Chapter 6
The cell was silent except for the faint hum of the wind slipping through narrow cracks in the stone. There were no windows, only walls lined with mirrors that shimmered faintly in the light. They reflected Liora's face from every angle, dozens of eyes staring back, unblinking and cold.
Ethan stood still for a long moment, trying to steady his breath. The chains had been removed, but the air itself felt heavy. The mirrors made the room feel endless. Wherever he turned, he met himself again and again… or rather, her.
"Prison of Reflection," one of the guards had whispered before slamming the iron door shut. "The guilty never leave sane."
Ethan had thought it a threat meant to break the weak-minded. But now, surrounded by countless reflections of Liora's face, he was beginning to understand. This was not an ordinary cell. It was a weapon.
He reached out and touched one of the mirrors. It was cool, smooth, and yet when his fingers lingered, he felt something pulse beneath the surface. Like a heartbeat.
Then the whisper came.
"Why did you run?"
He froze. The voice was soft and feminine… familiar, almost tender… and it came from the reflection in front of him. Liora's lips had moved though his own had not.
He took a step back, pulse quickening. "That is not real," he muttered.
"Isn't it?" the reflection asked. "You stole my body, my name, my punishment. You think logic will save you here?"
He clenched his fists. "You're a memory. Nothing more."
"Then why do I hurt when you speak?"
The voice echoed, multiplying through the mirrors until the entire chamber seemed to breathe it. His own reflection shifted subtly, eyes darkening with accusation.
Then came the first flash.
A field of blood. The sound of distant screams. He saw himself… Ethan… standing over three bound men. Their uniforms were torn, their faces bruised. He remembered this moment vividly now. They had been traitors in his army, caught leaking information to the enemy.
He had not hesitated that day. He raised the gun and fired. Once. Twice. Thrice.
The mirrors flared red.
Ethan stumbled back, clutching his head. "No… That was necessary. They betrayed the mission."
The reflection smiled. "So did I."
The mirrors shifted again. Now he saw Liora… proud, beautiful, radiant in her silver armor… handing a scroll to a hooded figure in a dark corridor. She smirked with satisfaction, unaware of the trap that would soon destroy her.
"Liora," Ethan whispered, eyes wide. "You betrayed them."
"She did," said the reflection. "But now she is you."
The pain struck without warning. A searing surge burned through his skull, white-hot and merciless. He dropped to his knees with a strangled cry. The System's cold voice followed immediately.
[Warning: Host integrity compromised. Conflicting moral patterns detected.]
[Initiating synchronization.]
Ethan gritted his teeth as another wave of pain tore through his spine. Images clashed behind his eyes… two lives, two identities, two sets of guilt. Ethan, commander, executioner, realist. Lady Liora Valen, prodigy, deceiver, martyr. Their sins intertwined until he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
"Stop!" he shouted, his voice raw. "I am not her!"
"But you are," whispered every mirror at once. "The System chose you to correct what she broke."
He slammed his fists against the nearest mirror. It cracked but did not shatter. The reflection twisted into something monstrous… his own face, smiling cruelly.
"You kill to survive," it hissed. "I betrayed to be free. Tell me, which of us is worse?"
He forced himself to his feet, chest heaving. "Neither of us deserves this."
"Oh, you do," said another reflection… this one an image of the Empress herself, cold and beautiful. "Velora does not punish the body. It punishes the soul. You will learn that before the dawn of your execution."
Ethan's eyes flickered from mirror to mirror, each one showing a different version of the truth. Liora's tears. Ethan's bloodied hands. The Empress's quiet disappointment.
It was suffocating.
He pressed his back against the farthest wall, trying to block out the images, but they moved even when he closed his eyes.
"Get out of my head," he whispered.
"Your head?" The reflection laughed. "This is your prison. The guilt you carry built these walls."
[System Analysis: Host exhibiting instability.]
[Psychological correction required.]
He ignored the voice and turned away, searching for any crack or weakness in the room. His fingers brushed along the edges of one mirror, hoping for a hidden door. Instead, the surface rippled like water, and he saw something entirely new… not memory, but prophecy.
A courtyard bathed in morning light. A raised platform. Chains. The sound of drums echoing in the distance. His own voice screaming her name.
Then the reflection vanished.
Ethan staggered back, shaking his head violently. "No. I will not die here. I will not let her past become my end."
The mirrors darkened, leaving only one reflection visible… his own, standing perfectly still even though he was breathing hard. Slowly, that reflection tilted its head, expression calm and almost pitying.
"You still think like a man who commands," it said. "But here, no one commands. You endure."
He stared at it, heart pounding. "Then I will endure."
"Will you?"
The reflection stepped forward until its face nearly touched the surface. "Endurance means nothing if you do not break first."
The lights flickered. For a moment, every reflection turned into a soldier Ethan once commanded. All of them dead by his hand.
He felt his breath catch. His chest burned. "I did what I had to do."
"So did I," whispered Liora's voice again, faint and sorrowful.
The pain returned, sharper, deeper. His knees buckled as a flood of memories poured through him. Ethan ordering executions. Liora lying to save her rank. Each sin merging into the other until his mind could no longer separate guilt from necessity.
[Warning: Overload imminent.]
[System Correction in Progress.]
He fell to the floor, writhing. The mirrors glowed brighter, surrounding him in a halo of shifting images. The air crackled with invisible energy, and his screams echoed back at him from every direction.
The System's voice was emotionless.
[Initiating moral balance calibration.]
Light exploded behind his eyes. The cell seemed to spin. He saw flashes of both his lives overlapping… Ethan's soldiers bowing before him, Liora's noble peers laughing behind her back, the Empress's cold eyes watching both of them.
He tried to stand, but his body convulsed violently. The pain tore through every nerve, a punishment for every life he had ever taken, every lie she had ever told.
When the light finally dimmed, he was lying on the floor, breathing raggedly. His reflection stared down at him from above, a thousand faces wearing the same expression… pity mixed with condemnation.
"Welcome to the Prison of Reflection," one of them whispered. "The mirrors never lie."
He turned his head weakly, whispering through gritted teeth, "Neither do I."
But even as he said it, the reflection smiled knowingly.
And for the first time since his arrival in Velora, Ethan began to doubt if he truly believed his own words.
***
Silence fell again after the pain. The mirrors no longer glowed, and for a fleeting moment, the cell seemed calm. Ethan lay on the cold floor, chest heaving, his body trembling from exhaustion. Sweat rolled down his neck. The silence was so deep it felt unnatural, as if the world itself had stopped breathing.
Then the air shifted.
A faint hum pulsed through the cell, low and rhythmic, like the heartbeat of something unseen. The mirrors began to tremble softly, and light gathered at their centers… threads of silver weaving together until they formed a glowing orb suspended in midair.
Ethan pushed himself up slowly, every muscle protesting. "What now?" he muttered.
The orb pulsed once, twice, before a voice emerged from within. It was neither male nor female, neither human nor divine. It was something in between… cold, precise, and unbearably calm.
["Subject: Liora Valen. Consciousness alignment at forty-eight percent. Emotional resistance higher than projected."]
Ethan frowned. "You again," he said. "The System."
"You misunderstand," the voice replied. "I am not again. I am always."
The orb glided closer until it hovered just above his head. The mirrors reflected its light, multiplying it into a thousand shimmering fragments. Ethan could feel it watching him… not his body, but his mind, peeling back layers of thought like pages in a book.
"Every soul you ruled through fear is a debt you must now repay."
The words vibrated through the cell, and something deep inside him recoiled.
"I ruled to survive," he said through clenched teeth. "To protect what mattered."
"Protection built on fear is still domination," the System said. "You enforced obedience without balance. The equation must now be corrected."
The orb brightened, and images rippled across the mirrors again. Ethan saw soldiers kneeling before him, their eyes hollow with terror. He saw Liora's servants bowing, voices trembling as they swore loyalty. Every scene reflected the same truth: control through fear.
He stepped back, shaking his head. "That was the world I knew. That was power. It worked."
"It worked," the System echoed, "until it destroyed everything you valued."
The light around him pulsed harder, and the reflections began to distort… faces melting into unfamiliar forms, shadows crawling across the glass. He could hear whispers overlapping, words that belonged to both lives he had lived.
Coward.
Tyrant.
Liar.
Failure.
He pressed his hands against his ears, but the voices came from within. "Enough!"
"Correction begins with acknowledgment," the System said, its tone unchanging. "You were given leadership, yet your followers feared your judgment. You were given love, yet your pride poisoned it. You were given loyalty, yet you repaid it with suspicion. These are your debts."
He glared at the orb, rage flickering through exhaustion. "And how do I repay something that cannot be undone?"
The light dimmed slightly, as though it were considering his question. Then, softly, it answered, "By enduring what you once inflicted."
The air thickened. Ethan's heart pounded. He could feel something invisible pressing against his mind, an unseen weight of expectation. "Endure?" he repeated, voice low.
"Yes. Endure and adapt. Only through submission to balance can survival be achieved."
He laughed once, a bitter, hollow sound. "Submission is not survival."
"Then learn another way," the System said.
The orb began to pulse faster. The mirrors vibrated again, their surfaces rippling like water disturbed by wind. Lines of glowing text appeared upon them, faint at first, then sharp and vivid… words written in a language that transcended both time and reason.
[System Recalibration Complete.]
[Synchronization Level: Fifty-two Percent.]
[New Directive: Repayment through Task Initiation.]
Ethan's breath hitched. "Task?"
The orb drifted higher, light gathering into a halo that filled the entire chamber. "Your survival is contingent upon completing designated tasks that balance your past deeds. Failure to comply will result in dissolution."
"Dissolution," he repeated, tasting the word. "You mean death."
"Correction," the voice said. "You mean erasure."
A chill crawled through his spine. The light from the orb split suddenly, separating into three streams of color… crimson, gold, and blue. They spun around him, tracing faint circles in the air before settling into three hovering fragments of text. Each one pulsed with quiet menace.
Ethan stepped closer, cautious. "What are these?"
"Your paths," the System replied. "Three debts. Three chances to realign the imbalance you created in both existences."
The first fragment shimmered red. Within it, he could read the words faintly burning:
[Task: Confront the reflection that bears your true guilt.]
The second fragment glowed gold.
[Task: Refuse corruption when it is offered in mercy.]
The third, a deep cold blue, hovered slightly closer. The letters appeared slowly, one by one, like whispers forming in his ear.
[Task: Gain the trust of your jailor, Captain Seris Valen, your former fiancé's sister.]
Ethan's eyes widened. The air seemed to drain from the room. "Seris Valen…" he murmured.
The name struck something deep within Liora's memories. A face surfaced in his mind, sharp eyes, copper hair, a voice both fierce and loyal. Seris had been Liora's sword instructor and confidante before their families fell into ruin. She had also been the sister of Liora's late fiancé, Alaric.
The realization hit him with quiet dread. The sister of the man Liora had once loved. The same man whose death had sparked the whispers of betrayal.
Ethan's jaw tightened. "You want me to earn her trust?"
"Trust is the foundation of all redemption," the System said.
"She will never trust me," he muttered. "Not after what Liora did."
"Then you will learn what true persuasion means. Without power. Without fear."
The fragments hovered a moment longer before dissolving into sparks.
Ethan stared at it, feeling the weight of the impossible. "And if I refuse?"
The System's voice faded to a whisper. "Refusal is a choice. So is destruction."
The orb winked out, leaving him alone again.
The silence that followed was absolute. Ethan turned in a slow circle, surrounded once more by the countless mirrors. His reflection stared back, pale and weary, but there was something else now… a glint of resolve buried deep behind Liora's eyes.
He exhaled, steadying himself. "Seris Valen," he said quietly. "If that is the path to survival, then I'll walk it."