: Reflections
The mirror stood untouched for centuries in the abandoned manor of Elarion, half-buried in dust and silence. Thick vines curled around its ornate frame, as if nature itself had tried to restrain what was within. No one had dared to look into it for generations—not after the war, not after the disappearances. They called it cursed. They were right.
When Wale first stepped into the manor, the light seemed to bend away from the mirror. The air itself recoiled, shivering in his presence. He paused for a moment, a slender man with sharp, unreadable eyes and a slow, graceful gait. His suit, perfectly fitted, bore no dust despite the decay of the world around him. He stood before the mirror not as a stranger, but as an echo of something ancient. Something returning.
"I'm home," he whispered, and the glass shimmered.
Wale was not what he appeared. His smile, soft and reassuring, was a lie. His kindness—a mask. He walked through towns, healed the sick, offered wisdom to the confused. People praised him, loved him. Trusted him. But not one of them noticed that wherever he went, shadows lingered a bit longer, laughter felt a little colder, and dreams twisted subtly into nightmares.
Behind the mirror, a presence stirred.
Chris, the Sentinel of Flame, was the first to sense it—an imbalance rippling through the leylines of magic. A former priestess turned warrior, she had devoted her life to guarding the sacred flame that kept their realm safe. She stood atop the Citadel of Ember, her silver hair glowing in the firelight, eyes narrowed in quiet thought.
"There's something unnatural moving through the ley," she murmured.
Grey, ever at her side, leaned on the hilt of his runeblade. "Another warlock?" he guessed.
"No," Chris said. "This feels… older. Like a story forgotten by time."
Grey frowned. "You've been having dreams again, haven't you?"
Chris didn't answer. The dreams had returned in full force—visions of a man with no name and no shadow. A man who stood in a darkened corridor before a fractured mirror, grinning as the world around him burned. She didn't know who he was. But she could feel his smile like a knife in her mind.
They had fought countless foes together—mad kings, gods fallen to madness, demons born of grief. But this felt different. This felt inevitable.
Meanwhile, far to the west in the city of Caerneth, Grey was watching over the orphans left behind after the raids of the Duskbringers. He had once been a scholar, before war made him a soldier. Now he wore both identities like old armor—useful but never comfortable. He spoke softly, taught the children how to read, and carried with him a notebook of sketches, filled with ancient sigils and forbidden texts.
One evening, as twilight crept in, Grey noticed something strange in his drawings. On each page, between the lines, a shadow had appeared. A figure. Always in the background, always smiling. He hadn't drawn it. He couldn't remember how it got there.
He flipped back to the first page. The figure was clearer there—tall, wearing a suit, one hand pressed against what looked like glass. Staring at him.
"Who are you…?" Grey whispered.
The mirror in the manor cracked slightly.
To the north, in the citadel of Astra Nox, Wale sat in quiet contemplation, gazing out over a moonlit valley. He had taken up residence here just months ago, and already the people adored him. He had ended a long-standing blood feud between two noble houses in a single evening. He spoke with wisdom, healed the wounded, and never asked for anything in return.
But Wale kept no servants. No one saw him eat. No one saw him sleep.
Only the mirror, locked in the west wing of the estate, knew the truth. And it remembered.
He pressed his fingers gently to the glass.
"What is a monster if not a story no one believes anymore?" he whispered. "What is a villain if not the author of a different ending?"
His reflection blinked independently.
The fourth and final of the champions was Kairo, the Arc-Seer of Vellenya. He was young, brash, and full of questions. His visions were more unstable than Chris's, but no less powerful. He had seen glimpses of the mirror long before the others. A mirror that showed not your face, but your truth.
When he tried to explain this to the council, they dismissed him.
"You speak in riddles," they said. "There is no monster. Only fear."
But Kairo knew better. In one of his visions, he had seen the mirror crack, and from within crawled memories that didn't belong to him. Memories of betrayal, of love twisted into manipulation, of a man with a voice like velvet who spoke in truths that felt like lies.
And now… the signs were clear.
A village in the south vanished overnight. A storm of blood-red lightning tore through the sky above Elarion. Children reported hearing whispers in their sleep, telling them to look into the glass and say their names backward.
And everywhere, Wale walked, smiling.
The four finally gathered in the Sanctum of the Aegis. Old friends, old wounds, old hopes.
Chris placed a rune map on the obsidian table, marked with points of disappearance.
"He's moving through the ley," she said. "Fast."
Grey nodded grimly. "It's like he knows exactly where to go."
Kairo tapped his fingers against his temple. "Because he does. He's not bound by time the way we are. He's rewriting it as he moves."
Chris looked at him sharply. "You mean like a chronomancer?"
"No," Kairo said. "Like an author."
A silence fell over the room.
Grey glanced at the others. "Then we stop him."
Chris nodded. "We end this before he opens the mirror completely."
But Wale had already begun. He had no need for incantations or sacrifices. He needed only belief. A monster's greatest weapon was the story people told about him. And every time someone whispered his name in fear, the mirror grew stronger.
In the manor, the glass no longer reflected. It remembered.
Weeks passed. The champions pursued Wale from ruin to ruin, from echo to echo. But he was never truly there. Only his presence—like the final note of a song that lingers in the ear. They found symbols carved into stone, children murmuring riddles, dreams infected with memory.
In a remote village, Chris found a book. It was bound in leather too pale to be animal, with no title. Inside: 499 pages, each a chapter. The final page was blank.
"What is this?" Grey asked.
Kairo read aloud the first line: "There are many types of monsters in this world…"
Chris paled. "I've heard this before. In my dreams."
As they flipped through the pages, they found themselves. Every word, every battle, every doubt. Their entire lives recorded before they'd even lived them.
The last page had only a single sentence:
"If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it, because in truth, I am that monster."
Wale stood behind them.
The mirror shattered.
Not from force—but from release.
In its place was not shards of glass, but fragments of reality. Memories bleeding into moments. Chris's childhood, Grey's first kill, Kairo's first prophecy—all flashing, reshaped, rewritten.
Wale stepped forward.
"I never lied," he said. "I only showed the truth."
Chris summoned flame. "You're a parasite."
Wale tilted his head. "And yet, you fed me."
Grey lunged, blade shining. Kairo followed, voice echoing with runes of binding. Chris rained fire. But Wale… smiled.
And the chapter ends with the mirror reflecting again—only this time, the reflection is not of Wale. It's of the reader.
And the voice returns:
"There are many types of monsters in this world…"