They didn't mean to find the spirit-glade.
It found them.
The path had been marked—clearly etched with boundary stones and spirit glyphs Wren swore she'd walked a dozen times before. The kind that were supposed to protect, not trick.
Then, in a blink, the forest changed.
Trees bent inward like bowing figures. Moss coated everything. Even the air thickened—not with mist this time, but memory.
Kaelion stopped at the edge of a strange, circular clearing. Something in his chest pulled tight.
The trees ringed the glade in perfect symmetry, their trunks tall and bone-pale. In their place stood warped, glass-like structures that shimmered faintly in a soft violet-blue hue. Tall. Slender. Endless.
Mirrors.
And they were all reflecting him.
Wren hesitated behind him. "Something's wrong. This wasn't here a minute ago."
Nyro let out a soft, uneasy trill. His tails curled close.
Kaelion took a step forward.
And the world folded.
He blinked, and Wren was gone.
Nyro, gone.
No forest. No sky.
Just mist. Silence. And mirrors.
The glade had expanded into infinity, with no horizon—only soft moss beneath his feet and dozens of towering mirrors arching like silent sentinels around him. Some were smooth and reflective. Others cracked, splintered. A few were liquid-like, rippling when he drew near.
"Umbrix?" he whispered.
"You've entered one of the Spiral Seals," the serpent said, voice low. "A Trial."
"Of what?"
"Yourself."
Kaelion turned toward the closest mirror.
His reflection smirked.
But it didn't match his movement.
And then it stepped forward.
Glass didn't shatter—it simply opened like water as his doppelgänger emerged.
Clothing pristine. Posture perfect. Hair tousled just right. He even smelled like old books and smugness.
"Hello," the double said smoothly. "So you're the version they let live."
Kaelion blinked. "Is this going to be a whole villain monologue thing, or...?"
"Not villain. You."
The reflection circled him. "The version who played the game. Stayed at court. Smiled politely. Bonded with a noble spirit instead of a forbidden serpent. I was going to be king, you know."
Kaelion crossed his arms. "And instead, you got stuck in mirror jail."
"I'm a possibility," the reflection said. "Nothing more. But possibilities have weight."
Another ripple behind him.
Kaelion turned just as a second mirror warped, and another version of him stepped through.
This one was armored in deep black spiritmetal, layered in shadow, with glowing violet veins visible through cracks in his skin. His eyes were Umbrix's color—brighter. Unblinking.
"I didn't resist the bond," this version said. "I let him in. All the way."
"That one…" Umbrix said slowly, "that one was almost real."
Kaelion stepped back instinctively.
The third mirror opened—this time, with a version of himself in royal regalia. Crowned. Face stern. Hands bloodied.
He wasn't smiling.
He wasn't even human.
And behind him, faint but visible, stood rows of soldiers carved from shadow, kneeling at his feet.
Kaelion's breath caught. "What... are these?"
"Choices."
He spun, startled.
This voice was familiar.
A fourth mirror glimmered.
And through it stepped a boy. Barefoot. Bruised. Young.
Himself, before the bond. Before Umbrix. Before exile. Just a scared, unchosen boy trying to survive a world built to forget him.
"You let me rot," the boy said.
Kaelion shook his head. "I tried to survive."
"You wanted to matter," the boy said bitterly. "So you let the shadow in."
"I didn't know what he was!"
"You knew enough," the boy snapped. "You were lonely. Weak. So you made a deal."
The accusations hit harder than the others.
Kaelion turned away.
Only to find a fifth mirror waiting—this one aflame.
The reflection within was screaming, skin cracked with molten light, mouth open but silent, like the fire had stolen his voice. The shadow inside him had fully taken over, warping the human beneath into a creature of vengeance.
Kaelion stumbled back.
The circle closed around him.
All versions now.
"You're a coward.""You're the reason your mother died.""You want power, not peace.""You can't contain me forever.""You'll break, just like the last host did—"
Kaelion screamed.
His voice cracked the air like glass.
But the mirrors didn't stop.
They shattered.
Light exploded outward in a ring—and Kaelion fell through the floor of mist, weightless and spinning, as reflections collapsed around him like dying stars.
He hit the ground hard.
Grass. Earth. Real.
Kaelion gasped, eyes flying open. Wren was crouched over him, shaking his shoulders.
"Kaelion!"
His vision cleared. Trees above. Stars peeking through.
He was back.
Back in the forest.
Back in his body.
He sucked in breath after breath like a drowning man.
Wren didn't speak—just studied his face until she was sure he was him again.
"Your shadow flared," she said. "And your eyes—"
Kaelion wiped his face. It was wet.
Tears. Sweat. Maybe both.
"I saw... all of them. The me I could've been. Could still be."
Wren sat back, giving him space.
"I was everything," Kaelion whispered. "A king. A tyrant. A coward. A child. Even... nothing. Burned away until only Umbrix remained."
He looked up at her. "What if that's where this ends? What if I become him?"
Wren didn't answer immediately.
Then, softly: "Then I stop you."
Kaelion flinched.
She reached out—fingertips brushing his wrist.
"But I believe you won't."
He stared at her, heart pounding.
"Why?"
"Because you asked."
That broke something open inside him. Not fully. Not yet. But enough.
"You survived," Umbrix whispered. "Most don't."
"It didn't feel like surviving."
"It rarely does."
Kaelion looked down at his palm.
The spiral mark had changed.
Where once it was a single loop, now it shimmered with three coils—one faint and cracked, one bright, and one forming.
"Is this...?"
"The first seal is broken," Umbrix said. "Two remain."
Kaelion swallowed hard.
"And the mirrors?"
"Echoes. Nothing more. But each seal will test you again. And next time, what steps out of the mirror might not want to go back in."
He nodded slowly, feeling the weight of it settle in his bones.
Then, almost as an afterthought: "Do all trials involve me being emotionally torn apart by my unresolved trauma?"
"No."
Pause.
"Some are worse."