The third glyph burned behind his eyes for the first time that night. Not because he had touched it—but because someone else had.
Haraza jolted awake.
The campfire had died to embers, and Lirien was still asleep beside the remnants of the krenn-shafts. But the world had shifted. Not in geography—no mountains moved, no sky fell—but in alignment. The Rift had opened somewhere, and he could feel its pressure bleeding through the lattice of reality like water through a cracked dam.
The third seal was no longer waiting.
It was under siege.
He rose and scanned the horizon, activating the Helm's sight. Threads of will spread from him like tendrils, mapping the lay of the land. The stars above flickered unnaturally, and the glyph of the third seal—the symbol of reflection—spun slowly, trembling.
("A challenge,") he muttered. ("Or a warning.")
Either way, it meant speed was no longer a luxury.
By dawn, Lirien was awake and already donning her armor.
("You felt it?") she asked.
He nodded.
("Then we move. The next seal lies near the Twelvefold Mirror.")
Haraza furrowed his brow. ("I've never heard of it.")
("You wouldn't have,") she said. ("The Accord erased its name from all recorded memory. Not because it was dangerous—but because it revealed too much.")
They traveled through the Shiverwood Expanse, a forest frozen mid-growth, every tree perpetually half-formed and pulsing with arcane feedback. The closer they drew to the Mirror, the less reality obeyed its own laws.
Time hiccuped.
Color inverted.
In one clearing, they watched a hawk chase a mouse into a tree—only for the mouse to emerge seconds later as the hawk, and the hawk as prey.
Haraza gritted his teeth. ("The seal's already weakening this place.")
("No,") Lirien corrected. ("This place has always been like this. It's you that's beginning to see it clearly.")
That answer didn't help.
By midday, they reached the edge of a canyon so wide it eclipsed vision. Below stretched a lake of black mercury, its surface smooth as obsidian. And at its center: the Mirror.
A massive disc of polished soulglass, floating above the lake's surface without tether. It reflected the sky, but not the clouds. It reflected the watchers—but not their faces.
And as Haraza approached, it began to whisper.
Not in sound, but in image.
He saw himself.
Not the man he had become—but all the versions of himself he might have been. One stood as a tyrant, cloaked in Rift-born armor, eyes aglow with conquest. Another lived as a healer, Helm shattered, teaching lost children how to shape song from memory. A third sat on a throne of silence, unmoving, dead-eyed, crowned with peace.
Each reflection pulsed with a different shard of truth.
And the Mirror offered him a question.
("Which are you?") it asked.
("None,") Haraza answered. ("And all.")
The seal unlocked.
The world shattered again—but not into dream or vision. This time, the Mirror pulled him inward, warping his essence into its depths.
He stood now in a space between thoughts, between realities.
And the Mirror demanded he choose.
Twelve doors stood before him.
Each one marked with a version of himself.
The tyrant. The martyr. The coward. The savior. The scholar. The beast. The exile. The betrayer. The hero. The liar. The lover. The forgotten.
He knew instinctively—this wasn't a riddle. It was a gauntlet. The seal would not release unless he faced each version of himself… and judged them.
The first door opened—the tyrant.
Haraza stepped through.
He stood in a throne room built of bones and fractured promises. A darker version of himself sat atop a jagged throne, draped in crimson will. People knelt before him—not out of love, but fear.
("You had to become me,") the tyrant-Haraza said.("Or the world would have burned.")
Haraza approached, silent.
("You think you're better?") the tyrant sneered. ("You hesitate. You doubt. I decided. That's what changed the world.")
("I won't become you,") Haraza said.
("You already have,") the tyrant replied—and drew his blade.
The fight was brief but intense. Each blow echoed with unmade decisions, each parry a memory of compromise. Haraza fought not to win—but to understand.
And when he struck the final blow, the tyrant vanished in flame.
The door opened again.
The next: the martyr.
This Haraza knelt in a ruined chapel, surrounded by monuments of those he had saved—and failed. His eyes were blind, his hands burned from overuse of the Helm.
("I gave everything,") he whispered. ("Isn't that what they wanted?")
("Even if no one asked?") the real Haraza replied.
The martyr wept, and faded.
The next: the coward.
He ran from Haraza the moment the door opened. Fled into shadow. No confrontation. Just fear. Haraza followed—and realized the coward version had never failed. He simply never acted.
That thought struck him deeper than a blade.
One by one, he passed through each door. Each version. Each fragment of self.
Until only one remained.
The forgotten.
A door of rusted iron. No handle. No lock.
Haraza placed his hand on it.
He was a child again.
Not strong. Not chosen. Just a boy sweeping floors in a forgotten temple. No one called his name. No one waited for him. In this version, he never found the Helm. Never heard the Rift. Never saw the stars.
But he was happy.
The kind of happy that grows slowly and quietly—like moss.
And it hurt.
Because that was the self he could never return to.
He sat with that version of himself in silence.
Not to defeat him. Not to lecture. Just to listen.
When he finally stood, the boy smiled.
And the seal unlocked.
Haraza snapped back to the real world, gasping, sweat pouring from his skin. Lirien steadied him as he nearly fell.
("What did you see?") she asked.
("Myself,") he whispered. ("And everything I could have been.")
The Mirror was gone.
Shattered into mist, fading into the canyon below.
Above, the third glyph glowed behind his eyes.
And far in the distance, thunder rolled from the direction of the Nythran Spine—a place no one had dared enter in two ages.
The Rift was calling again.
And the next seal was already screaming.