Chapter 270
Chapter 270
Chapter 270
ARIA
“Mirror Trial of Truth,” Ivory repeated the blue mist’s words. “Mirrors reflect. Show reality without filter or kindness. The trial is probably about confronting truth-about ourselves, about each other, about whatever the fragments have been testing all along p>
But looking around the chamber we’d been transported to after the Medusa’s death, I couldn’t see any heart-shaped crystals. Couldn’t see any crystals at all.
We were standing in a room that seemed to be filled with nothing except us and mirrors.
Everywhere I looked-walls, ceiling, even the floor beneath our feet—everything was reflective. Polished to perfection, showing our images from every angle, creating infinite recursion as each mirror reflected all the others.
And our timer—I checked my wrist and felt my stomach drop-was counting down impossibly fast.
6:30:59
I watched in horror as the next second passed and the numbers jumped.
6:00:57
We weren’t losing time one second at a time anymore. We were losing it in thirty-minute chunks with each passing moment. At this rate, we had maybe twelve real seconds before our six remaining hours were depleted completely.
“The time!” I shouted to Ivory. “Look at the timer! It’s p>
“I see it,” she said, her voice tight with the same panic I was feeling. “Some kind of accelerated temporal effect. The mirrors are doing something to time flow. We need to solve this trial immediately or we’re going to run out before we can even figure out what we’re supposed to
do p>
But what were we supposed to do? The chamber was just mirrors. No obvious crystal. No guardian to defeat. No puzzle to solve. Just endless reflections of ourselves and a timer that was racing toward zero faster than we could process what was happening.
5:30:56
1/3
Another thirty minutes gone. Another chunk of our remaining time deleted from existence.
I looked at my reflection in the nearest mirror, searching for clues, for anything that would indicate what the trial wanted from us. Saw myself staring back-exhausted, bloodied, wearing clothes that were torn and stained from four trials’ worth of combat and survival. Saw
Ivory beside me looking equally worn, her expression showing the same desperate calculation I felt.
And behind our reflections, in the mirror: movement.
Not us moving. Something else. Something in the reflection that wasn’t present in the real chamber.
A figure. Shadowy. Indistinct. Standing where no one should be.
“Ivory,” I said quietly, not taking my eyes off the mirror. “Do you see that? In the reflection? Behind us p>
“I see it,” she confirmed, her voice carrying the same unease I felt. “But there’s nothing actually behind us in the real chamber. Just in the reflection. The mirror is showing something that isn’t here p>
5:00:55
We’d just lost another thirty minutes. Were down to five hours now. And we still had no idea what this trial was testing or how to complete it.
The shadowy figure in the mirror began to move. Not toward us-just shifting, becoming slightly more defined. Taking on features that were vaguely familiar but distorted in ways that made them hard to identify.
“The Mirror Trial of Truth,” I said, remembering the blue mist’s announcement. “It’s about truth. About seeing something in the reflections. About facing whatever the mirrors show us p>
“But what truth?” Ivory demanded. “What are we supposed to see? What are we supposed to face p>
The figure in the mirror solidified further. And I recognized it with a jolt that felt like being punched in the chest.
It was me. Another version of me. But different. Older, maybe.
“That’s not our reflection,” I whispered. “That’s something else. Someone else. A version of us that doesn’t exist yet. Or shouldn’t exist. Or p>
2/3
4:30:54
The timer jumped again. Four and a half hours remaining.
And the figure in the mirror-the other version of me-smiled. Then spoke, her voice carrying through the reflective surface in ways that should have been impossible.
“Welcome to the final trial,” she said. “Welcome to the truth you’ve been running from. Welcome to seeing what you’re meant to become-and deciding whether you have the courage to accept it p>
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