The road didn't wait. It never waited. But, for the first time, we weren't running after it — we walked beside it, as if we had finally found a shared rhythm.
The morning air was fresh, carrying the smell of damp moss and recently turned earth. No creature attacked us. No portal opened. No god appeared with a celestial invoice. Just the four of us — or three and a half, as Liriel insisted on joking — moving forward, with her necklace pulsing softly against my chest and the wooden key stored like a shared secret.
"You're thoughtful," said Vespera, walking beside me without her usual teasing sway. Even her bow seemed to rest more calmly on her back.
"Just thinking… about what comes after the mirrors."
"After the mirrors comes the truth," answered Elara, right behind us, absentmindedly flipping through her grimoire. "And sometimes the truth is just a longer hallway."
Liriel floated a few feet above the ground, her feet almost touching the fallen leaves but leaving no trace. "Malrik isn't going to face us in an open field. He wants us to doubt before we even get near him."
"Then we don't doubt," said Vespera, with an almost childlike simplicity. "Easy."
"It's not easy," corrected Liriel, without irony. "It's hard. But possible."
We stopped at dusk in a clearing surrounded by ancient oaks whose branches intertwined as if they had made a silent pact. The ground was covered by a layer of golden leaves, so uniform it seemed combed by invisible hands.
"This is… strange," murmured Elara, kneeling to touch the soil. "No footprints. No signs of life. Not even insects."
"It's a sanctuary," said Liriel, her eyes fixed on the center of the clearing. "Someone protected this place… or hid it."
That's when we saw it.
In the middle of the clearing lay a mirror. Not one of the large ones, nor one of the broken ones. It was small, oval, with a simple frame of aged iron. It rested on its side, as if it had fallen from some forgotten backpack.
Vespera took a step forward, but Liriel grabbed her arm. "Wait."
"Why? It's not glowing. It's not whispering. It's not calling me a stripper."
"Exactly," said Elara, standing up. "It's a silent mirror. And the most dangerous ones are the ones that don't speak."
I approached slowly. Liriel's necklace warmed against my skin, but not urgently — with recognition.
I knelt and carefully turned the mirror.
It didn't reflect my face.
It showed a scene: Liriel, on her divine throne, alone, her eyes empty, holding a broken crown. Beside her, a faded portrait — of me. But not as I am. As I could have been, if I had chosen not to return.
"It's a memory that never happened," said Liriel, her voice almost imperceptible.
"Or a possibility she feared," added Elara.
The mirror trembled in my hands. Not with malice, but with sadness. As if it carried the weight of a choice that wasn't made but could have been.
"Why show us this?" I asked.
"Because Malrik knows Liriel's greatest fear isn't losing her power," said Vespera, unexpectedly serious. "It's losing what made her want to leave it."
Liriel didn't answer. She only looked away.
I stored the mirror in my backpack, beside the black feather and the wooden key. Not because we needed it, but because it deserved to be remembered — not as a threat, but as a witness.
We camped at the edge of the clearing. Vespera prepared a stew with roots that, miraculously, weren't poisonous. Elara lit a fire with a snap of her fingers — without fainting. Liriel sat at the edge of the light, her eyes lost in the flames.
"Are you okay?" I asked, sitting beside her.
"I'm… tired," she admitted. "Not in the body. In the soul."
"That's normal," I said. "Even goddesses need rest."
She smiled, almost imperceptibly. "Do you think we'll get there? To the end?"
"I don't know. But it's not about the end. It's about the path."
She looked at me for a long moment. Then, in a low voice, asked: "And if the path separates us?"
"Then we find each other again. Always."
She didn't reply. She just rested her head lightly on my shoulder — a gesture so human, so fragile, that I almost forgot she had once been a goddess.
Later, while the others slept, I stayed awake, watching the stars. Liriel's necklace pulsed softly against my chest. Malrik's medallion, in my backpack, was silent. But the child's mirror… it glowed.
I picked it up carefully. This time, it didn't show the past or the future. It showed the present: the four of us around the fire, laughing at something silly, wearing worn-out clothes and tired eyes, but at peace.
And despite everything — the debts, the disasters, the transparent clothes — there was something there no mirror could corrupt: belonging.
The next morning, we left early. The sun rose behind the trees, tinting the path gold. The road continued, but it no longer frightened us.
Because we knew that, no matter what the mirrors showed, no matter what Malrik whispered… the most important truth wasn't out there.
It was between us.
And as we walked, the mirror in my backpack reflected the sun — not as a trap, but as a reminder.
That even in a world full of lies, it was still possible to choose what was real.
And, for the first time, that was more than enough.