They fell for what felt like hours, though no wind rushed past them, no ground waited below. Just endless light, folding and unfolding, until it suddenly stopped.
Carlos's boots touched solid stone.
He staggered forward, blinking. The citadel, the battlefield, the Keeper — all of it was gone. Around him stretched a vast plain of mirrors, each one standing taller than towers, their surfaces gleaming in shifting colors. They reflected not his body, but moments: fragments of his past, memories he had lived, and some he had never seen.
He heard his name. Soft at first, then sharper."Carlos?"
He spun. Lys stood only a few paces away, bow drawn but trembling slightly. Her reflection behind her was wrong — the mirrored Lys had black eyes, her arrow pointed at him.
Rina appeared to the left, blades glinting, her mirrored double grinning with malice. Thalor emerged next, shield in hand, but the figure in the glass looked broken, kneeling in shame. Maren came last, her reflection wreathed not in fire but in shadow, her staff dripping darkness instead of light.
"What… is this place?" she whispered, voice shaking.
Carlos turned in a circle, staring at the endless walls of glass. Each reflection shifted with every breath. Sometimes they were themselves, sometimes they were strangers, sometimes they were monsters.
A voice drifted across the plain, low and melodic, yet filled with venom:"Realm Four tested your strength. Realm Five tests your truth. Here, the Helm shows you not what is… but what you fear."
Lys's mirrored self lifted her bow. The arrow loosed — but not in the glass. The real Lys gasped, her own hands moving without her will, her arrow nearly striking Rina before Thalor's shield intercepted it.
"I didn't—!" Lys cried, horror in her voice.
Rina snarled, stepping back with blades raised. "Maybe you did."
Carlos threw himself between them. "Stop! This place wants us divided. That's the test!"
The mirrors rippled, laughter spilling from their surfaces like cracks in reality. Faces pressed against the glass — faces of their enemies, their families, their failures — each whispering lies tailored to their hearts.
Thalor froze as the mirror before him showed his dead brothers, accusing eyes filled with rage."You should have died with us," they whispered. His knees buckled, shield trembling.
Maren screamed as her reflection stepped free of the glass, staff dripping shadow. The dark Maren smiled."I am what you could be if you stopped pretending. You crave destruction."
Carlos tightened his grip on the Blade of Ascension. "No. This isn't real. None of it is real!"
But even as he said it, his own reflection stepped free of the glass — and it wore the Helm. Its eyes burned with cold fire. Its voice was his own, twisted and calm:"I am what you will become."
The others froze, watching as Carlos faced himself.
His reflection raised a blade identical to his.The Realm of Illusions had chosen its final test.