The further they descended, the more the world forgot what light was.
The orb in Reina's hand glowed with a pale, contained radiance, but even its weak light felt intrusive in that place. The stone swallowed it greedily, leaving only a thin halo around their feet and faces. Each breath sounded too loud. Each footstep struck the ground with a weight the air did not wish to carry.
Kel walked just behind Sera now, his eyes half-lidded, not from fatigue alone but from the deep, resonant thrum pressing against his skull from within the rock. His long coat brushed his boots, its hem damp from the cave's moisture. Strands of his hair clung to his temple with cold sweat, some falling across his eyes as he blinked slowly.
His breathing remained deliberate.
In.
Hold.
Out.
But the rhythm beneath his ribs—his curse responding to the mountain's internal heartbeat—refused to align.
Reina walked beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed. Her cloak swayed with each step, fur-lined edges trailing along rough stone walls when the passage narrowed. The orb's light illuminated the set of her jaw, the faint tightness around her eyes, the way her fingers clenched around the shaft of her spear.
Landon's heavy tread grounded the rear of the group. His broad silhouette moved like a shadow carved from the mountain itself. His coat had gathered dust and frost along the hem; his hair was damp where the cave's ceiling had dripped on him. One hand stayed near his sword, but his eyes were not hunting enemies.
They were watching the others.
Sera was the only one whose steps never faltered. Her movement was quiet, fluid, cloak whispering around her legs. Her pale hair glinted dully in the pale orb-light whenever she turned her head. Though her back was to them, something in her posture felt… strained.
As if even she did not fully trust what lay ahead.
The tunnel curved downward once more, then widened into a circular chamber.
They emerged into it almost abruptly.
The ceiling rose, vanishing into black. The floor was smoother here, polished unintentionally by time and unseen currents of air, the stone slightly reflective where the light reached it. The air felt thicker, heavy with minerals and something else—like the memory of many held breaths.
Kel's steps slowed.
The pulse in the stone had grown loud.
Too loud.
Every beat crawled up his legs, into his bones, into the knot of curse lodged deep beneath his ribs. It pushed against him, testing, probing. His fingers twitched inside his sleeves.
Sera came to a halt at the chamber's center.
She lowered her hand to the ground, fingertips touching the smooth stone.
Her eyes slid shut.
"Here," she whispered.
Her voice carried despite its softness.
"The bone is thin."
Reina frowned faintly. "You mean… the boundary?"
Sera's lips curved into the ghost of a humorless smile.
"The place where 'here' and 'there' lean against one another," she said. "Push in the wrong way, and you will break through without being able to breathe."
Landon's gaze swept the chamber.
"No door," he observed.
Kel's eyes moved slowly, the orblight catching in them like reflections of distant stars. There was no portal, no circle of carved runes, no altar, no obvious structure.
Just stone.
Just the mountain's heart.
"It is not a door you walk to," Sera murmured, rising. She opened her eyes—their pale irises glimmered faintly with an inner sheen. "…It is one that walks to you."
The ground suddenly shuddered.
A heavy, slow vibration that did not topple them—just hummed through their bones and teeth, through the air, through the light itself. The orb flickered in Reina's hand.
Kel inhaled sharply.
His curse flared, unseen and violent, like something coiled waking in panic.
The walls around them remained solid.
But the air—
The air cracked.
Not with sound, but with light.
A thread of brilliance tore itself into existence at the center of the chamber, thin as a hair at first, blindingly white. It expanded, fanning outward in jagged lines like fractures through reality. The orb's light was swallowed, overwhelmed.
Kel flinched, eyes snapping shut.
Reina threw an arm over her face, the orb clutched tight, light drowned by something far older. Landon's hand rose instinctively as if to shield his companions, useless against radiance that did not burn skin.
Sera did not shield herself.
Her eyes remained open—until they, too, were lost in that white.
And then—
Everything went blank.
Silence.
No stone beneath their boots.
No cold in their bones.
No sound.
Only a weightless, formless blankness pressing gently against their existences.
Then, slowly—
It turned grey.
Kel
His vision returned first as a smear of shifting ash.
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
There was no chamber.
There was no mountain.
He stood in a place made of mist—thick, cloying, colorless. It swirled around his legs, up to his knees, curling like smoke without heat. The sky—or what passed for it—was a continuous, featureless expanse of dim grey.
He could not see the others.
"Reina?" he called softly.
No answer.
"Landon. Sera."
Silence swallowed the names.
His own breath sounded too loud, yet also distant, as if he was hearing himself underwater.
He looked down at his hands.
They were the same—pale skin, thin fingers, faint traces of exertion along the knuckles. His clothes were unchanged. Long coat. Tunic. Gloves.
But he felt lighter.
Not in a way that suggested freedom.
In a way that suggested something was waiting to add weight.
Mist stirred before him.
Shapes began to form.
They coalesced slowly, as if the world was remembering how to draw lines. A corridor of darker grey emerged, stretching ahead. On either side, vague forms of walls, pressingly narrow.
Kel's jaw tightened.
A trial, he thought.
Of course.
The first figure stepped out from the right-hand mist.
A boy.
His age.
His face.
But thinner, bruised around the eyes, lips cracked. The boy's chest rose with strained, shallow breaths. He clutched at his ribs with one hand, the other reaching forward.
"…Coward," the mirror-Kel whispered.
His voice was hoarse, fragile.
"You had a world. You had peace. You had a bed." His fingers curled. "You chose this."
Kel stared.
He felt his hand twitch inside his coat sleeve.
"I was called," he said softly.
"Liar," the boy spat.
Behind him, the corridor deepened. More figures stepped out.
Not his reflection, this time.
People.
From the game-world.
From the world he'd entered as Kel von Rosenfeld.
Knights whose faces he'd seen when he was still the joke heir. Servants who whispered behind closed doors. Cold-eyed nobles at the banquet. That young noble whose duel he'd accepted.
They stood, their edges blurred by mist, yet their eyes clear.
"You will die," one said.
"You will drag others with you," another murmured.
"Your house will carry shame," echoed a third.
"You rejected power when it was offered," hissed a fourth. "You chose to walk with nothing but pain. Does that make you noble?" His lip curled. "Or just afraid of becoming what you hated?"
Their voices layered, overlapping, swelling into a chorus:
"Afraid."
"Selfish."
"Cowardly."
"Arrogant."
"Pretending sacrifice is more righteous than survival."
Kel's breathing grew shallower.
The words did not pierce him like blades.
They pressed.
Weight upon weight.
Because some of them—
—were things he had already thought himself.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
The corridor seemed to narrow. Their eyes glowed faintly through the mist, haloed in accusing gray.
The boy—his own mirrored self—stepped closer, close enough that Kel could see the fine tremor in his lower lip, the red at the rims of his eyes.
"You talk about salvation," the boy whispered. "But you refuse the tools everyone else uses. You hate what the constellations make of people—but you are willing to make others suffer for your rebellion." His hand rose and pressed against Kel's chest, over his heart. The touch felt cold, unreal, and yet—
"You would rather die for an idea," he said, voice shaking, "than live as something you don't understand."
Kel's hand lifted slowly.
He wrapped his fingers around the boy's thin wrist.
His eyes closed.
For a moment, he let the words sit within him.
Let them spread.
Let them echo.
Is that what I am?
A breath left him.
When he opened his eyes again, they were calmer.
"I am afraid," he said quietly.
The boy's eyes widened.
"I am selfish. I do not want to become a puppet controlled by constellations, even if it would save my life. I hate the idea of being used. I hate the idea of my choices being illusions."
The chorus of voices around him wavered.
"But," he continued, "I am also tired of using that as an excuse."
He lifted his gaze, meeting his own reflection's stare directly, even as mist swirled harder.
"If I walk toward the lake," he said, "it is not because I want to die for a beautiful ideal."
His grip on the boy's wrist tightened.
"It is because I want to live as myself."
Silence.
Mist froze.
"I am not rejecting all power," Kel whispered. "I am seeking a power that will not erase me. If I fail and others fall because of me…" His jaw clenched. "…then I will bear that weight. But I will not pretend this path is anything but my choice."
He released the boy's wrist.
His hand fell back to his side.
His shoulders lowered. Not in defeat.
In acceptance.
"I am afraid," he repeated, softer. "And I am still walking."
The reflected boy stared at him, something like conflict rippling through his features.
Then—
His outline blurred.
He faded, dissolving into mist.
One by one, the accusing figures vanished, their eyes dimming, their forms unraveling like smoke caught in a stronger current.
Kel stood alone again.
The corridor opened.
Mist ahead lightened—no longer oppressive, but waiting.
He exhaled.
His hand pressed once against his ribs, acknowledging the ache there like an old companion.
"…I know," he murmured, for himself alone. "I will not pretend otherwise."
He stepped forward.
The mist swallowed him gently this time.
Reina
Elsewhere in that gray world, Reina stood with her spear planted in the ground.
Her cloak fluttered in wind that did not exist. Mist clung to her boots, swirling and retreating, unable to decide if it wished to reveal or conceal.
Her eyes narrowed as shapes formed ahead.
She recognized them before they fully solidified.
A courtyard.
Her old home.
Blood.
Shouting.
Flames licking at banners.
The expressions of those who had once called her family—twisted in hatred, fear, accusation.
"You lived," one figure snarled.
It was her cousin. Or… the memory of him.
"You ran," another spat.
Her aunt's face, lined with bitterness. "You abandoned—"
"I survived," Reina said.
Her voice cut through the rising accusations.
Her hands were steady on the spear. Her fingers did not shake now as they had once.
"Yes," she said. "I ran. I lived. I left them behind."
Her throat tightened, but her gaze did not drop.
"And I have hated myself for it," she whispered. "Every day. But…"
Her shoulders straightened, cloak settling around her like armor. She lifted her chin slightly.
"…if I had stayed, I would have died with them. That would not have undone the betrayal. It would only have added one more corpse to the list."
The figures paused.
Her aunt's distorted face twisted further. "So you say your survival was justified—?"
"No," Reina interrupted. "It simply was."
She inhaled, the air cold in her lungs.
"I was weak," she said. "I was afraid. I chose my life over my pride. That is the truth. I accept it."
Her grip tightened.
"But now—"
She took a step forward.
The courtyard shuddered.
"I choose to live that stolen life for something." Her gaze sharpened—a blade honed on regret. "For someone."
Kel's face flickered in her mind.
Not as a savior.
As a boy walking toward death with eyes too steady.
"I cannot change that I ran," she said. "I can only decide not to run again."
The figures wavered.
Flames dimmed.
Mist rolled in, swallowing blood, stone, faces.
Reina planted the butt of her spear more firmly, her stance widening as if bracing herself against a storm.
But the storm…
was already passing.
The world around her dissolved back into grey.
She closed her eyes briefly.
"…I will walk beside him," she murmured. "Even if winter takes us both."
When she opened them again, the mist ahead had parted—subtly, like a curtain acknowledging a performer allowed to pass.
She moved forward.
Landon
For Landon, the mist shaped itself into a training yard.
Rows of wooden dummies.
Clashing swords.
Laughter from nobles he had once watched from the shadows.
He saw himself.
At the edge.
Always at the edge.
Never called by name.
Never truly seen.
His father's voice emerged from nowhere—a low, bitter rumble.
"You were born heavy," it said. "Good for lifting. Good for carrying. Not for deciding."
Landon's jaw clenched.
"You follow," the voice continued. "You obey. That is your place. To be used as needed."
He watched his younger self train, pushing, sweating, bleeding—yet never drawing more than a passing glance from instructors whose true attention stayed on shining heirs.
"You chose him," the voice said. "The cursed heir. Not out of conviction. Out of habit."
Landon's hands curled into fists.
"Always following. Always placing your weight behind someone else's will. Do you have any resolve of your own?"
The question echoed, bouncing off air.
Landon looked at his younger self.
Then at his own hands.
"…You are right," he said slowly.
The words tasted like stone.
"I am heavy. Slow. I have always been more comfortable supporting than deciding. I do not see myself as a leader. I do not want to be."
The accusation hung.
The mist held its breath.
"But choosing to follow," Landon said, "is still a choice."
He lifted his head, eyes steady.
"I chose him," he said. "I chose Kel. Not because he was easy to follow. Not because I was told to. But because—"
His chest rose, fell.
"I saw someone weaker than me," he said, "who carried more weight than anyone I had ever met. I saw someone who refused to surrender, even though his body betrayed him. Someone who walked like every step might be his last, but he kept moving anyway."
His hands, though empty, settled into the shape of holding a sword.
"If my role is to be the mountain behind him," he said, "then I accept that. Fully. I don't need to lead to choose where I stand."
The training yard flickered.
"You can call it 'just following'," Landon finished quietly. "I call it my conviction."
The mist trembled.
The yard broke apart, splintering into drifting gray fragments.
In their place remained only the path ahead—uncertain, fog-laden, but clear enough for his next step.
He took it.
Sera
In her mist, Sera stood in a graveyard of ice.
Pillars of frozen water rose from the ground like gravestones. Beneath the translucent surface of each, faces slept—barbarian warriors, elders, children. Eyes closed. Mouths parted as if still trying to draw breath.
"They trusted you," a voice whispered.
Not one voice.
Many.
Her tribe.
Her ancestors.
"They placed the curse upon you," another murmured. "So you would carry the weight. So you would suffer in their place."
A figure stepped forward from between the icy monuments.
It was Sera.
But older.
Far more tired.
"You resent them," the older-Sera said softly. "You resent being the one who must break, bleed, be devoured by the lake if it chooses."
Sera's fingers twitched at her sides.
Her cloak fluttered in a non-existent breeze.
"…Yes," she said.
The admittance was a shard of ice driven through her chest.
"I resent them," she whispered. "I resent the stories. The expectations. The… inevitability."
She raised her head.
"But I also…"
Her voice faltered.
She inhaled.
"I also love them," she said. "The children who run, not knowing what waits. The elders who pretend to have no fear. The fools who drink beside the fire as if winter has no teeth."
Her eyes glistened.
Not with weakness.
With fury and grief entwined.
"If carrying this curse means I become the bridge," she said, "then I will be the bridge. Even if the lake devours the last of me."
She lifted her hand, pressing her palm against the nearest ice-pillar, over the face of a sleeping child.
"I am not ready to die," she said. "I have never been ready. But I have accepted that my story was always going to end at the water's edge."
Her lips curved—faint, sharp.
"I just did not expect," she added, "to arrive there with company."
The ice cracked.
Light—faint and grey—leaked from the fractures.
The pillars dissolved into mist, sinking back into the ground.
Sera remained.
Her curse burned cold beneath her skin.
"…I welcome the judgment," she murmured. "May it be honest."
She turned.
And walked forward, head high.
Grey flowed.
Mist folded.
Four paths drew closer.
Kel emerged first into a clearing of thicker fog, his breaths measured but eyes sharper than before. Reina stepped into the same space from another direction, spear in hand, eyes reddened yet steady. Landon arrived a moment later, his posture heavier, yet more grounded. Sera appeared last, her presence cold and luminous.
They stopped.
They saw each other.
No words passed between them for several breaths.
Just the quiet, raw acknowledgment in their expressions.
Kel's gaze moved from one face to another.
He saw something stripped bare in each of them.
Reina's hand tightened subtly around her spear.
Landon exhaled, shoulders lowering slightly, as if accepting more weight instead of fighting it.
Sera's eyes met his.
"…You're still walking," she said.
"So are you," he replied.
The mist around them shuddered.
Then, slowly—
It began to thin.
Dark grey faded to lighter tones. The weight pressing against their skulls eased. Distantly, the echo of dripping water returned. The cold of stone seeped back beneath their boots.
Light—soft, natural, weak—filtered in.
The trial loosened its hold.
The mist parted fully.
They were standing once more in the stone chamber, beneath the mountain. The orb's dim light hung from Reina's fingers again, as if it had never gone out. Their breaths came visibly in the chilled air.
But something had changed.
The air itself felt… thinner.
As though a layer of reality had been peeled back.
At the far side of the chamber, the stone wall shimmered.
A ripple, like the surface of a lake disturbed by a thrown pebble, spread across rock that should not have moved. Light—pale, shimmering, almost liquid—gathered in a circular shape.
A door that was not a door.
Kel's curse pulsed.
Sera's eyes narrowed.
"…The lake," she whispered.
"Is listening."
Kel lifted his hand, resting it lightly over his heart.
He did not try to deny how hard it was beating.
He did not deny the tremor in his fingers.
He simply stood.
He had faced his shadows.
They all had.
Now, the reflection beyond the stone was ready.
"…We go," he said.
His voice was quiet.
But it did not waver.
Reina stepped to his left.
Landon to his right, slightly behind.
Sera in front, leading—but no longer alone.
Together, they walked toward the shimmering wall.
And the mist of their fears…
remained behind them