The Shattered Reflection
The void was not empty.
It was alive.
Kael felt it the moment he stepped into the abyss—a vast, seething, pulsating mass of energy that clung to him like a second skin, slick and suffocating. The darkness was not silent; it whispered, hissed, and roared in an unholy symphony, a cacophony of voices that clawed at his mind. They spoke in fragments, in half-formed memories, disjointed truths and lies, each one a shard of his past, sharp enough to draw blood.
You left her to die.
You chose power.
You are nothing.
His heart thundered in his chest, and he clenched his fists, the shadowed arm pulsing with golden-black light. "I'm not here to listen to your lies," he growled, but his voice was swallowed by the consuming void, the echoes fading into the abyss as if the darkness itself rejected him.
But the voices didn't stop. They only grew louder, more insistent, until they coalesced into a single, familiar tone, sharp as a blade.
"You're not ruthless enough," Hesper's voice sneered, echoing from the shadows. "You're not evil enough."
Kael spun, his dagger flashing in the dim light, but there was nothing to strike. The void stretched endlessly in all directions, formless and infinite, yet it felt as though it was slowly closing in on him, tightening like a noose around his neck.
"You think you've embraced the darkness?" the voice taunted. "You've only scratched the surface. The void doesn't want you, Kael. It owns you."
He snarled, slashing at the empty air, his pulse quickening, anger rising like a storm inside him. "Show yourself!"
The void responded.
A figure emerged from the darkness, materializing like a wraith—a silhouette he knew all too well. Hesper. Or something wearing her face. Her green eyes gleamed with malevolent joy, her movements smooth and predatory, her smile a razor's edge, gleaming with cruel amusement.
"You can't kill me," she said, her voice dripping with mockery. "I'm your guilt. Your regret. Your weakness."
Kael's grip tightened on his dagger, his knuckles turning white, his breath shallow and ragged. "I don't regret anything."
"Liar," she hissed, her form flickering like a dying flame. Her voice slithered into his mind, soft and poisonous. "You regret everything. Elyra. Hesper. The Spire. The Scab. You're a coward, Kael. A coward who hides behind power because you're afraid of what you'll find if you stop running."
His chest tightened. He lunged, his dagger aimed at her heart with the ferocity of a storm, but she dissolved into smoke, vanishing as easily as mist. Her laughter, cruel and mocking, echoed around him, a thousand shards of sound stabbing at his soul.
"You can't escape me," her voice whispered, hollow and insidious. "I'm in your blood. In your bones. I'm the part of you that still feels."
Kael roared, slashing at the void again, but it was futile. The darkness responded with laughter, mocking him, circling him like a predator playing with its prey. It was everywhere, it was inescapable.
Lysandra stood at the edge of the abyss, her silver-threaded eyes narrowing as she scanned the chaos before her. The tower groaned, its walls collapsing into the void, stone crumbling away like dust caught in an unforgiving wind. The Tapestry's influence was weakening—its threads fraying, unraveling in the wake of the void's hunger, consumed by the dark tide that sought to devour all.
"Kael!" she shouted again, her voice strained, cracking under the weight of her desperation.
There was no answer.
A cold knot twisted in her stomach, and her breath caught in her throat. She cursed under her breath, her threads coiling tighter around her, their pulse slow and erratic, desperate for a spark of hope. She couldn't leave him. Not like this. Not after everything they had been through. She wouldn't let him fall into this darkness alone.
But the void was spreading, its tendrils reaching for her like the jaws of some ancient, predatory beast. She could feel its pull, its hunger, like claws digging into her very soul, whispering promises of oblivion. It wanted her too.
"Damn it, Kael," she muttered through gritted teeth, her heart heavy with sorrow and determination. She took a step forward, then another, until the weight of the abyss swallowed her whole.
The void was different for her.
Where Kael had been met with chaos, his soul assaulted by the incessant noise of his past sins, Lysandra found only silence—a cold, suffocating silence that pressed down on her chest like an invisible weight. The darkness here was not alive. It was dead. A graveyard of forgotten timelines and lost possibilities, an echo of what could have been.
She moved cautiously, her threads flickering faintly in the oppressive gloom, casting weak, wavering light. The void resisted her presence, as if recoiling from her touch. Its energy rippled and repelled her threads like oil on water, cold and indifferent. It was as though it was trying to push her out, force her away, as if she didn't belong here.
But she wasn't leaving without Kael.
Kael stood in the heart of the void, his shadowed arm glowing brighter with every passing moment, the darkness feeding on his rage, his pain, his very essence. The voices had stopped—replaced by an all-encompassing, deafening silence. And yet, the absence of sound was louder than anything he had ever heard. He could feel the void's power coursing through him, filling the cracks in his soul with darkness, turning him into something less than human.
It was intoxicating.
"You're not afraid of me," he said, his voice low and dangerous, the edge of a threat tingling in the air. "You're afraid of what I'll do with this power."
The void didn't answer. It never did.
He smirked, his eyes blazing with golden-black light, radiating an unholy energy. "Good."
Lysandra found him standing at the edge of a shattered mirror, its surface cracked and jagged, reflecting a thousand broken versions of himself—each one fractured, distorted, an echo of a different past, a different choice. Kael didn't turn as she approached, his gaze fixed on the shattered reflections, trapped in the web of his own making.
"Kael," she said, her voice sharp, demanding. "We need to go."
He didn't respond. Not at first.
She stepped closer, her threads flickering uneasily, their light casting long shadows against the jagged edges of the mirror. "The void is consuming everything. If we don't leave now, we'll be trapped here."
His lips curled into a bitter smile, distant and cold. "Maybe I want to be trapped."
She grabbed his arm, her threads tightening around him, pulling him toward her. "You don't get to make that choice."
He turned to face her, his eyes cold and empty, hollowed out by the weight of the darkness he had embraced. "Why not? You've made all the others."
Her breath caught in her throat. She flinched, her grip tightening in desperation. "This isn't you."
"Isn't it?" he asked, his smirk widening. "Or is this the first time you've seen me for who I really am?"
The void shifted, its energy twisting and coiling until it erupted in a single, blinding light. The shattered mirror began to reform, its edges knitting together as if time itself was rewinding, repairing the cracks, mending the fractures. But the reflection it offered was not Kael.
It was the Spire.
The unbroken Spire.
Lysandra's breath caught in her throat. "No."
Kael's smirk deepened, cruel and triumphant. "Yes."
The mirror shattered again, its shards flying toward them like knives, sharp and relentless. Lysandra's threads lashed out, cutting through the air to deflect the shards, but one caught Kael's shadowed arm, and the world trembled.
The void erupted.
The ground beneath them cracked, splitting open as the energy of the void surged like a tidal wave, engulfing everything in its path. Lysandra reached for Kael, her threads wrapping around them both, pulling him close as the darkness tore at them, threatening to drag them into the abyss.
When the light faded, they were no longer in the tower.
They were in the Spire.
The air was thick with the scent of incense and blood, the Spire's halls lined with golden tapestries that shimmered with forbidden knowledge, their intricate patterns pulsing with an unsettling energy. The altar stood at the center of the chamber, its surface stained with the blood of countless sacrifices, the echoes of their screams still lingering in the air like a haunting melody.
Kael stepped forward, his shadowed arm pulsing with golden-black light, the dark energy swirling around him like a cloak. "Welcome home," he said, his voice dripping with malice, a predatory grin on his lips.
Lysandra's threads flickered uneasily, their light dimming in the suffocating atmosphere. "This isn't real. It's another trick."
"Is it?" Kael asked, his smirk widening, the darkness around him twisting in response. "Or is this the moment everything changes?"