The Mirror Vale began as a whisper — a stretch of pale mist that thickened until the air itself gleamed. As Liora and Corren descended into it, the world lost its color, every sound swallowed by soft, luminous silence. There were no shadows here, only reflections, each one slightly delayed, as though reality were thinking twice before deciding what it wished to be.
Corren muttered under his breath, his voice oddly muted. "I hate this place already."
Liora said nothing. The silver tracings on her arms were nearly invisible now, dulled by exhaustion and loss. Every step since the Dreaming Forge had cost her something she could not name. But something inside her — the Shape itself, perhaps — tugged forward, guiding her deeper.
The ground beneath them turned to glass. Beneath its surface shimmered faces, thousands of them — some human, some beasts, some unformed, drifting in a slow current of light.
Corren stopped short. "They're alive."
"They're memories," Liora said quietly. "Reflections that forgot who they belonged to. The Vale keeps what people refuse to see."
"Then we should keep moving before it decides it wants us too."
They pressed onward. The mist deepened until distance lost meaning. Ahead, a faint glow pulsed like a heartbeat — the Third Circle's resonance. But between them and that light stretched a vast lake of mirrored water.
The surface was utterly still. Even the mist seemed afraid to disturb it.
"This must be it," Corren said. "The Mirror's Heart."
Liora nodded, staring into her reflection. It stared back, but not quite the same — its eyes darker, its mouth curved in a small, knowing smile.
"Don't look too long," she warned. "It's not a mirror. It's a door."
"To where?"
"To what you've hidden from yourself."
Corren snorted. "I've hidden plenty. Best keep it that way."
Before she could answer, ripples shivered across the surface. The reflection shifted. And from the lake rose them.
Doubles.
Perfect, shimmering versions of themselves, formed of light and memory. Each moved with uncanny grace, their expressions serene — and wrong. Liora's double smiled as she stepped forward, silver fire running through her hair like liquid metal.
"You seek the Fourth Circle," the reflection said in Liora's own voice, softer, clearer. "But you cannot bind what you refuse to see."
Corren's double laughed, his voice deeper, crueler. "You'll fail her again. Just like before."
Corren stiffened. "I never—"
"Don't answer it," Liora snapped.
But the Vale had already begun its work. The water around them rippled as the doubles circled. Every step they took echoed twice — once in reality, once in the reflection.
"You shaped me when you entered the first Circle," Liora's reflection said. "You thought you could mend the world by understanding it. But every Circle you awaken makes you less whole. Soon, there'll be nothing left to hold the Shape together."
Liora's fists clenched. "I don't need to be whole. I need to finish this."
The reflection smiled. "Then you'll finish yourself, too."
With a sound like cracking glass, it lunged.
Liora barely dodged as the mirrored version struck, its hands leaving trails of light that burned through the air. Corren's double moved in tandem, blade gleaming with mirrored fire. The real Corren met him with steel, sparks flashing as the two collided.
The lake erupted in chaos — reflection clashing against form, every motion mirrored and distorted. Liora called on the silver threads within her, but the light sputtered. Her power was fading, drained by the previous shapings.
Her double advanced, eyes glowing. "You cannot shape without memory, and you've given yours away."
Liora's breath came ragged. She felt it then — the emptiness where pieces of herself used to be. Names, faces, moments — all lost. The Forge had taken them as payment.
The reflection reached out, fingertips brushing her cheek. "Let me remind you who you were."
Pain surged through her skull — memories flashing, violent and bright. A child at the edge of a burning village. A hand reaching from the smoke. The sound of a promise whispered under a blood-red moon: I will never shape again.
She stumbled back, gasping. "No... no, that's not—"
"It is," said the reflection, its voice turning gentle. "You were one of us once. A Shaper. You swore to end it. And now you've broken your own vow."
Liora fell to her knees. The world fractured around her, reflections multiplying, the Vale feeding on her doubt.
Corren's voice cut through the haze. "Liora! Listen to me — it's lying!"
Her reflection turned sharply toward him. "He doesn't know you," it said. "Not really. Not what you've done."
Corren's double seized him by the throat, shoving him backward into the mirrored lake. He went under, the surface rippling in slow motion.
Something snapped in Liora. The threads beneath her skin blazed to life, silver fire flooding her veins. She rose, voice ringing like a bell. "I am not what I was."
Her reflection froze mid-motion.
"I was shaped," Liora said, stepping forward, "and I broke. But breaking is part of shaping too."
She slammed her palms together. The mirrored world shuddered. The doubles convulsed, their perfect forms cracking. Shards of light tore free, dissolving into smoke.
The reflection screamed — a sound like glass being ground to dust — and shattered into a thousand fragments. The lake split open, releasing Corren from its grip. He gasped for air, dragging himself onto the glass shore.
The Vale fell silent again. The reflections faded. Only Liora's dim light remained, flickering but steady.
Corren coughed hard, water streaming from his hair. "You could've warned me before destroying the whole lake."
She gave a faint, breathless laugh. "You're alive, aren't you?"
"Barely. Remind me never to follow you into another mirror."
Liora looked toward the center of the shattered lake. There, rising from the ruin, stood a single mirror unlike the rest — dark, rippling, alive. It was framed in obsidian and shaped like an eye.
"The Fourth Circle," she whispered.
As they approached, the mirror's surface shifted, revealing not their reflections, but an image of the world itself — the Circles glowing like stars across its surface, connected by lines of pulsing light. One by one, the circles flared as the power awakened. But there was another light — far larger, deeper — pulsing beneath the world like a heartbeat.
"The Heart," Liora murmured. "The source of the Shape itself."
Corren frowned. "And that's where all this leads?"
"Yes. Every Circle, every memory, every shaping—it all leads back to the Heart."
He looked at her carefully. "And what happens when we get there?"
Liora's gaze lingered on the dark mirror, where her reflection no longer moved. "Then we'll see if the world wants to be remade."
The mirror pulsed once, sending a tremor through the ground. The Vale around them began to dissolve, the mist rising into spirals of light.
They stood in silence as the world reshaped itself. When the glow faded, they found themselves at the Vale's northern edge, beneath a pale dawn sky. The air smelled clean again, untouched by illusion.
Corren exhaled deeply. "Three Circles bound. Nine left."
Liora turned her face toward the sun. "And the next waits beyond the desert — the Circle of Breath."
"Can you feel it?" he asked.
She nodded. "It's calling."
He gave a wry grin. "Then let's hope it's friendlier than the last one."
They set off again, the dawn behind them stretching long shadows across the sand. Neither spoke for a time. But as they walked, the mirrored surface of the Vale shimmered one last time behind them.
And in that fading reflection, the fractured image of Liora's double stirred — its broken face reforming, eyes burning with quiet, cold light.
"You cannot unmake what you were," it whispered. "And the Heart remembers everything."
The wind swallowed the words, carrying them away toward the horizon.