The mirror may have shattered—but its shards lived in each of them now.
Truths they could no longer run from.
And ahead, the cursed path led ever deeper into the waking heart of the forest.
The air had changed.
Not just in temperature—but in weight, in taste. The forest seemed to draw tighter around them, pressing its roots and shadows into their bones. Every sound echoed too long. Every whisper felt too close.
The group walked with distance between them now.
Maksym at the front, Kyi near the middle, Methodius trailing behind with slow, deliberate steps. Lybid said nothing. She hadn't said much since the glade.
It was Methodius who finally broke the silence.
"You never repented."
Lybid didn't look back. "No."
"After all you've seen? The drowned, the cursed, the mirror? Still, you cling to these old rites, these roots?"
She stopped walking. "What do you want me to say?"
"That you were wrong," he said. "That Rod is no longer your god. That you're prepared to fight this darkness with us, not beside it."
She turned.
Her eyes were not angry. Not cold.
They were tired.
"I am fighting it," she said. "I've given blood. I've lost sleep. I've watched my friends die. I faced my ancestors in that mirror. And I saw they weren't angry… they were waiting. Waiting for someone who remembered both sides."
"You speak like a heretic."
"I speak like someone who stopped being a child."
Their standoff pulled the others into a circle.
Yurko shifted nervously, glancing between them. Shchek stood with his arms crossed, unreadable. Kyi watched Methodius with narrowed eyes.
"You think the light is only yours?" Kyi asked. "You think God prefers your prayers because they're in stone halls instead of whispered under trees?"
Methodius's jaw clenched. "I think purity matters. Order. Truth."
"You think truth can't grow in dirt?" Lybid asked. "Can't walk barefoot, or wear moss, or carry bone?"
The tension crackled like firewood.
"Enough," Maksym said, stepping between them. "The forest is already trying to divide us. Don't help it."
But something had shifted.
The mirror hadn't just shown their truths.
It had loosened their masks.
As they resumed walking, the air grew colder. The fog began to swirl in shapes that whispered like familiar voices.
And somewhere—just ahead—the forest smiled.