Cel's fingers closed around a jagged fragment, its edges sharp enough to part skin with the gentlest touch. Blood welled from tiny cuts across his palm, warm and real in this world of crystalline lies.
His laughter had faded to breathless giggles, but his expression remained - a savage mask of joy that belonged on no sane face.
His father's towering form stepped forward, his mirror-born body showing the first signs of instability - thin cracks that wept luminous tears.
"You will always be—"
"ALWAYS BE WHAT?" Cel shrieked, voice breaking into hysterical laughter as he lunged forward. The shard punched through Lord Aldric's chest with a sound like winter ice cracking. "Always be ALIVE? Always be STANDING?"
His father's mouth hung open in shock, silver light pouring from the wound. Cel's giggles turned savage as he twisted the blade deeper.
"What? Nothing to say?" He grinned up at his father's dying face. "Where are all those WONDERFUL words?"
Then Lord Aldric exploded, fragments scattering across the obsidian floor. Cel threw back his head and laughed at the beautiful destruction, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Son." His mother's voice drifted from behind him, soft as falling snow.
He whirled to face her, that terrible smile stretching wider. She stood with one hand pressed to her throat, her crystalline body catching the phosphorescent light.
"I tried to protect you," she whispered. "But you wouldn't let me."
"PROTECT me?" The words came out in a strangled shriek. "You TRIED? You stood there and WATCHED!"
The fragment drove through her throat before she could finish the lie. Her form shuddered, light bleeding from the wound like luminous blood.
"How's that for protection?" Cel giggled as she burst into countless pieces. "Much better than what you gave me!"
Darian stepped forward, fractures already visible in his translucent flesh. His fists remained clenched at his sides, unchanged from that moment of cowardice.
"I couldn't risk it," Darian said, hollow-voiced. "You understand, don't you? My inheritance, my position... I couldn't throw it all away."
Cel's laughter turned bitter, edged with something that might have once been grief. "Oh, I understand PERFECTLY, brother." He hefted the phosphorescent shard, his grin turning feral. "You were always so good at strategy. Cost versus benefit, wasn't it?"
"I had no choice!"
"Haha!" Cel's arm moved with violent joy. The fragment caught his brother in the chest. "Brothers don't weigh POLITICS against BLOOD!"
Darian's form held longer than the others, crystalline features cracking slowly. "You would have done the same," he said, his voice growing fainter as fractures spread. "In my position... you would have made the same choice."
"Would I?" Cel's laughter bubbled up fresh and wild. "We'll never know!"
Then Darian shattered, and Cel giggled at the beautiful sound of his excuses dying.
The clan members fell next in sprays of silver light, each destruction punctuated by his delirious mockery. The servants burst like glass ornaments while he made jokes about their loyalty. The cultists shattered into glittering fragments as his laughter grew hoarse but never stopped
With each killing, something shifted. The crushing weight of their judgment shattered alongside them. But the madness remained, coloring everything with bitter joy.
Soon, only one figure remained among the mirrored ruins.
This reflection wore Cel's current face with the lean severity of the starved. It stood perfectly still among the glittering debris, watching him with eyes that held no accusation, no mockery. Only the blank stare of someone who had stopped caring.
The sight of it made Cel's laughter falter. His smile wavered for the first time since the violence began.
"You missed one," it said simply.
Cel's hand shook as he raised the shard. Blood ran in steady streams from his lacerated palm. The madness was draining away now, leaving behind something rawer.
"I know."
The reflection didn't move, didn't flinch as Cel approached. It just watched with those hollow eyes - the eyes of someone who had given up long before the first blow fell.
"You're the worst of them," Cel said, his voice hoarse from laughter and screaming. "You're the one who let it all happen."
The reflection said nothing. It simply stood there, passive and broken, everything Cel had refused to become.
"Say something!" Cel snarled, raising the shard higher. "Fight back! Argue! Anything!"
But the reflection remained silent, indifferent. That empty acceptance was worse than any sneer or mockery.
Cel's fury reignited, burning away the last traces of his savage joy. This thing wearing his face represented every moment he'd wanted to give up, every second he'd considered letting them win.
"This ends now," he said through gritted teeth.
The reflection finally moved, lips curving into the faintest smile - not cruel, not twisted, just... knowing.
"Does it?"
"It does!" Cel drove the shard deep into its chest. Cracks spread across the reflection's surface, but that small, terrible smile never wavered.
As the fractures reached its face, the reflection spoke at last:
"We will see."
With that, it shattered completely, leaving Cel alone among the ruins of his past. The silence that followed felt expectant. As if the world itself were holding its breath.
Then, the crystalline walls began to shake.
Hairline fractures appeared in the black glass, spreading outward like spider webs. The phosphorescent glow flickered and pulsed. A grinding roar filled the air as the walls collapsed inward.
An invisible fist seized him and hurled him backward. The world became a blur of spinning light and shadow, his stomach lurching as he tumbled through empty space.
He slammed into jagged stone with enough force to drive the breath from his lungs. Stars exploded across his vision as his head cracked against crystal.
Slowly, the world swam back into focus.
The four suns had vanished behind the crystalline peaks, leaving only the soft ghostly glow of crystalline formations to paint everything in familiar, hostile violet hues. Night had fallen over the maze - the real maze.
Crushing fatigue settled into his limbs. Every muscle felt leaden, hands shaking with the aftershocks of what he'd just experienced. Cel's face felt strange, unfamiliar - the manic grin finally relaxing into something hollow. The fevered heat that had driven him through the violence drained away, leaving only cold emptiness in its wake.
Eventually, Cel pushed himself up on trembling arms. The silence pressed against his damaged eardrums like cotton. No whispers. No accusations. Just the hollow quiet that had become his constant companion.
His eyes found the lake's surface, expecting to see that perfect mirror that had started his torment. Instead, the liquid stretched before him like polished obsidian, absolutely flat and utterly empty. No reflections stared back. Not the crystals, not the dark sky, not even his own battered form.
Nothing.
Cel crept closer, heart hammering. As he gazed into that perfect emptiness, unease crept up his spine. The absence felt wrong somehow, too complete. It was as if the lake had devoured not just his painful memories, but his very existence.
A tremor ran through the ground.
The vibration traveled up through his knees, subtle but unmistakable. Cel froze, every instinct screaming danger. The lake's surface remained perfectly still, but something had changed.
Another tremor, stronger this time.
Cel took a careful step backward, never taking his eyes off the void. The silence that had plagued him since the previous day felt different now - not empty, but waiting. As if the world were holding its breath.
The liquid began to ripple.
It started as barely perceptible movement at the center, rings spreading outward like a stone dropped into still water. But there had been no stone. No disturbance except the trembling ground beneath his feet.
The ripples grew larger, more violent. The boundaries of the lake shuddered, then began to push outward. Dark liquid seeped across the crystalline ground like spilled ink, moving with unnatural purpose.
Cel's blood turned to ice. Whatever he had unleashed by destroying the reflections, it wasn't finished with him.
His eyes swept the maze walls until they found the distant spire piercing the darkening sky like a needle of violet light.
He had to move. Now.
Cel's legs shook from exhaustion. Every step felt like walking through deep sand, his body protesting the abuse it had endured. He stumbled more than ran, one shoulder scraping against crystal walls for support. The hysterical euphoria that had carried him through the violence was gone, leaving behind a hollow ache that seemed to echo in his bones.
The crystals around him pulsed with soft violet light, releasing the energy they'd absorbed from the four suns throughout the day. The ethereal radiance painted everything in ghostly hues, casting eerie shadows that made the passages seem to writhe and shift.
Minutes crawled by. Or maybe hours. Time felt as broken as everything else in this place. His breathing grew ragged, each inhalation burning his throat. The cuts on his palm from gripping the shard had reopened, leaving a trail of dark spots on the luminescent ground behind him.
A vibration through the crystal walls made him freeze - not the gentle tremors from before, but something deliberate. Something following his bloody trail.
Cel pressed himself against the nearest wall, heart hammering. The vibration came again, stronger now. A rhythmic pulse through the stone, like something vast dragging itself forward. The void wasn't just spreading - it was hunting.
It was hunting him.
A sharp turn brought him face-to-face with a dead end.
Behind him, the vibrations grew stronger - rhythmic pulses through stone punctuated by sharp, staccato tremors. The void crept around the corner, its perfect darkness swallowing the crystals' glow as it climbed the walls.
His fingers found purchase on razor-sharp crystal edges. Each grip sliced deeper into his lacerated palm, warm blood making the surfaces slippery, but he hauled himself upward, crystal by agonizing crystal. The jagged formations cut through his already torn rags, leaving fresh wounds along his arms and chest.
He pulled himself over the crystalline barrier just as the void reached where he'd been standing, rolling away from the wall and landing hard on his side. Shattered crystal fragments bit into his skin. For a moment he lay there gasping, blood filling his mouth.
When he finally lifted his head, the spire loomed larger against the dark sky. And before it, carved into the hillside and bathed in the crystals' gentle radiance, the familiar silhouette of the ruined structure.
His sanctuary.
Cel forced himself to his feet, stumbling forward across the crystalline ground. Every step sent fresh jolts of pain through his battered body, but he pressed on until the flat maze floor gave way to a rocky slope that forced him into a slow, stumbling climb. His legs felt like they were made of wet rope, muscles cramping at every move. His breathing grew labored as the incline steepened.
Behind him, vibrations through the ground told him the void was still coming.
His hands found purchase on jutting stones and glowing crystal outcroppings, pulling himself up the steep slope one painful grip at a time. The ethereal light helped him find handholds, but his vision kept narrowing to tunnels of gray at the edges.
The ancient threshold seemed impossibly far above him. His arms shook with each pull, threatening to give out entirely. But the alternative was the void, and that thought alone kept him moving.
Finally, he hauled himself over the broken threshold and collapsed inside the ruin's embrace. The stone floor was cold against his cheek, solid and real. He lay there for long minutes, chest heaving.
Only when his breathing steadied and strength began to return did he force himself to look back outside.
The liquid had reached the bottom of the hill, its absolute darkness a stark contrast to the crystals' soft glow. It lapped against the rocky slope but stopped there, as if some invisible barrier held it at bay.
He pressed his back against the nearest wall and slid down until he was sitting. His fingers traced the ancient carved stones, each fissure familiar as old scars. Whatever force had built this place held fast against the encroaching void.
"Thank you," he whispered to the ancient stones.