The journey to the Mirror Halls wasn't marked by distance. It was marked by memory.
The group stood in a quiet valley encircled by jagged peaks, where time itself seemed frayed. There was no road—only a circle of standing stones, worn with age and humming with unseen threads of power.
Kael reached out and touched the center stone. His fingers sparked on contact.
"This is the anchor," he said. "It'll pull us through."
"So we're walking into a place that's been abandoned for centuries," Sera muttered, crossing her arms. "Where truth takes physical form. Where if you lie to yourself, you die. Sounds great."
"You can stay," Darius offered dryly. "But you might miss the chance to get punched in the face by your own insecurities."
"You say that like it hasn't already happened."
Aeris stepped forward, her expression unusually tense. "I've heard of this place," she said. "The Mirror Halls were built by the original Aspects. They say even gods were afraid of their own reflections."
Kael activated the stone.
The air cracked.
Reality bent.
And in the blink of an eye, they were somewhere else entirely.
The Realm of Reflection
The Mirror Halls were not halls at all.
They were a shifting, infinite space of glass and light—towers of fractured reality spiraling into skies of liquid silver. The ground below their feet was solid, but transparent, revealing images—memories—writhing beneath the surface like trapped ghosts.
"Okay," Sera muttered, looking down at a version of herself crying over a broken blade. "This is going to be fun."
Each step echoed like thunder. There was no wind, yet their hair and cloaks stirred. The place was alive—not with breath, but with awareness.
"This realm listens," Darius said. "It learns you. It knows you."
Kael's voice was calm. "Stay together. Do not believe everything you see. And most importantly…"
He turned, eyes sparking.
"Don't run from what you are."
Fractures and Echoes
As they walked deeper into the mirrored labyrinth, the Halls began to shift.
Kael saw flickers—his younger self, arms burned and shaking, standing over a crater. The day he first lost control. The day a village was reduced to ash.
He blinked. It was gone.
Sera gasped behind him. A wall had split open, showing her face—older, bloodied, standing over a corpse with her own blade buried in its chest.
Aeris saw herself cradling a boy's lifeless body in her arms, whispering a name none of them had ever heard before.
And Darius?
He didn't flinch. But Kael noticed his jaw tighten as the air around them heated, ever so slightly.
The Mirror Guardian
Finally, they reached it.
At the heart of the realm stood a cathedral of mirrored spires—impossibly tall, impossibly silent.
In front of the entrance stood a figure draped in silver robes, face veiled in flickering glass. His voice was soft, yet carried through the void.
"To pass through the Gate of Reflection, you must answer."
"Answer what?" Kael asked.
The figure raised a hand. A mirror bloomed from the ground in front of each of them.
"Answer yourself."
Kael stepped forward and stared into his mirror.
He saw… himself.
But twisted.
Eyes wild. Power unchained. Gravity and lightning distorting the very world around him. A storm of destruction incarnate.
"You think you're saving this world," the reflection said. "But deep down, you want to tear it apart."
Kael stared.
He didn't deny it.
Instead, he whispered, "I've felt that before. I've wanted it. But that's not who I am now."
The mirror cracked.
Then shattered.
One by one, the others faced their truths. Not all of them spoke aloud. Some left their mirrors whole. Some walked away with scars in their eyes.
But all passed.
The cathedral doors opened.