As we approached the fourth doorway, the air rippled around us like heat waves rising from summer asphalt. Unlike the bone-deep cold of the ice chamber or the searing heat of the first chamber, this was almost pleasant—a gentle warmth that touched my face and hands, drawing us forward.
"I don't trust it," I said, stopping just short of the threshold. The shimmer intensified where the light from the central chamber met the darkness beyond, creating an effect like oil floating on water.
Laina moved up beside me, her bow slung across her back. "None of the trials have been trustworthy. That's rather the point, isn't it?"
She was right, of course. The Temple didn't offer safety—it offered tests. And so far, we'd passed them all.
"Let me go first," Joran said, stepping between us. His hand rested on the hilt of his hunting knife, a gesture that seemed more habitual than purposeful. "I've got a feeling about this one."
"Alright," I nodded. "But at the first sign of trouble—"
"I'll call out," he finished, giving me a thin smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
Joran stepped through the doorway and disappeared into the shimmer. Laina and I waited, counting heartbeats in silence. Five. Ten. Fifteen.
"Joran?" I called, leaning closer to the threshold.
No response.
"Shit," I muttered, pulling Heartseeker from its sheath. "Stay close to me," I told Laina.
She nodded, her violet eyes reflecting Heartseeker's light.
Together, we stepped through the doorway.
The shimmer parted around us like a curtain, and suddenly we were... nowhere. Or rather, everywhere. The chamber beyond was lined entirely with mirrors—floor, ceiling, walls, all perfectly reflective. Our images repeated infinitely in every direction, creating a disorienting sense of endless space.
"Joran?" Laina called, her voice bouncing back at us from a thousand reflective surfaces.
I squinted, trying to distinguish real from reflection. The mirrors didn't simply show us—they seemed to capture light differently, creating variations in how we appeared. In some reflections, I looked taller, more confident. In others, haggard and beaten.
"There," I pointed to a figure standing several yards ahead, his back to us. Joran stood motionless, staring into one of the mirrors as if transfixed.
We approached cautiously, our footsteps eerily silent against the mirrored floor. As we drew closer, I noticed Joran's reflection was... wrong. The man in the mirror wasn't the lean scout I knew. He was broader, dressed in ornate armor emblazoned with a sigil I didn't recognize—a flame encircled by a crown.
"Joran," I called, but he didn't respond. His eyes remained fixed on the reflection, his breathing shallow and quick.
I reached out, my fingers brushing his shoulder. He jerked away as if burned, spinning to face us with wild eyes.
"Don't!" he gasped, then seemed to recognize us. His expression cleared, though a certain intensity remained. "I... sorry. I was just..."
"What did you see?" Laina asked, her voice gentler than I'd ever heard it.
Joran swallowed, glancing back at the mirror. "Nothing. Just... myself."
He was lying. I could see it in the tension of his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched toward the knife at his belt. But before I could press him, movement caught my eye—my own reflection, shifting in a mirror to my right.
I turned, and the world seemed to drop away beneath my feet.
The mirror didn't show me as I was. It showed me as I could be.
I stood tall, confident in a way I'd never been in life. My clothes weren't the ragged garments of a slum rat but something finer—dark fabric cut to emphasize the strength in my frame. Around me stood others—my mother, healthy and smiling; my sister, grown taller than I remembered; faces I recognized from the outskirts, all looking at me with respect, even admiration.
And behind them all, a shimmering doorway—not the Temple's trials, but something else. A gate, perhaps? Whatever it was, I understood instinctively that it led home.
"Isaiah."
Laina's voice seemed to come from very far away. I blinked, and the vision wavered but didn't disappear.
"Isaiah!" Her hand gripped my arm, pulling me back a step. "Don't stare too long. It's doing something to you."
I tore my gaze away, my heart hammering against my ribs. "You see it too?"
"Not what you see," she said, her eyes flicking toward another mirror. "Something else. Something..." She trailed off, her expression softening for a moment before she shook her head. "It shows what we want. Our deepest desires."
"Clever," I muttered, forcing myself to look away from the mirror that had captured me. "Show us what we want most, then use it against us somehow."
Joran had moved further into the chamber, staring at yet another mirror. This one showed him not in armor but in simpler clothes, standing beside a woman whose face I couldn't make out. They held a child between them, their hands linked in a perfect triangle of connection.
"Joran," I called. "We need to keep moving."
He didn't respond, his gaze fixed on the reflection. I moved toward him, careful to keep my eyes from lingering on any one mirror for too long. The visions were seductive—each one showing a version of myself I desperately wanted to believe in.
"Joran," I said more firmly, grabbing his shoulder. This time he didn't pull away, but he didn't turn either. "We have to go."
"Just a minute," he murmured, his voice distant. "I need to see..."
I glanced at his reflection again. The scene had changed—now he stood alone, but somehow taller, more commanding. The sigil on his armor was clearer now—a symbol I recognized from somewhere, though I couldn't place it.
"It's not real," I said, tightening my grip on his shoulder. "Whatever you're seeing, it's the trial playing tricks on us."
"Is it?" Joran asked softly. "Or is it showing us truth we've been avoiding? Possibilities we've been too afraid to acknowledge?"
Laina appeared at my side, deliberately keeping her back to the mirrors. "We need to find the way forward. There must be a door or passage hidden somewhere."
I nodded, grateful for her focus. "You're right. Let's search the chamber. But stay together, and don't stare at any one reflection too long."
We began to move through the endless hall of mirrors, searching for any break in the pattern. But the reflective surfaces seemed to stretch infinitely, each one showing a different possibility, a different desire.
In one, I saw myself standing before a crowd, power radiating from my hands in visible waves. In another, I was younger, my parents both alive, my childhood unmarked by hunger or fear. In a third, I stood at the gates of New Vein's Shell, not as a slum dweller but as someone with authority, respect.
Each vision pulled at me, tempting me to stop and stare, to lose myself in what might have been. I forced myself to look away each time, focusing on the task at hand.
"There's no door," Laina said after what felt like hours. "No obvious way forward."
"Maybe that's the point," I replied, studying the chamber with narrowed eyes. "Maybe we're not supposed to find a way out, but a way through."
Joran had fallen silent, drifting from mirror to mirror with an increasingly distant expression. His movements had become sluggish, his eyes glazed.
"Joran's getting worse," I muttered to Laina. "Whatever these mirrors are doing, it's affecting him more strongly."
She nodded, concern creasing her brow. "He seems... drawn to them. More susceptible."
I watched as Joran stopped before yet another mirror, this one taller than the others. In its reflection, he stood not in the chamber but on a mountain peak, overlooking a vast landscape. The eternal winter was gone—replaced by green valleys and flowing rivers. And on his head...
"A crown," I said softly. "He's wearing a crown."
Laina followed my gaze, her eyes widening. "That's not just any crown. That's the Winter King's crown."
And there it was, resting on Joran's head in the mirror's reflection. Not the real Joran—he stood empty-handed before the glass—but the version of himself he apparently desired to be.
"We need to get him out of here," I said, moving toward him. "Now."
But as I approached, Joran turned to face me, and the expression on his face stopped me cold. Gone was the cautious scout I'd traveled with. In his place stood someone harder, more resolved—a man who had glimpsed power and found it to his liking.
"Do you see it?" he asked, his voice low and fervent. "What could be?"
I kept my expression neutral, though my hand tightened around Heartseeker. "I see a lot of things in these mirrors, Joran. None of them real."
"Not yet," he agreed, his gaze sliding back to his reflection. "But they could be. The mirrors don't lie—they show us the truth we hide even from ourselves."
"They show us what we want," I corrected. "Not what's true. There's a difference."
Joran's eyes met mine, and for a moment I saw something ancient in them—a hunger that predated our journey, perhaps even Joran himself.
"Is there?" he asked softly. "Or is what we want most deeply the truest part of who we are?"
I had no answer for that. My own desires, reflected in the countless mirrors around us, were a confused tangle of contradictions—power and peace, revenge and reconciliation, home and escape.
"The way forward," Laina interrupted, breaking the tension between us. "I think I understand now. We have to break the mirrors."
Both Joran and I turned to her in surprise.
"Break them?" Joran echoed, an edge of alarm in his voice.
Laina nodded. "The trial is testing our ability to see past illusion—to reject the comfort of what we wish to see in favor of what truly is."
"Or maybe," Joran suggested, "it's testing our courage to embrace what could be, rather than accepting the limitations of what is."
They stared at each other, an unspoken challenge passing between them. I looked from one to the other, weighing their interpretations. Both made a certain kind of sense. The mirrors showed possibilities—some hopeful, others disturbing. Was the test to reject them or embrace them?
I thought back to the void, where perception itself had been questionable. What had the platform said? Reality is what we believe it to be.
"You're both right," I said finally. "And both wrong. The mirrors show possibilities, not certainties. The test isn't about accepting or rejecting them—it's about understanding the difference between reflection and reality."
I turned to the mirror that had first captured me—the one showing my family, healthy and whole, and a way home. It was beautiful. Compelling. Everything I wanted.
And completely intangible.
I raised Heartseeker, its crimson glow intensifying as I channeled my intent through it. With one swift motion, I drove the blade into the center of the mirror.
The glass cracked but didn't shatter, spiderwebbing outward from the point of impact. Through the cracks, I glimpsed not my reflection but darkness—and beyond that, a faint light.
"There," I said, pulling the dagger free. "The way forward."
Laina moved to my side, picking up a loose stone from the floor. Immediately, she hurled it at another mirror, which cracked in the same pattern as mine.
Joran remained still. "Are you sure about this? Once broken, we can never see these visions again."
"They were never real to begin with," I replied. "Just shadows of possibility. And we have a real mission to complete."
He hesitated a moment longer, then nodded reluctantly. "You're right."
But as he turned to help us break the remaining mirrors, I caught a glimpse of his reflection one last time. The crowned figure stared back, not at Joran but directly at me—and smiled.