The scream split the frozen haze like a crack through bone. Erenz had darted ahead—foolish, reckless—and now he was down, one leg bent wrong beneath him. The thing that brought him down was no ordinary Varn'Kai. It was taller, leaner, fur bristling with frozen thorns, and its eyes glowed a pale white. Not gleaming. Glowing—as if lit from inside by something ancient and watching.
Caelus raised his hand. No wand. No staff. He didn't need one anymore.
The magic coiled around his fingers like breathing ribbons. "Don't touch him," he warned, quiet. The air answered by groaning—ice forming instantly beneath the beast's feet. It lunged.
He didn't flinch.
A sound like glass being crushed exploded outward. Time stuttered. The ground beneath the demon shattered into prisms, each fragment reflecting a different version of the Varn'Kai: one with wings, one headless, one on fire, one crying.
Then all of it fell—into nothing.
The snow convulsed upward, not downward. It sucked the light, twisted it into a cone, then released it with a snap like a dying star.
Kairos shouted over the blast, "Are you mad?! Magic like that in this place—!"
The backlash threw him backward.
Cinna dragged Erenz away as more white-eyed figures emerged from the ridges—five, maybe six, moving like they were made of nerves, not flesh. Their claws twitched unnaturally. The snow around their paws didn't crunch—it whimpered.
"They're not Varn'Kai," Sorei whispered, her breath catching in the air as gold threads swam around her palms. "They're something else."
Caelus blinked. His right hand, the one he cast with, trembled. He looked down. His fingernails had cracked—bleeding a faint silver. He clenched it shut.
"They're adapted," he said. "Discord's making something new."
One of the creatures tilted its head at the sound of his voice.
It grinned.
Branick raised his shield, stepping in front of the injured. "Formation," he ordered. They listened, even now. Even shaking.
Caelus stood apart, arms slack at his sides. The cold didn't touch him. The snow circled him, hesitant. Respectful.
Still, a sharp whisper pricked the edge of his mind. A memory. No—a prophecy?
"Here marks the shatterpoint—where reason breaks and ice remembers."
He stepped forward once.
The white-eyed beasts vanished.
No puff of snow. No noise. Just gone.
Alaris let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Did you—did we win?"
"No," Caelus said, still staring at the place they vanished. "We've been seen."
And for the first time since stepping into Norkenheim, the cold wasn't just cold.
It felt... watched.
Sorei staggered as the group moved again.
At first, no one noticed. The wind howled, and their boots crunched over frostbitten stone. But her steps began to lag—one foot dragging slightly, her breathing shallow, wrists trembling. Caelus, who walked ahead, slowed without turning.
She'd healed Erenz. And Cinna. And Branick's shoulder, cracked from a shield clash earlier. That should have been her limit.
But she had gone further.
Gold rings orbited her back like tired halos, pulsing with frayed light. The magic within them shimmered—not bright, but fraying, threads torn at the edges. The cost wasn't just mana. It was experience.
"Wait," Alaris called softly.
Cinna turned just in time to catch Sorei as she collapsed onto one knee, her arm bracing against the cold. "I'm fine," she muttered. "It's just a shadow ache. Residue."
"It's not," Cinna said, crouching beside her. Her fingers moved quickly, runes sparking faint wind around her skin—to keep the frost from biting deeper. "You took too much from Erenz. That leg break would've made anyone pass out. You didn't just heal it. You felt it."
Sorei closed her eyes. "I had to. He was screaming."
Behind them, Branick stood silent as always, shield on his back. But his eyes lingered on her longer than usual. Quiet approval. Quiet worry.
Caelus finally turned. "You're an Ilvera. You transfer wounds."
"It's not transfer," she said through her teeth. "It's sharing. I give them peace. But I take a little of the pain. Not all. Not always."
His eyes were unreadable. "And when it becomes all?"
Sorei didn't answer. She looked away, toward the snow, where shadows slid just beneath the surface—slow, deliberate shapes that mimicked their movement from below. One of them had a limp.
She exhaled. "We have to keep going."
"No," Caelus said, kneeling. "You're burning too fast."
He pressed two fingers to her temple. Not forceful. Not cold.
Just still.
Time slowed. Her pain—the phantom swelling in her joints, the dull roar behind her ribs, the migraines blooming behind her eyes—all stilled.
But unlike Erenz, he didn't reverse her time. He didn't erase it.
He paused her pain.
Sorei blinked, stunned. "You can do that?"
"No," Caelus murmured. "But I just did."
Cinna watched him warily. "You're tearing holes doing that, aren't you?"
"No," Caelus repeated. Then: "Yes."
Above them, the wind howled—and for a second, it sounded like laughter.
A new shape stood in the distance. Not charging. Just… watching.
It had white claws. But this one was taller than the rest.
And it was wearing a human face.
They didn't move like beasts.
They moved like echoes.
Six White Claws stood in a loose arc ahead of them—some crouched, some upright, all twitching in slow, stuttering intervals. Their pale fur rippled in wrong directions. Their eyes were full moons. No pupils. No soul.
One raised its claw—and mimicked Cinna's shield rune exactly, with a twitching spiral of frost on its forearm.
Cinna froze. "That's mine."
"What is?" Kairos asked.
"That rune. That's my handwriting."
The mimic didn't attack. It just tilted its head, exactly as Cinna did a heartbeat later.
Sorei pulled herself up, trembling. "They're copying us."
"Not just us," Caelus muttered. "They're copying our presence. Our timeline. That's how they're bypassing the fog. They're tethered to us."
He stepped forward, and sure enough—so did the largest White Claw, the one that watched him earlier.
It moved slowly, as if dragging a broken string behind it.
And then it spoke.
Not in language. In tone.
It breathed out in Alaris' voice, soft and precise:
"Cautious. Calculated. Controlled. Cracking."
Alaris recoiled, hand at his dagger. "That's what I said—hours ago."
Branick raised his shield. The other Claws twitched, but still didn't advance.
"They're not attacking," Kairos said. "So what the hell do they want?"
"To be us," Caelus whispered.
The words came to him not as a theory—but as a certainty. Something in the snow... fed it to him. Truth without logic.
"They're stitched from time fragments. Reflections of our worst moments. Discord didn't create them whole—it recorded us."
Cinna stared at her copy. It blinked. So did she.
She suddenly whirled a wind rune and hurled it sideways—not at her mimic, but between two of them.
They didn't react.
"No defense instincts," she said. "They're not learning. Just copying."
One of the Claws stepped forward, limping like Sorei. Its head jerked in intervals, exactly matching her breath.
Caelus clenched his fist. "They'll keep reflecting us. Growing more accurate. If we falter—they'll become us."
"That's not how mirrors work," Alaris said.
"In Norkenheim," Caelus replied, "everything breaks eventually. Even mirrors."
The wind stilled.
The large mimic took one step closer—then crouched. It wasn't threatening.
It was mourning.
Its body trembled like it was sobbing, though no sound came. Caelus took a breath—and then, for a moment, he saw it differently:
The creature was trying to remember who it had once been.
Erenz stepped forward.
"Don't—" Cinna began.
But Erenz was already whispering, "Lyenne?"
The creature looked up.
And smiled.
The smile on the White Claw's face should've been impossible.
Its jaw wasn't made for it. The skin—if it was skin—stretched too tight. But it formed a smile anyway, crooked and human, and it looked like her.
Lyenne.
Erenz's steps were slow, reverent. His wrist blades stayed sheathed. His breath clouded the air in steady tremors.
"You always smiled first," he whispered. "Before casting. You always… laughed at danger."
The creature cocked its head. A braid of frozen sinew slid down one side—mimicking Lyenne's habit of tying her hair before a duel.
"Erenz," Cinna warned, "that's not her."
"I know," he murmured. "But I—I just want to look."
Behind them, the others stayed alert. Sorei trembled in silence. Branick moved only when the snow stirred. Caelus said nothing. He was watching the creature's eyes—not its form.
Eyes told time.
And this one had too much.
Erenz crouched in front of the mimic. It didn't attack.
"I should've gone back for you," he said. "I should've run into the snow when I felt you vanish. But I listened to reason. And it killed you."
The mimic tilted its head—and then it spoke.
Lyenne's voice. Clear. Cracked.
"You did run, silly. You're still running."
Erenz's mouth went dry. The voice—it wasn't just hers. It was from that day.
"Do you remember what you told me?"
"You said—'Next time, I'll be faster.'"
His knees buckled. "No," he breathed.
Cinna tried to move, but the wind around them froze mid-spin. A time pulse flared.
Caelus stepped forward, casting the field into a haze of shifting amber light. "Stop this," he said to the mimic.
But the mimic didn't even look at him.
It was staring directly at Erenz—who trembled now, eyes wet. "Just say it," he begged. "Tell me you forgive me."
The mimic blinked. And in Lyenne's voice, it said:
"I don't remember how to hate you."
Then it lunged.
A blur. Wrist blades unsheathed. A heartbeat too slow.
Caelus reacted first—pulling time taut between Erenz and the creature. The mimic hit the slowed air like a net, frozen mid-motion.
Its skin warped. Its smile twisted.
And then it split apart, silently, into a flurry of memory-light—like pages from a journal caught in wind.
Erenz dropped to his knees. His blades clattered beside him.
Caelus lowered his hand. "You asked for forgiveness from a corpse wrapped in memory. You can't heal through phantoms."
Erenz didn't respond.
Behind them, another howl rose.
But it didn't come from a beast.
It came from within the snow—like the land itself was screaming.
They walked in silence now.
Even Erenz had nothing left to say. His eyes were hollow—not empty, but full of everything he couldn't speak. His blades hung loose at his sides, dragging shallow lines in the snow.
The terrain had changed again.
What was once a jagged tundra had softened into something smooth, too smooth. A flat plain of glass-like frost stretched in all directions. Yet when they looked down—there were no reflections. Only shadows.
And the shadows moved wrong.
They walked in rhythm, one for one—until Kairos blinked. His own shadow staggered, then paused, then froze completely. His feet moved forward. His shadow stayed.
He stopped. So did the shadow.
It looked up at him.
"Kairos?" Alaris said gently.
"I… I'm not sure we're alone anymore."
They gathered tighter. Cinna spun a slow barrier rune, wind curling low and quiet around their boots. Sorei's rings dimmed to a hush. Branick scanned the field with his shield raised.
Caelus tilted his head.
Even the air felt off. Like sound itself was being absorbed.
Then—
Alaris gasped.
His shadow had multiplied. There were two of them now. One standing beside him, identical. But when he moved, the second one didn't.
It raised its hand.
"Everyone, don't move," Caelus whispered. "Not all of these shadows are ours."
Kairos exhaled, trying not to shake. "Then whose are they?"
A hush.
And then—
His own voice replied:
"Yours. For now."
He spun. No one had spoken.
The others had heard it too.
Sorei began to breathe faster. Her fingers twitched. One of the shadows twitched back—like a mirror trying to predict her panic.
Then she screamed.
Branick was beside her in an instant, shielding her from nothing and everything. But there was no attack. Nothing had touched her.
"I saw—" she gasped. "I saw myself dead. Not killed. Just… broken. Curled up in the cold. Smiling."
Cinna stepped closer. "It's a projection. The land's echoing our deaths."
"No," Caelus said softly. "Not our deaths. Our most likely deaths."
The weight of those words settled hard.
"Why would a land do that?" Alaris whispered.
"Because Discord doesn't kill with fire or blade," Caelus said. "It kills with doubt."
He turned his palm upward.
For a second, his skin flickered—glowing with faint, spiral sigils. Ancient magic that should've been sealed.
He clenched his hand into a fist.
The shadows retreated an inch.
Then he looked at the horizon.
"The temple is near."
And ahead, through the frost, a vast black dome had appeared—silent, waiting.
Like it had always known they'd come.
The dome rose from the frost like a buried god's skull—smooth, matte black, veined with faint cracks that pulsed dimly in a rhythm none of them recognized.
It wasn't ancient in the way ruins were ancient.
It felt recent.
Fresh.
As if it had grown here.
Caelus stood at the edge of its shadow, eyes narrowed.
"This was never here," Kairos said. "I studied the Norkenheim maps. This wasn't on any of them."
"It wasn't meant to be found," Caelus replied. "But now that it's seen us—"
"It wants us inside," Alaris finished.
They approached as a group.
The entrance was a single arch carved from obsidian ribs—wide enough for giants, yet small enough to trap a soul. As they passed through it, each one felt the air tighten.
No sound. No wind.
Inside was a circular hall, walls smooth as ice, and completely dark—until Caelus stepped in.
The walls lit up.
Not with torches. Not with spells.
With screams.
Thousands of echoing, silent images writhed across the dome's surface—figures twisting, crying, clutching their own faces. Each scream repeated without voice, caught in an infinite loop of time.
Sorei fell to her knees.
Branick reached for her—but even his hand trembled.
"These aren't memories," Caelus murmured. "They're recordings. This temple was seeded by Discord itself."
Cinna raised a hand. "Why show us this?"
"To test who breaks first," Caelus replied.
One of the images rippled and transformed—into him.
Not how he was now.
Younger. Bloodstained. Holding a dying boy in his arms.
Kairos turned away. "Don't look."
But Alaris was frozen. "Caelus, is that—?"
"Another me," he whispered. "Another timeline. Another failure."
Suddenly, the dome groaned—deep and resonant. The floor shifted.
A psychic scream tore through the chamber.
Not through their ears.
Through their minds.
Branick reacted first—shoving his shield into the floor and anchoring it, the runes across its surface cracking from the strain.
The scream passed.
But the air felt thinner now. Like something had been sucked out of each of them.
"You okay?" Cinna asked Branick.
The big man didn't answer. His hand bled where it gripped the shield.
Caelus moved to the center of the room.
There, in the hollow center, lay a fragment of black glass—hovering just an inch above the ground. It pulsed.
He reached out.
And saw—himself.
Lying cold, white-eyed, buried under a mountain of frost. Forgotten. Alone.
The vision snapped shut.
"I saw your death too," Kairos said, voice quiet. "But that wasn't this timeline."
"No," Caelus whispered. "But it's the one this place wants."
He turned his back on the vision. The fragment cracked behind him, dissolving.
And the dome opened its far wall—revealing the path forward.
A narrow ascent.
One final climb.
The path up wasn't a path at all.
No trail. No marks. Just jagged obsidian ribs slanting up into the storm like a spine—and beyond them, a violet shimmer in the sky: the edge of Norkenheim. The final ridge.
"We're close," Caelus said.
No one replied.
They were bruised, burned, half-starved, hallucinating. Erenz hadn't spoken since the Hollow Dome. Sorei limped. Branick had tied one arm to his chest—dislocated in the last echo quake.
Alaris muttered, "We climb. Now or never."
They did.
Each step was an argument against collapse. The air thinned. Snow became ash. Wind stopped blowing—but still, the cold bit deeper.
Midway up the slope, the ridge glitched.
Alaris and Caelus froze. Their combined field—meant to stabilize reality—twitched, like a lens cracking at its edge.
Cinna called out, "Hold. Something's ahead."
They crouched low. The shimmer rippled. From it stepped one final White Claw.
But this one was different.
It didn't run. Didn't howl.
It stood tall and still, its head bowed low. One clawed arm raised in what looked like… submission.
The group exchanged looks.
Branick whispered, "Is it surrendering?"
Caelus narrowed his eyes. "No. It's mimicking surrender."
"Then what do we do?" Kairos asked.
Before anyone could answer, Sorei took a step forward.
"Don't—" Caelus warned.
But she approached anyway—rings orbiting dimly, warily. The White Claw did not move.
She stopped a few feet away.
Then, in a whisper: "Who are you copying?"
It raised its face.
It was hers.
Not exactly—but enough. The hair. The posture. The rings, faintly mirrored as bone spines.
Sorei didn't flinch.
"You followed us this far," she said, "but never attacked."
"I remember pain," the creature rasped—not in words, but in thought. "It anchored you."
It raised a claw and tapped its own heart. Then it froze entirely.
No breath. No motion. Solid.
Frozen.
Dead.
Caelus stepped beside her, warily inspecting the body.
"No rot," he said. "No spell."
"Maybe it copied too much," Sorei whispered. "Maybe it wanted to feel… like me."
Cinna knelt beside it and carefully plucked something from the creature's eye socket—a small, glinting piece of coded crystal shaped like a pupil.
"Data anchor," she muttered. "I'm keeping this."
The air around them began to shudder.
Above, the veil that marked Norkenheim's edge glowed bright blue. Threads of shimmering light twisted in the sky, like torn fabric trying to stitch itself closed.
"We're breaching," Caelus said.
"Final climb," Alaris nodded.
They pressed on.
Behind them, the White Claw's frozen form cracked—just once. And from the cracks, light poured.
Not blood. Not ice.
Just memory.
Snow, at last, fell the way it should.
Not sideways, not convulsing, not writhing like a wounded thing—but gently. Ashen flakes melted before they touched the group's shoulders, steam curling where the cursed frost met the lingering heat of magic. The sky above Norkenheim, once bruised and ruptured by unnatural light, slowly sealed itself. Where Lyenne had stood, there was nothing now—no bones, no body. Only the deep scorched crater etched in concentric rings, pulsing faintly with light magic that shimmered like star-glass.
No one spoke.
Kairos was kneeling by Sorei, gripping her hand. His face, usually unreadable, twisted between grief and awe. Alaris was breathing heavily, his left palm still glowing faintly with null magic after shielding Cinna and Erenz during the final burst.
Erenz stood. Slowly. His blades hung uselessly at his sides. Heidn't look at the crater—he lookeked at Caelus.
"You burned a god."
Caelus didn't respond. He stood some distance away, his cloak flaring in the wind, one hand open and steaming. His breathing was shallow. His time magic had already begun to mend the fractures in Sorei's ribs and Branick's broken arm—turning time backward within their flesh, as if the wounds had never existed. It left golden threads in the air, shimmering like strands of memory.
Erenz took a step forward.
"She was going to kill us," he said, almost to himself. "And you just—"
"She's not dead," Caelus murmured without turning.
Everyone froze.
Alaris straightened. "...What?"
"I disintegrated her form here. But Lyenne is a Shardbearer. Her essence will scatter until Discord wills it to return." Caelus turned at last, his expression distant. "We've bought time. Nothing more."
A long silence followed.
Then, from the ridge ahead, a flicker of color—pink, then violet, then neon blue. Faint, but growing.
Caelus narrowed his eyes. "Deladolpheous."
There it was.
Past the final jagged slope, past the dying storm, hovered the distant city: suspended in layers of light and mist. No visible sky above it—only blinding lights, advertisements in a thousand languages flickering across airborne panels. Glass spires stretched upward like antennae trying to pierce the heavens. Whole towers were inverted, upside down, floating beneath bridges of magnetic rail. Rain was falling there too, but it shimmered—not water, but glittering code refracting in geometric pulses.
Alaris stepped beside Caelus. "We made it."
Branick, his shield now strapped across his back, helped Sorei to her feet. Cinna stood beside Erenz, who stared up at the lights like someone seeing the world for the first time.
As they crossed the last ridge, snow gave way to paved alloy. The border was subtle—like stepping between dreams. Norkenheim didn't end. Deladolpheous simply began.
Caelus glanced once more behind him.
Norkenheim was already sealing shut. The snow no longer remembered their footprints.