The battle was silent but brutal—blades made of broken glass, each cut echoing in the mirrors around them.
Arun stabbed his twin through the chest, but no blood came—only fragments, scattering like snow.
The Witch turned away. "Another name gone."
He reached the other side of the lake, exhausted, his shard dimming.
On the shore stood an archway of black glass, inscribed with a single phrase:
"He who walks unnamed may yet unmake the House."
Arun stepped through. His name slipped from his mind like water.
Beyond the archway lay a wasteland of shattered glass plains. The sky no longer shifted—it was frozen, cracked like a broken dome.
Arun tried to speak his own name, but nothing came. The Witch's eyes widened.
"You've crossed into the Nameless Lands. Here, only what you become matters."
He stumbled into a field of broken statues—figures kneeling, mouths open.
At night, they began to sing. The sound was hollow, made of breath and nothing else.
"Once, they were Watchers like you," the Witch whispered. "They chose wrongly. The House remembers their silence."
Varma appeared again, but this time his presence bent the air.
He carried a mirror on his back, glowing red.
"Arun, it's time," Varma said softly. "Give me the shard. Keep your soul. Or let the Nameless Lands devour you until nothing is left."
The shard in Arun's hand screamed—a sound only he could hear. It pulsed, burning his skin, begging not to be given up.
He clutched it tighter, ignoring Varma's smile.
"Then you've chosen suffering," Varma said, vanishing into the cracked sky.
The plains gave way to a forest—trees with bark of obsidian, leaves of sharp glass.
Each branch reflected moments of his life: laughing as a boy, grieving at his father's grave, the first time he saw the house.
He touched one leaf—and forgot the taste of his mother's cooking.