They passed a hallway of mirrors.
The corridor narrowed—long, hushed, and lined with mirrors on both sides. Each was no taller than a man, framed in tarnished silver, spaced exactly an arm's length apart. The glass caught more than reflections—they caught memory, potential. Every step forward reflected something else.
The air felt stretched, like the hallway existed longer than the walls would admit.
Ayla stepped past two mirrors before stopping again—this one caught the light differently, as if waiting for her specifically.
"They're not reflections," Daviyi murmured. "They're arguments. Proof that you almost let go."
Qaritas stepped before his mirror—and saw no single face. Only echoes. Possibilities. One flickered with a soldier's eyes. Another wore a king's jawline. One sobbed his name. Another laughed it. None said it the same way twice.
A voice not Ecayrous's slipped through the corridor—thin, breathless, childlike.
"One of you already agreed. The rest just haven't turned the page yet."
Each mirror shimmered. Some reflected truth. Others... temptation.
Just to Ayla's right, Niraí hovered before a mirror narrower than the rest. Her hand trembled, suspended a breath from the glass.
Niraí reached for the glass—her hand trembled. Inside, she saw herself holding a child. Her own. Smiling.
Then she turned away. Fist clenched.
"No memory gets to pretend it raised my child."
Niraí's fingers brushed the glass again. "If I could hold them… just once..."
Her breath caught.
Then she turned away, fist clenched.
"No memory gets to pretend it raised my child."
One mirror showed Ayla smiling over a grave with her own name carved into it—her children bowing behind her. A future dressed as peace.
"That's not me," she whispered. But didn't pull her hand back.
"This isn't absence," she whispered. "It's theft dressed as truth."
Komus stood several paces away, across the corridor, facing a mirror with jagged gold veins down the center—cracked, but still intact.
One mirror showed Ayla smiling at a grave with her own name on it—her children bowing behind her. Peace, offered like a poisoned crown.
"Komus faced himself on a throne—his father's. Wearing Ecayrous's crown. Laughing."
He didn't flinch. Just whispered, "I swore this would end with me."
"In the echo of her spine. In the swing of your blade when Mercy didn't stop it."
Komus's grip tightened.
Ecayrous smirked. "But go ahead. Keep playing rebel. The crown fits your arrogance better than your father's jaw ever did."
Komus swallowed hard. "I remember that throne. The silence. The heat. My father's breath still stank on it."
"I promised it would never bear a king's weight again. Just a warrior's." He looked down at Mercy's hilt.
The corridor stilled. The others didn't speak. For a breathless moment, even the shadows seemed to hold back, unsure which version of themselves would move next.
Ayla stepped forward. Her mirror was blank.
But as she looked closer... a vision flickered:
Her. Whole. Worshipped. Safe.
Ecayrous's arms around her. Seven children bowing. A crown resting gently on her head.
She hissed.
"Lies don't need to be false."
She turned.
Walked.
The mirror shattered.
The glass wept—not just sound, but a voice.
"We remember what you almost were."
Not from impact.
From refusal.
Like it couldn't stand her refusal to be owned.
Ecayrous's voice ghosted after her. "You wore that crown well. You begged for it, remember? For them."
Ecayrous trailed behind them, slow as gravity.
"This corridor was my gift," he whispered. "Each mirror holds a truth you almost became. Or still could. If you stop fighting."
Each mirror holds a truth you almost became. Or still could."
The corridor sighed—a long, aching exhale of stone and breath. The floor rippled beneath their feet, as if the shadows had been holding their breath for centuries, waiting for someone to believe.
The floor rippled—shadows stretching like they'd been holding their breath for centuries, hoping someone would touch the glass.
He paused behind Niraí, watching her reach for her reflected child.
"The future's just memory with better lighting," he said.
"Touch it. Taste the version of yourself that doesn't bleed," Ecayrous said.
Qaritas almost turned. Almost looked again.
One of the mirrors had smiled.
Not at him—but like it remembered wearing his face.
The reflection smiled again. But this time it mouthed something.
"You already said yes."
Qaritas backed away. His knees didn't buckle, but they should've.
"What if I'm not resisting? What if I've already said yes, somewhere memory can't reach?"
His spine convulsed. Not visibly—but internally, like a violin string pulling taut inside his bones.
A glyph lit up on his palm. The same one he'd seen on the boy's forehead back in the memory-hall.
He closed his fist until blood bloomed.
The curse whimpered, not in pain. In longing.
The thought struck colder than flame. For a breath, he wasn't sure whose reflection he wore.
Then Ayla's voice sliced across the link—sharp, grounding.
"He's testing you.
And that was enough.
Qaritas turned sharply. His entire body was flame-raw with fury. But Ayla's voice reached his mind like a blade across cloth: "He's testing you. Don't let him write this ending."
Every step forward was a choice not to be rewritten. Not to let memory become a weapon someone else forged.
Then flow into:
"He's testing you. Don't let him write this ending."
Hydeius saw himself as he was before faith in Hrolyn. Komus saw himself before hatred. Niraí wept. Daviyi hissed.
Hydeius hadn't moved.
He stood a pace back from the others, facing a mirror that showed no reflection—only faith.
That was the trick. You didn't see yourself. You saw your devotion. And it was empty.
No flames. No oaths. Just a single image suspended in silver glass:
Hrolyn, smiling.
Not triumphant. Not divine. But warm. Fatherly. Loving.
Hydeius's knees locked. His soul-lights dimmed.
Hydeius said, voice strained, stepping forward. "I prayed every day, didn't I? Gave up blood. Names. Gods. For what?"
He gestured at the mirror with shaking hands. "If that was all faith was—obedience tied to slaughter—then I've been praising a corpse."
"That's not real," he whispered.
The mirror didn't respond. It listened.
hadn't"Hydeius," Hrolyn said, voice exactly as it had been at the Ascension Chamber. "You were always obedient. Though You should have killed Eon, when I hesitate."
Hydeius staggered back—his soul orbit blinked, the outer lights snapping into nothing.
Behind the mirror, another version of him appeared—cloaked in priestlight, kneeling, hand outstretched.
The man who called genocide mercy—and called it faith.
"That wasn't me," he growled. But his hands trembled."This isn't faith," he whispered. "It's obedience rewritten as love.
The mirror cracked.
The image fractured—Hrolyn's smile stretching, warping, splitting into the first command Hydeius had ever disobeyed:
Don't save them.
The child's face shifted—smoke for eyes, a grin stitched with ash.
Hydeius reached for the blade at his hip. But the reflection did too—faster. Already bloodied.
Then Ayla's voice flooded the link:
"Hydeius. It's not truth. It's debt disguised as faith."
He blinked. Once. Twice.
"I was wrong," he whispered.
He raised his hand.
The mirror shattered.
Behind them, the cathedral trembled—not from collapse. From memory recoiling. As if it feared what they might become.
Hydeius walked on. Not absolved. Not whole.
But seen.
No one spoke, but something passed between them—like a silent vote cast by each shattered self.
They were still here. Still themselves. And the mirrors could do nothing more.
And Ecayrous smiled, stepping into the last chamber.
"Now," he said, brushing bone dust from his cuffs, "let's show you where gods break for good."
Not by blade. Not by fate. But by memory—rewritten so cleanly they beg to become fiction."
He turned to them all.
"I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to edit you."
Not from impact.
From forgiveness.
The lights in his soul orbit flared—brief and bright. One re-lit.
Then faded again.
But the path forward was clear.
Hydeius walked on. Not absolved. Not whole. But seen
Qaritas didn't follow. Not at first.
The mirror's voice still whispered in his blood.
You already said yes.
He touched the glowing glyph on his palm, whispering a name he hadn't earned yet—
Then stepped forward.
Not as a god.
As the boy who once begged to burn clean.
Around him, the others moved too—slow, silent, but chosen.
Not healed.
Not whole.
But chosen.
And as the last mirror bled silence, the corridor swallowed its breath.
Not with fear.
But with recognition.
The next room wouldn't test their memories.
It would test the stories they still believed in.
Not what they remembered. But what they refused to stop believing.