Their footsteps echoed in the damp cave as if carving their presence into the walls themselves. The faint blue light that seeped through the cracks in the stone began to dim gradually, leaving only Selina's glow faint, more an idea of light than light itself.
Selina led them, holding a small stone that pulsed with spectral rhythm, a guide that had directed her from the start, though she never fully trusted it.
The problem wasn't the path, but the minds accompanying her. Minds still half-lost in illusion, the other half wavering in doubt.
"How much farther?" Zenith asked from behind.
Selina turned slightly, looked at him, then at the faces behind him pale, exhausted, some still staring into empty air as if hearing voices that weren't there.
"We're close… but this cave isn't measured in meters. It's measured by how much will we have left."
She said it without a heroic tone just as a fact. And in this place, the truth was the only thing that wasn't clear.
Evelyn walked close to the wall, rubbing her fingers along its rocky edge, as if to make sure she was still in a tangible world. Her gaze was fixed on Valerian, who walked in silence behind Selina without a single word.
Evelyn realized something in him had changed since he emerged from his illusion… something hard to explain.
"What did you fight in there…?"
The question gnawed at her mind. But she didn't ask it. The time wasn't right. The place wasn't right.
And she wasn't ready for the answer if he asked her the same question.
"I feel like this place is repeating…"
One of the students whispered behind Zenith, then shivered.
"My dreams follow me even when I'm awake… I saw my mother, then she turned into a faceless statue."
Selina didn't respond, but she felt a tightening in her chest.
The Cave of Truth wasn't made to be revealed, but to test the limits of those who dared approach it.
How many illusions were shattered here? And how many truths exploded into madness?
"Selina, come…"
That voice still echoed deep inside her.
But she had screamed. Cried. Hated herself for wanting to stay there. Then she walked.
"Are we alive?"
Someone asked, and no one answered.
The air shifted. They began to hear something strange, as if the cave itself was exhaling its final breath around them. Echoes of old voices, words never spoken but heard in their minds.
"What if there's no exit?"
One of the students screamed, then ran back. Zenith rushed and caught him tightly.
"Stop!"
"She's calling me back! I want to go back! She's there! She's there and waiting for me!"
"No one's waiting for you there! What's there is only illusion!"
Zenith shouted harshly, then looked at Selina with weary eyes.
"I can't stop them all…"
"You won't need to. There's not much left."
Then she stopped suddenly.
The wall before them began to change. No longer stone but a mirror. Huge, stretching from floor to ceiling, yet it didn't reflect their images.
It reflected the worst in them.
Everyone fell silent.
Valerian stepped toward the mirror without a word.
He saw himself. But not as he knew himself.
His hair was soaked in blood, his eyes black and bottomless, and in his hand a torn heart.
He stood there, motionless.
Then murmured, "Me…?"
"No, this isn't me."
"Or is it… him?"
Selina stepped beside him, without looking into the mirror.
"If you see what you fear in it, remember fear is not truth. And if you see what you want… know that desire is more deceitful than fear."
Then she raised her hand and touched the glass.
It didn't shatter.
But a voice echoed in all their minds:
"Do you dare to leave?"
Suddenly, an opening in the ground behind them began to swallow the blue light. The mirror wall faded, revealing a long corridor behind it, at the end of which a pale daylight.
But one student fell. Then another.
The cave floor tilted, as if rejecting their escape.
Selina screamed, "Hurry! Now or we'll never get out!"
She ran, Zenith following, pushing those too weak to run.
Valerian carried one who had fallen, without a word.
Footsteps, screams, crying but no one stopped.
The exit drew closer. The air changed. The breeze returned with the scent of trees.
And then… they emerged.
The light struck their eyes cruelly.
Silence.
Some collapsed to their knees. Others began to laugh hysterically.
Evelyn sat quietly, then covered her face.
Zenith stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley.
"We… did it?"
He couldn't believe it.
Even Selina didn't believe it.
She looked back. The cave entrance was slowly closing, as if it had never been there.
Valerian stood alone, staring at the sky.
He felt nothing. No joy, no relief, only… stillness.
As if his heart had become an empty box.
Selina approached him.
"Are you alright?"
He looked at her, then said calmly:
"I don't think I've left the cave yet."
She looked at him for a long time, then whispered,
"Neither have I."
The first drop of rain fell.
Then a second.
And in a moment, rain began to fall on them all washing away sweat, blood, and nightmares.
Some raised their faces to the sky, as if breathing in life anew.
Others wept in silence.
And for a very brief moment, they knew they had returned.
But they were not as they were.
The light was brighter… but they were darker than before.
Or maybe… just more aware.
Selina walked toward a nearby rock, sat on it, looking at those who survived.
Then she took a stone from her pocket and looked at it.
It no longer glowed.
She smiled.
"Your job is done, honest liar."
Valerian still stood.
Evelyn finally approached him.
"I was watching you…" she said softly.
He didn't respond.
"What you saw in the mirror… that's not you. I know it."
He looked at her.
"Maybe… but it's inside me, isn't it? Even if I'm not it yet."
"We all saw faces we didn't recognize. But that doesn't make them our faces."
Then she smiled for the first time in days.
"I won't let you drown in your cave alone, Valerian."
The wind blew gently, the rain lightened, and the sky opened onto a world that was no longer the same.
And though they left the cave…
Its shadow remained within them.
Just as truth should.
In the distance, under the shadows of the trees, a man stood. His steps were still, and his walk like someone waiting for an appointment he could not miss.
It was Master Ethan.
When he saw them emerge, he spread his arms with a wide smile.
As if the cave was nothing but a light training session.
"Heroes, all of you!" he shouted in his deep theatrical voice. "You've done what the elders failed to do you returned from the depths of truth… and your spirits did not shatter."
Some students smiled wearily, others looked at him with suspicion, and one only Valerian never took his eyes off him.
As for Selina…
She fixed her gaze on him without a smile.
As if the look in his eyes was more honest than all his words.
Ethan approached them, patting a few on the shoulders, congratulating each individually. But when he stood before Selina, he stopped.
He didn't speak immediately, just looked at her with eyes like the still surface of a dark pond.
Then he said, almost whispering:
"Selina… just as I expected."
He said it with a mysterious smile. The smile of a man who had planned everything from the beginning.
She answered in a calm but firm voice:
"I wanted to survive, so I did what I had to."
He chuckled softly, then whispered near her ear:
"Yes, and that's what puts us on the same side of the war."
But she didn't reply. She only looked into his eyes.
And for a very short moment, she didn't see him.
She saw what awaited her.
The curses to be thrown at her when her betrayal is revealed.
The looks everyone would give her once they knew.
The killing silence that would swallow her when she stands before the mirror of her heart… and finds nothing but obedience.
"Did you like what you saw in the cave?" Ethan asked softly.
She replied, "Do you mean what I saw… or what you think you planted there?"
"I don't think, Selina. I know."
"You know nothing about me."
He smiled. "You're wrong… I know more than you know about yourself. I chose you long ago, since I read your first report your tendency toward isolation… your tendency toward hollow honesty, and expandable loyalty."
He kept talking, but she wasn't really listening.
She was hearing something else internal, slow… the sound of her soul falling into a silent abyss.
Ethan turned to the others.
"Prepare yourselves, my dears. You've passed the first stage. Now you'll be reshaped. The academy has decided to change course… and you'll need new instructors."
He looked at Valerian, who hadn't taken his eyes off him.
"You… Valerian, right?"
Valerian nodded without speaking.
"I've heard a lot about you. But I believe what you saw in the cave surpasses any report, doesn't it?"
Valerian finally responded:
"It's easy to write reports from a distance, Master."
Ethan smiled, but in his eyes something else. Something like hunger.
"Yes, and that's why I'm very interested in you."
As he walked away, Evelyn whispered to Selina,
"I don't trust him."
Selina replied with cold precision:
"You shouldn't."
Evelyn looked at her closely:
"And you? Can I trust you?"
Selina didn't reply. She didn't lie. But she didn't speak the truth either.
She only looked toward Ethan as he disappeared among the trees, and within her…
A very small voice, barely audible, said:
"When the time comes, I'll stab the monster who handed me the knife."
But she didn't know when that time would come…
Or if she had the strength to do it.