The world swirled in shadows and light.
Jack could barely keep his feet beneath him as the ground shifted beneath him. The valley was no longer the crumbled remains of the Gate of Chains. It was something else—something far darker.
He blinked, trying to clear the dizziness, but the ground beneath him wasn't stone. It was liquid—dark, like ink—but it wasn't sinking. It pulled at him. Not physically, but in a way that reached for his soul.
"Stay on your feet," Kael growled, grabbing Jack's arm just as the ground beneath them wavered and shuddered.
The air was thick with the scent of ozone, like a storm about to break. Jack could feel it too—the weight of something ancient and hungry watching them from just beyond the veil.
A flash of silver and violet. A silhouette moving through the storm.
Nyssa, Marek, and Lola were close behind, their faces tense, their eyes scanning the shifting shadows around them. Ashariel was nowhere to be seen.
"What was that thing?" Marek asked, his voice sharp. He wasn't shaking, but there was a coldness to him now that wasn't there before.
"That thing," Jack muttered, trying to steady his breathing, "was a fragment of the Devourer."
"A fragment?" Nyssa echoed. "How is that possible?"
Lola was the first to speak, her eyes distant, unfocused. "He's not a fragment. Not really. He's part of something far worse. Something much older than the Devourer. The one who fed the Devourer is no mere servant. He's a god of sorts—twisted and broken."
"Great. So we've gone from fighting monsters to fighting gods," Marek said sarcastically, but the words fell flat.
Nyssa looked up, her expression grim. "This place isn't just an altered reality. This is a crossroads."
"A crossroads?" Kael's voice was laced with suspicion. "A crossroads for what?"
Nyssa stared into the swirling darkness, her hand on her sword. "For souls. For fates. It's where the Gate—the real Gate—was formed. The Mirror of Names."
The name was enough to make Jack's blood run cold.
He had heard of it before, but only in fragments—pieces of a forgotten history that had been buried under centuries of lies.
"What's the Mirror of Names?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Nyssa's lips tightened. "It's the thing that grants a soul its true name. But it also has the power to unmake them. Every name you speak has power—whether you realize it or not. Every soul has its own name. And whoever controls the Mirror... controls destiny."
"I don't like the sound of that," Kael muttered.
"I'm not sure we have a choice," Lola said, her silver eyes reflecting the chaos swirling around them. "Jack, you've already opened the gate. What you saw—that wasn't just a warning. It was an invitation."
Jack clenched his fists. He could feel it—the weight of all the unseen forces gathering around him. He had opened the gate. He had let the Devourer through. And now, the consequences were unfolding, one after another.
"We have to find it," he said, his voice firm. "The Mirror."
Lola frowned, clearly disturbed by the urgency in his tone. "And what happens when we find it? The Mirror doesn't just reveal the truth. It shows you what you are. And not everyone can survive that."
"Then I'll make sure we all survive," Jack said, his voice hardening. "I'm not leaving until we stop this."
He wasn't sure if his words were for his friends—or for himself.
They moved as one, stepping deeper into the shifting shadow.
The world around them pulsed in time with their footsteps, each stride an echo of something infinite. They passed what looked like broken pillars, ancient spires that reached toward a sky that wasn't real. The horizon flickered like an illusion. There was no ground beneath them. No sky above. Only the shifting shadow.
And then, at the end of it all, there was the Mirror.
It stood before them, taller than any man. Its surface was as smooth as liquid silver, but it didn't reflect the world around it. It was darker—deeper—like staring into the heart of the void.
Lola stepped forward. Her hand reached toward it, but something stopped her—an invisible barrier just beyond her fingertips.
"It's not just a mirror," she said softly. "It's a prison. A cage."
Jack stepped forward, ignoring the warning in her tone. "If it's a cage, then we need to open it."
He placed his hand on the surface of the mirror. A jolt of energy shot through him, and for a moment, everything was still. The shadows, the chaos—time itself—seemed to freeze.
And then, the reflection in the mirror changed.
It wasn't Jack's face that looked back at him. It was his father's.
Thalon's eyes stared back at him, but they weren't the eyes of the man Jack remembered. They were cold, distant, filled with something far darker. Something ancient.
"You came for me," Thalon's voice whispered from the reflection. "Foolish child. The Devourer is already within you. You are the key to everything—and yet you are nothing."
The words rang in Jack's mind like a bell.
"I am the key?" Jack breathed.
"You always were," Thalon's reflection smirked. "The Devourer is a tool. But you… you are the vessel. The one who will bring the world to its knees."
Jack's chest tightened. "No. I won't—"
But before he could speak another word, the image shattered. The glass cracked, splitting into countless fragments that fell away like sand through an hourglass.
The world around them began to twist again.
They were no longer standing in the shadow of the Mirror.
They were standing in the past.
A scene flickered before Jack's eyes—an image of his childhood home, a place he hadn't seen in years. He saw himself, a child, standing beside his mother. Thalon was there too—his face smiling, but there was a darkness in his eyes.
Jack's voice cracked as he spoke without thinking, "Why did you leave us?"
Thalon's face twisted. "I had no choice, Jack. It was the only way."
The scene began to distort. The house, his mother, the moment itself—all of it twisted into something else. Something unrecognizable.
And then, as quickly as it came, it was gone.
The darkness was back. The shadow. The chaos.
But in the distance, Jack thought he saw something—someone—moving in the darkness.
It wasn't Kael. It wasn't Nyssa. It wasn't anyone he recognized.
But it was someone who knew him.
And as the figure moved closer, Jack felt a familiar chill creep down his spine.