The sky above the marsh was no longer gray but fractured—broken into uneven shards of light and darkness. Each reflected a different scene: the village half-submerged in water, the Circle aflame, the faces of people Liora had never seen. The world had begun to mirror itself, bleeding through the veil between what was real and what had been forgotten.
Liora stood at the center of the distortion, the willow behind her shedding its frost like tears. The pool that had once shown only her reflection now swirled with light and shadow. It pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. Every time it did, she felt the Sleeper stir in the distance—closer now, its vast shape moving beneath the surface of the world.
The Beast's voice came from within her, low and resonant. The bond unravels. We are losing the boundary.
"I know," Liora said, eyes fixed on the shifting sky. "But we can still choose how it ends."
She turned toward the north, where the mist had begun to glow faintly red, as though something beneath the water burned. The marsh's heart was moving, breathing, calling.
The journey back through the mire was slower than before. The land was changing under her feet—soft ground turning to glass, reeds becoming thin spines of bone. Strange lights moved in the fog, each one whispering in a voice that was almost her own.
Warden... Warden...
At times, she caught glimpses of herself ahead—shadow versions walking the same path, each carrying a different fate. One knelt beside a corpse, another walked alone under a blood moon, another sank slowly into the marsh, hand raised as if reaching for something she could never touch.
The Beast growled inside her. The mirror's edge has split. These are the lives the bond remembers.
"Then they're echoes," Liora murmured. "Not futures."
Not yet.
The words made her heart quicken. She pressed on.
By nightfall, she reached the outer edge of the Circle's ruins. The stones still glowed faintly under the frost, golden veins tracing through them like the remnants of a buried sun. The air was thick with power. She could feel the Sleeper's pulse beneath the ground—slow, immense, patient.
Corren was there. He looked older now, worn down by sleepless nights and too many losses. When he saw her, his relief was immediate, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"By the gods," he breathed. "Liora... you're alive."
"Alive," she said quietly. "But not as I was."
Maren stood behind him, leaning on her staff. "The marsh has changed," she said. "We felt the tremors for days. The Sleeper is moving again. What did you find?"
Liora met her gaze. "The truth. The Sleeper isn't an enemy—it's a mirror. A shadow of the bond itself. When we sealed it, we sealed the reflection of our own power."
Corren frowned. "You mean—"
"Every Warden carried it within," she said. "Every Circle fed both light and dark. The Sleeper isn't something to destroy. It's something that must be... balanced."
Maren's face paled. "That balance was lost long ago. The bond is too unstable now. If you try to merge with it—"
"I won't merge," Liora said. "I'll become it."
Silence fell. The fire between them hissed softly.
Corren stepped forward, his voice low. "If you do this, there's no coming back."
"I was never meant to," she said.
That night, the marsh awoke.
The wind howled through the reeds like a thousand voices crying out at once. The water turned black and began to rise, swallowing the low ground in waves. From the far horizon came the first sound—the low, guttural rumble of something enormous stirring beneath the world.
The Sleeper was coming.
Liora stood at the heart of the Circle, her eyes glowing with twin lights—one golden, one dark. The Beast's form shimmered beside her, half-flesh, half-light. The air crackled with power.
Corren drew his sword and took his place at her side. "You said it's a mirror," he said. "Then maybe what it sees depends on who stands before it."
Liora smiled faintly. "Then stand with me."
The marsh split open.
From the rift rose the Sleeper. Its form was vast—an impossible creature of glass and shadow, with limbs that melted into the mist and eyes that burned like dying stars. It towered over the ruins, its voice rolling through the air like thunder breaking through water.
You woke me.
"I had to," Liora said. Her voice echoed, layered with the Beast's growl. "The world can't keep hiding its reflection."
You would unmake yourself for balance?
"Yes."
The Sleeper's gaze shifted. Then let the bond be tested.
The ground exploded. Waves of darkness surged outward, shattering the Circle's stones and throwing Corren back. Liora stood her ground, her body glowing with golden fire. The Beast leapt forward, merging into her form completely—its antlers becoming arcs of light, its roar her own voice magnified a hundredfold.
She raised her hands. The golden energy of the bond shot into the air, clashing against the Sleeper's shadow. The impact shook the marsh, rippling through the water and sky alike.
For a moment, there was nothing but light.
Then came pain.
The bond burned through her veins like molten metal. Every heartbeat was a thunderclap; every breath, a storm. She could feel herself dissolving into the force that held the world together.
Hold, the Beast whispered inside her. Do not give it all.
But she had already gone too far.
The Sleeper's shadow pressed against her, testing, mirroring her every motion. When she reached out, it reached back. When she fought, it fought harder. They were locked in a perfect, devastating symmetry.
"I see it now," she gasped. "You're not my enemy... you're me."
The Sleeper's voice rolled like a wave. Then end the division.
Liora closed her eyes.
She stopped resisting.
The golden light and the black shadow collided one final time—then merged. For an instant, the marsh went silent. Every ripple in the water froze; every breath of wind stopped.
Corren, still standing amid the ruins, shielded his eyes as the light flared. He saw her silhouette rising above the Circle, wings of light unfurling from her back, her form shifting between woman and beast, human and reflection. The Sleeper's vast shape bowed before her, its darkness dissolving into her light.
Then both were gone.
The Circle's stones cracked apart and fell into the marsh. The wind returned, gentle and cool. The water stilled, reflecting only the pale dawn.
When morning came, Maren and Corren searched the ruins. There was no sign of Liora—only the faint shimmer of gold that lingered in the water, like sunlight beneath the surface.
"She did it," Maren whispered. "She became the balance."
Corren knelt by the pool, dipping his hand into the water. It was warm. Beneath the reflection of his face, he saw her—Liora, watching him with calm eyes, the antlers of light still crowning her head. She smiled once, then faded.
He stood slowly. The marsh around him was alive again—the reeds green, the frost gone. The curse had lifted. But the silence that followed carried both peace and grief.
Far below the surface, in the place between worlds, Liora drifted through light and shadow. The Beast was there beside her—no longer separate, but part of her essence.
It is done, it murmured.
"Yes," she said. "But it's not the end."
No.
They looked upward. Through the veil, she could see the marsh, the village, the people rebuilding. She could feel their hearts beating in rhythm with hers. The Circle was not destroyed—it had simply moved within them all.
Liora smiled. "Then the balance will hold."
The light around her brightened, spreading outward, reaching through the cracks of the world like dawn breaking across the horizon.
And somewhere, deep within the reeds, the marsh whispered her name.