The figure from the Hollow Gate did not speak again.
It merely watched.
Its body was made of absence. Not blackness, but the space between light. No face. No features. Just a suggestion of what could be.
Selene stood before it, her fingers trembling around the violet-glowing shard of mirror she carried.
"Who are you?" she asked.
> "I am the consequence."
Its voice was every version of her own.
---
The wind stopped.
Kael moved to her side, but could not step past the figure. An invisible veil blocked him.
Naeria tried to call out, but her voice muted the moment it crossed the gate's edge.
Only Selene could hear.
Only Selene could move forward.
---
The moment her feet touched the shimmer of the crack, the world blinked.
And changed.
---
She stood in a forest made of mirrors.
Every tree shimmered with images—each one showing another her.
Versions she didn't remember living.
One ran from the Ashborn and never looked back.
Another accepted the Fire Queen's throne.
One lost her children.
One became a god.
And one—
One was dead.
---
"I don't understand," she whispered.
The void-form beside her replied:
> "You broke the mirror. So now it shows you everything."
---
She stepped closer to one of the trees.
In it, she saw herself wearing a crown of bone, standing atop a mountain of ash. Her eyes glowed like dying stars.
Her children were not beside her.
Kael was gone.
She touched the surface—and was pulled inside.
---
This Selene was alone.
Worshipped. Feared.
The Mirror Queen of the Scorched Age.
She wandered the broken lands, her mark having consumed her chest and throat in shadowed veins.
When she wept, fire rained from the sky.
She had everything.
And no one.
---
Selene screamed—and tore herself free.
The void-form stood patiently.
"You must see all of them," it said. "To understand what you are becoming."
---
Next, she was thrust into a moment where she had never touched the mirror.
In this life, she was mortal. Quiet. Ordinary.
Theron grew up kind but powerless.
Elira painted the sky with starlight.
Kael was a farmer, not a warrior.
They lived.
And died.
Forgotten—but together.
---
She longed to stay.
But the forest pulled her onward.
---
Each version came faster.
Selene on fire.
Selene in chains.
Selene as a weapon.
Selene as a myth.
Selene forgotten.
Selene eternal.
---
The images blurred.
The mirrors cracked.
And in the center of the forest—
A final reflection waited.
This version of Selene sat on the throne of the Hollow Star.
But not by choice.
She was trapped in it.
Motionless.
Eyes empty.
The mark had devoured her from the inside out.
---
Selene knelt.
"I don't want this."
The void-form floated beside her.
> "None of them did. That is why the mirror was a prison, not a prophecy."
She looked up. "Then why show me?"
> "Because the Hollow Star does not grant power. It grants decision. And you must make one more."
---
The trees vanished.
The mirrors melted.
She stood alone—beneath the third moon.
It hovered close now. So near she could see its scars.
And from its surface, a second gate opened.
A mirror of shadows.
A voice spoke from within it:
> "Come willingly, and I will give you peace. Refuse—and the children will fracture. Time will bleed."
---
Selene turned.
And saw herself—a reflection stepping free from the gate.
Identical.
But wrong.
Too perfect. Too poised.
The echo spoke:
> "I am the Selene who said yes. Who took the throne and saved no one."
---
Kael's voice, distant but real, called from the veil:
"Selene—come back! You don't have to face this alone!"
But she couldn't answer.
The void-form stepped back.
The echo raised its hand.
From the gate, shadows crawled like vines—toward her children.
---
Selene stood tall.
Her mark burned hot—bright violet and silver, rimmed now with a ring of void.
And she whispered:
"I am not the past you chose."
She raised the mirror shard.
The echo lunged.
---
The clash was silent.
Two versions of the same soul—one forged by sacrifice, the other by fear.
The real Selene bled as she fought.
But she stood her ground.
And when she shattered the mirror shard into the echo's heart—
The third moon blinked.
And time reset.
---
She fell—
Hard.
Back into Kael's arms.
Reality trembled, then stilled.
Naeria gasped. "She's back!"
Elira rushed forward, her eyes wide with tears. "Mom!"
Theron stared silently—then smiled. "You chose us."
Selene nodded.
"I always will."
---
That night, the sky returned to normal.
Three moons remained.
But the Hollow Star no longer loomed.
It simply watched.
From a distance.
Waiting.
---
Selene knelt at the fire with her children.
"I saw everything," she told them. "Every version of us."
Elira took her hand. "Did we ever win?"
Selene smiled. "Only when we chose love over fear."
Theron asked, "And now?"
Selene looked at the stars.
"Now, we write the rest ourselves."
---