The Cathedral of Reflection

The archway led them into silence. Not the simple hush of empty halls, but a living quiet that pressed against the ear. The tunnel narrowed, its walls turning from stone to smooth black glass that rippled with faint light.

Oliver led. The hum that had followed them through the tunnels deepened into a tone that resonated through his chest.

Lilith moved closer, her hand brushing his arm. “You feel that, Trophy? It’s like the air is singing.”

“The Mirror Seed is near.” Fernwyn’s eyes traced the walls. “It is calling.”

The tunnel opened into a vast chamber shaped like an inverted dome. The ceiling disappeared into darkness, and the floor was made of water so still it looked solid. In the center stood a platform of silver stone, and upon it floated a sphere the size of a heart, spinning slowly in midair. Its surface shimmered like liquid glass, reflecting the chamber, the torchlight, and each of them in impossible angles.

‘God damn water!’

Oliver took a step forward, but Fernwyn caught his arm. “Careful. The reflections here may not belong to us.”

Yeah. That was a good point. They had just finished fighting doppelgangers of themselves only a few moments before. The flame’s light multiplied across the water, bending into shapes that moved against its rhythm. He watched one ripple and saw not his own reflection, but Mali’s. Her eyes glowed faintly green, her expression calm and unreadable.

There was only one way forward and Oliver decided it was the best call. Stupid, but they needed to do something. He stepped onto the water, and it held his weight like glass. Each footfall sent ripples of light across the surface. The air grew colder as he approached the platform.

When he reached it, he could see his face in the Seed’s mirrored surface. It shifted as he watched, showing him flashes of memory: Mali standing over him when they first met, her half-smile as she taught him how to channel, her quiet voice when she said she trusted him. Then those same moments darkened, her features changing into Mali’thra’s. The line between them blurred until he could no longer tell who he had truly known.

Behind him, Fernwyn spoke softly. “Whatever you see, it is only reflection. Do not believe it.”

He reached toward the Seed. The air around it shimmered, resisting his touch, then parted like water. His fingers brushed the surface.

The world shattered into light.

The chamber dissolved around him, replaced by a horizon of mirrors stretching into infinity. His reflection stood in front of him, staring back, but behind it moved another shape. A figure stepped forward from the shifting light—tall, graceful, and cloaked in black and emerald.

“Mali.”

She smiled faintly. “You sound afraid.”

“I should be.”

“Perhaps. But you should also understand.” She moved closer, the mirrors rippling with her presence. “I kept my promise, Oliver. I told you I would help you stop what comes. The Mirror Seed is the key, and only you could reach it. It would not allow me near.”

“You used me.”

“I guided you,” she corrected. “The difference is intention.”

Lilith’s voice echoed faintly from the real chamber, calling his name, but it felt far away.

Oliver’s pulse quickened. “If you truly meant to help, why trap them? Why make me fight you?”

“Because they would never follow me willingly,” she said. “They see what I was, not what I am. And you needed to see my truth before this moment.”

She extended her hand toward the Seed, and though she stood within the reflection, its surface rippled in answer. “The Seed reflects essence, not image. It reveals what is buried beneath faith and fear. Look again, Oliver. What do you see?”

He turned. The mirror no longer showed his face. Instead, it showed the city of Towers, streets, and a shadow spread from beneath the Cathedral. Within the ruin stood two figures: Mali and another woman with the same eyes, the same face, but colder, crueler. Melovala.

Mali’thra’s voice softened. “She is awakening. The Nazarak Seal did not fully break. I was the only one who was able to get out but it has been weakening since. Melovala will get out.”

“Then why did you need me to play this stupid game? You had the chronal shard and now you have the seed.”

“You misunderstand. They must be joined but I cannot do it. That is why the Bone Lord sent you. You are not of the Breach Between so much of the magic here does not understand how to handle you. You must you unite the two pieces and channel the energy. It is the only way to fix the Nazarak Seal.”

“And then we can send her back.”

Mali looked at him, a faint, sad, smile on her face. “It will send us both back.”

Oliver stared at her. “Both of you? You’re the one stopping her so you must not agree with her anymore.”

“I don’t but we are of the same. We are twins. We share the same bond, the same shadow. To make sure she cannot come through, I must return. That is the only way. Do not mourn me. This is something I knew when I made the decision.”

“What changed?”

Mali’thra sighed and gazed around her. “The Breach has changed since the war. We thought that those here could never become anything without our guiding hand. When they fought, we were insulted and felt the best option was to burn it all to the ground and restart. Seeing what everyone has accomplished, it is no longer needed. I like it.”

The mirrored horizon cracked. The real world bled through, the sound of Lilith shouting, Fernwyn’s call of his name, the roar of something vast. Mali’thra turned toward the sound. “She is here.”

The light behind her dimmed. A new reflection rose across every surface, spreading like a stain. Melovala’s face formed, her eyes a void of black flame. Her voice filled the chamber, soft and terrible. “Little sister. Did you forget me?”

The mirrors shattered.

Oliver stumbled back into the real chamber as Melovala’s presence flooded the air. The walls bent inward, glass melting into shapes that clawed at the ceiling. Lilith and Fernwyn stood on the far side, weapons drawn, their reflections twisting with each movement.

Mali’thra stepped from the air itself, her form wreathed in green light. She no longer looked entirely human. Her skin shimmered with threads of silver, her hair floating as though in water. She raised her hand, and the fragments of shattered mirror halted in midair.

“Go,” she said to Oliver. “Take the Seed and run.”

He hesitated. “You said you needed me to use it.”

“Not yet. I will hold her here. The path ahead leads to the surface. There, the choice will come.”

The air shook as Melovala’s laughter filled the chamber. The mirrors began to melt together into a single enormous reflection that stretched across the walls. Within it, Melovala’s form took shape, a towering silhouette of bone and flame.

Lilith pulled at Oliver’s arm. “Trophy, we have to move.”

He looked back at Mali’thra. Her eyes met his one last time. “Remember what I said. When the Seed and the Shard are one, end me, and through me, end her.”

With a flick of her wrist, the chronal shard that Oliver had thought lost back in Gloom flew towards him which he caught in his hand.

Before he could answer, light erupted from her body. The blast threw him backward. He hit the ground hard, clutching the Seed and Shard as the chamber split apart. Fernwyn and Lilith dragged him toward the exit, their voices lost in the roar of collapsing stone.

As they fled, Oliver looked back. Through the chaos, he saw Mali’thra rise into the storm of mirrors, her body surrounded by emerald fire. Melovala’s reflection reached toward her, the two shapes colliding in blinding light.

“You were never my pawn, Oliver. You are this world’s only hope.”

The chamber shook as if the cathedral itself were waking. Light rippled across the mirrored walls, scattering their reflections into chaos. Oliver braced himself against the nearest pillar, the vibration traveling up his arms. The Mirror Seed seemed to vibrate in his hands, its light brightening with each pulse. Every reflection in the room had turned its gaze upon him.

Lilith cried out as her mirrored double broke away from the wall. The copy’s smile was thin and wrong, its eyes glassy with faint silver veins. Fernwyn swung her sword, shattering one of the false images, but another stepped into its place as if the mirror had no limit.

“Fall back!” Oliver called. “Do not touch them!”

The reflections moved in unison, closing in. He raised his sword and struck the nearest one. It cracked but did not vanish. Instead, its broken edges reformed around the blade, trapping it in glass that began to creep up his wrist. The surface felt like ice but burned at the same time. He yanked free and stumbled backward, clutching his arm.

Lilith darted between two pillars, slicing at the figures with fast, sharp motions. Her blade left faint streaks of violet light across their forms, but the copies healed too quickly. Fernwyn fought beside her, desperate to keep them at bay.

Then the air shifted.

It was subtle at first, a soft tremor that passed through the room and silenced everything for a heartbeat. The reflections froze. The humming sound in the stone deepened into a low resonance that made Oliver’s chest ache. A voice followed, quiet but immense, as if spoken through the surface of water.

“Enough.”

The mirrors rippled, and from their center, a shape emerged. Light folded inward and became a figure—slender, cloaked in the pale green glow of decay and life interwoven. Her hair floated as if caught in unseen tides. Her eyes burned faintly with emerald fire.

Mali’thra had returned. She looked rough but her eyes were hard and burning. The reflections shattered and vanished as she glided towards them.

Oliver took a step forward. His chest tightened as he looked at her. The being before him no longer carried the restrained presence of Mali. This was something older, vast, and uncontained. Yet her expression, for a moment, was almost human.

A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere at once, cold and layered with tones that scraped against thought. “You always betray yourself, sister. You always had a soft spot for these creatures. They are insignificant specks. Nothing worth keeping.”

The mirrors along the dome flickered. A single crack raced across the highest point of the ceiling. Out of it spilled a shadow that gathered itself into form—taller, sharper, with tendrils of black fire trailing behind.

Melovala.

The temperature dropped instantly, frost crawling along the floor. Every light bent toward her presence, as if drawn unwillingly into her gravity. She stepped through the air rather than upon it, her eyes like shards of the same mirror that filled the room.

Mali’thra faced her without flinching.

“You never learn,” Melovala said striding out of the shattered images towards them, the only solid form. “You cannot shape fate through borrowed mortals. He will fail you as they all have.”

Oliver felt her gaze sweep over him. It was not hatred but indifference, as if he were a piece of glass in her path. His knees trembled beneath the weight of it.

Mali’thra stepped aside and Melovala stopped, her eyes seeing what was in his hands.

“How…?”

“He is not of this world.”

Something changed in Melovala’s eyes. The realization that her position was much more precarious than she had realized.

The light between them split. Power flared in twin arcs, green and silver, colliding with a sound like shattering worlds. The blast threw Oliver backward. Lilith caught his arm as they stumbled toward the outer wall. Fernwyn ducked to the side at one of the ruined pillars to stay safe from the titan’s battle.

Mali’thra’s power rippled across the chamber, striking Melovala hard. The older sister caught the blast stumbled and snarled in anger.

“You want to return to that numbing void? Where you can’t even think or feel?” Melovala said. “We could shape this place, just like we planned.”

Oliver tried to rise, his body trembling from the force that rippled through the floor. He could see the Mirror Seed pulsing violently, the two powers feeding it, forcing its light to fracture. For a moment he thought he saw the city outside reflected across its surface, every street and ruin glowing in reverse.

He heard Lilith call his name, faint through the roar of energy. “Trophy, stay down!”

But he could not. Something in the Seed called to him. He stepped forward, every movement heavy, his breath ragged. The light burned his eyes, but he did not stop.

Melovala turned her attention toward him. “Stay. If you do I shall promise your protection and whatever you wish in the new world.”

Mali’thra’s expression changed, a flicker of panic crossing her features. “Do not touch him.”

Melovala raised her hand. “He is already touched.”

The floor cracked. Light erupted beneath Oliver’s feet. For a moment he saw everything, the two sisters intertwined across lifetimes, their war stretching through the ages, each rebirth another attempt to balance mercy and ruin. Mali’thra reached him first. She placed her hand over his heart, her voice breaking through the noise. “Do not be afraid. It is time.”

Her touch burned and calmed at once. Energy flowed from her into him, a current of heat and sorrow that filled his veins with light. The Mirror Seed responded, slowing its violent spin until it hovered still between them.

Melovala watched, her expression unreadable. “You would give him your power?”

“No,” Mali’thra said. “Only what he needs.”

The Seed’s surface rippled and the chronal shard glowed. Oliver looked at Mali'thra and her eyes told him. It told him everything. 

"No!" Melovala screamed but it was not enough. With every bit of strength he had, Oliver plunged the tip of the chronal shard into the mirror seed's core. There was a scream of light. 

Then silence.