The chamber pulsed like a living heart, its glow swelling and fading in rhythm with their breath. The orbs swirled closer, their whispers sharper now, more insistent.
Kaelen snarled, his fire flaring around him. "They're lies. Just tricks." He swung a hand through one orb, scattering it into mist. But three more drifted in, each bearing the same vision—himself, broken and burned out.
Lyra grit her teeth, lifting her molten blade. "They want us to believe these endings. If we do, they win."
The candle-bearer shook, clutching their little flame. "But they feel real. They feel… true." Their voice cracked. "What if this is what we become?"
The whispers sharpened into laughter. Orbs burst open like glass, spilling liquid shadows onto the floor. The shadows writhed, stretched, and solidified into forms—echoes of themselves.
Kaelen staggered back as a shadow-version of himself rose from the black puddle, fireless, eyes hollow, lips curved in a cruel sneer.
"You burn so brightly," it hissed, "only because you're afraid of how little you matter in the dark."
Another shadow emerged—Lyra's double, blade already fractured, her face streaked with tears.
"You think you're his strength," it whispered, "but he'll drag you into ruin. And you'll let him."
The candle-bearer whimpered as their own reflection crawled from the ground—a tiny figure clutching a guttering flame that smoked, coughing.
"You are nothing but a flicker. When you go out, no one will even remember you."
The room filled with their shadows, circling, whispering, pressing in with a weight heavier than any watcher's tendrils.
Kaelen's fire roared out, but the shadows didn't flinch. His double caught the flames in its bare hands and snuffed them like ash.
Lyra struck, her molten blade slicing through her doppelgänger—only to watch it split in two, each half reforming, whispering louder.
The candle-bearer curled tighter, their flame sputtering wildly.
The chamber's heartbeat quickened. The orbs above spun into a furious storm, raining down shards of light that burned like needles.
Kaelen's jaw tightened. For the first time since the watcher's fall, he felt something worse than exhaustion—he felt despair clawing at his ribs.
And then Lyra's hand gripped his shoulder. Her eyes locked onto his, steady, refusing to let the shadows take hold.
"They're not truth," she said fiercely. "They're tests. And if we let them in, we fail."
The candle-bearer's flame shook—but it steadied. Tiny, defiant, it cast a faint glow that pushed the nearest shadows back.
Kaelen inhaled sharply. His fire surged—not in rage, but in unity, feeding on the small light beside him and the unyielding steel in Lyra's gaze.
He rose, firestorm swirling.
"No," he told his shadow. "You're not my end. You're my enemy."
The room screamed. Shadows lunged. And the battle against themselves began.