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The shelves ended with no warning. One moment Elias and Lyra were winding through endless rows of tomes, and the next, the floor fell away into open air.
They stood at the edge of a vast cavern, its ceiling lost in shadows, its expanse filled with a still, black lake. The water was flawless, unbroken glass, reflecting the faint glow of their lantern as though another world lay just beneath its surface.
Elias stepped forward cautiously, lantern raised. The reflection moved with uncanny sharpness. Not just his face and Lyra's beside him, but details the eye shouldn't catch—every tremor in his hand, every flicker of doubt in his eyes.
Lyra's voice was quiet. "This place is old. Older than the Library. Some say it is the Realm itself, looking back at those who walk it."
Elias swallowed, unease prickling at his skin. "So it's… another trial?"
"Always."
He crouched near the edge, peering deeper. At first, the water showed only their reflections. But the longer he stared, the more the surface shifted. Shadows stretched behind him where none stood. His reflection's eyes grew darker, its mouth quirking into a smile he didn't make.
He jerked back. The reflection lingered a moment longer before snapping back to perfect mimicry.
Lyra crouched beside him. "The Mirror Lake reveals not what you are, but what you might become. Every choice, every weakness, every temptation. It is not the future—it is possibility, waiting to be claimed."
Elias felt his chest tighten. "I've already seen enough of those," he muttered, thinking of the Library storm.
"Not like this," Lyra said. Her tone carried weight, like warning.
The water rippled without cause. Elias's reflection stepped forward from within the water, pressing its hand against the surface as though the boundary between realms was paper-thin.
He staggered back, lantern flaring brighter. The flame shimmered on the glassy water, and in its light the reflection's features shifted. It was him, but not—cloaked in darkness, eyes hollow, holding a quill that bled ink like poison.
The reflection whispered without sound, lips forming words Elias already knew: I can bring him back. Only through me.
Elias's throat went dry. His father's shadow flickered faintly behind the reflection, too far to grasp, too close to ignore.
Lyra's hand touched his arm, grounding him. "Do not reach," she said firmly. "The Lake offers power, not truth. If you claim it, it will claim you."
Elias clenched his fists, torn between revulsion and yearning. The Lake knew him too well—it showed exactly what he craved most, what he feared most. His father's absence was an open wound, and here was the cruelest balm: a reflection of himself who had found the way.
But as the water stilled again, Elias noticed something else. The reflection's lantern was dark. No fox, no flame—only emptiness.
The sight chilled him more than anything.
Elias stepped back, lantern clutched close. "No," he whispered. His voice cracked, but the conviction held. "That isn't me."
The shadow-smile of his reflection faltered. Cracks spread across the water's surface, light breaking through as if the false world beneath was splintering. The image dissolved, shattering into ripples that carried across the Lake.
The cavern quaked, but only faintly, like a heartbeat. Then all was still again. The Lake returned to calm black glass.
Lyra exhaled, relief slipping through her usually composed face. "You resisted. That is no small feat."
Elias wiped his palms against his tunic, his body trembling. "It felt so real. Like if I'd just reached, I could have—"
"You would have drowned," Lyra interrupted. Her eyes were sharp, but not unkind. "The Lake lures with promises. It cannot give you your father. Only your own ruin."
Elias nodded slowly, though the ache in his chest remained. He looked once more at the Lake, but the water gave nothing back now—only his tired reflection, lantern flickering faintly in hand.
The fox's flame pulsed once, as though approving.
And for the first time, Elias understood: the Lake did not only test him. It measured him, too—deciding if he was worthy of the path ahead.
---
Elias lingered near the edge, still trembling from what he had seen. The water looked harmless now—calm, empty—but he no longer trusted the stillness.
He turned to Lyra. She stood a few paces away, eyes fixed on the Lake's surface. She hadn't moved since he shattered his reflection.
"Lyra?" Elias asked carefully.
She didn't answer. Her breath had slowed, her gaze locked so deeply into the water that he wondered if she even heard him.
The lantern light stretched across the surface, bending around her. And then Elias saw it: her reflection did not match her movements.
Where Lyra stood tall and steady, her mirror self knelt in the water, unmasked, her blade discarded beside her. In the reflection's hands was something small—a child, swaddled and fragile.
Elias froze.
Lyra's eyes flickered, only slightly, but he caught the faintest tremor in her stance. She had seen it too.
The reflection-Lyra held the child close, her features unguarded, softer than Elias had ever seen. But even as she cradled it, the shadows around her swelled—reaching, hungry, eager to take.
The reflection looked up. For an instant, her eyes met Elias's through the Lake, and though no words were spoken, he felt the message as surely as if it had been carved into him: Do not tell her you saw.
Elias's throat tightened. He wanted to step closer, to break the spell as she had done for him. But something in the flame of his lantern held him back. The fox's presence hummed like a warning: This is not your trial to interrupt.
Lyra drew a sharp breath, shoulders tensing. Her reflection wavered, torn between the cradle and the shadows. Then, with visible effort, Lyra turned her face away from the water.
The reflection cracked. The image of the child dissolved into smoke, swallowed by the glassy surface.
Only her true reflection remained, standing tall, mask intact.
Elias looked at her, but Lyra said nothing. She smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear, lifted her blade again, and gestured toward the narrow stone path that wound across the Lake.
"We move," she said. Her tone was steady, but too steady—iron forged against an old wound.
Elias wanted to ask, Who was the child? But the weight in her voice, the set of her shoulders, told him she would not answer. Not here. Maybe not ever.
So he said only, "Right," and fell into step beside her.
They walked the stone path in silence. Beneath them, the Lake reflected their lantern's glow, two flames moving side by side. Yet Elias couldn't shake the sense that the Lake had marked them both—seen what they carried, what they feared, what they longed for.
And though neither spoke of it, each knew the other had glimpsed more than words could admit.
---
The stone path was narrow, no wider than a man's shoulders. Elias kept his eyes fixed on the steps before him, each one slick with condensation. The lantern's glow painted the water in trembling lines of gold, but beyond that shimmer stretched only endless black.
Lyra moved ahead with the confidence of someone accustomed to such crossings. Her boots didn't falter, her mask turned forward, her posture straight as a blade. Elias envied it—but when his own foot slipped against the damp stone, a shard of panic flared through him.
The sound was small, but it rippled.
Beneath their feet, the water shifted.
The Lake was no longer still. Rings of motion spread outward from where his boot had struck, wider and wider, distorting the reflection of the lantern flame. Elias froze, the lantern clutched tight in his hand.
"Keep walking," Lyra said sharply, without turning. Her tone was command, but Elias could hear the tension beneath it.
He forced his foot forward. Another step. Then another.
The water rippled again, but not from him this time. From below.
Something pale brushed the surface—a hand, long-fingered and thin as parchment. Another followed. Soon, shapes were rising from beneath the glass, pulling themselves up through their own reflections as though the water was only a veil.
They were human in outline but hollow, their faces smeared with shifting ink, eyes nothing but cavities. Pages of sodden parchment clung to their limbs like tattered skin. Each one dripped words into the Lake that dissolved before Elias could read them.
Lyra halted, drawing her blade with a hiss of steel. "Reflections untethered," she muttered. "Stay close."
Elias's breath came fast. "What do they want?"
Her voice was grim. "To pull you under. To keep you with them."
The first of the creatures crawled onto the path, its hollow mouth gaping open in a soundless scream. Elias raised the lantern instinctively, and the fox-flame inside flared—bright enough that the thing recoiled, hissing, the ink running from its body like melted wax.
"Good," Lyra said. "The lantern burns them." She slashed her blade through another, scattering its form back into liquid shadow.
But more came. Dozens of them, rising on both sides, dragging themselves onto the path. The narrow walkway became a gauntlet, crowded with clawing hands and gaping faces.
Elias's heart thundered. He swung the lantern wide, sending arcs of golden firelight across the figures. Some disintegrated, but others only staggered, regrouping, reaching again.
One lurched too close. Cold fingers brushed Elias's wrist, and for an instant he saw his reflection's shadow-smile flash in its hollow face.
"No!" Elias shouted, wrenching his hand free. The lantern blazed brighter than before, a fox-shape leaping from the flame and darting across the water's surface. The specter of fire swept through the nearest figures, scattering them into smoke.
Lyra glanced back briefly, eyes flashing. "You're learning."
The path narrowed further ahead, the Lake pressing in close on either side. Elias's muscles screamed from holding the lantern high, from resisting the pull of the hollow hands. Still, he pressed forward, following Lyra's sure-footed stride, the flame snapping with each step.
Finally—after what felt like hours but could only have been minutes—they reached the far side. Lyra slashed the last figure apart with a swift arc of her blade, then seized Elias's arm and hauled him onto solid ground.
The stone was cool beneath his boots. He nearly collapsed against it, chest heaving, the lantern dimming now that they were free of the press.
The Lake behind them rippled once more, then fell still. Perfectly still, as though nothing had disturbed it at all.
Elias leaned against the cavern wall, sweat streaking his face. His hand trembled around the lantern, the fox-flame within pulsing low but steady. He whispered, half to himself, "If I had fallen—"
"You didn't," Lyra interrupted. Her voice was firm, but she hadn't yet sheathed her blade. The mask couldn't hide the flicker of her eyes toward him, softer than her words allowed.
He swallowed, throat dry. "Did you see them? The faces—they weren't strangers."
Lyra hesitated, then lowered her blade at last. "No. They never are."
The two of them stood in silence, listening to the Lake's deceptive calm. Elias felt the weight of what lingered behind them—the whispers, the shadows, the offers—but he also felt the warmth of the lantern in his grip, a fragile light that had carried him through.
Beside him, Lyra straightened. "Come," she said. "The Lake shows what we fear. But the path forward waits."
Together, they turned from the water's edge. And though neither spoke of what they had seen, Elias knew: the Lake had carved its mark on them both.
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