirk.
It smiles.
Not cruel. Not kind.
Just...empty.
Then it fades back into the woods.
Moony freezes. "Did...anyone else see that?"
Fenwick doesn't look up. "No. But yes."
Later, as the fire slowly dies down and the woods creep in close again, Elara lays awake, watching the stars.
A voice echoes in her memory.
The riddle.
"Where something once loved lies unloved,
Cold in the place you buried it."
She knew where they had to go next.
Where the bones of love lay cold and forgotten.
She was going home.