There are places not made for men or monsters.
The Mirrorlands were one.
They whispered of a desert where time bled backward, where reflections walked without hosts, and where even death wandered… lost. A wound in the world's skin, pulsing.
Shadow walked alone.
The wind here didn't blow — it watched.
Each gust a breath from something ancient. Something buried.
His cloak, tattered and scorched from the wars before, dragged behind him like a second shadow. Black sand clung to his boots, as if the land tried to keep him.
Around him, the horizon broke and folded like shattered glass. Mountains rose, then flickered — illusions. Or memories. Or warnings.
But Shadow didn't stop.
In the distance, the sky peeled open — a vertical scar of light that bled upwards.
There lay the Tomb.
The one even gods had forgotten.
He approached.
A mirrored obelisk jutted from the sand, humming with silent music. Its surface didn't reflect him — it reflected what he used to be. A boy. A brother. A name.
Shadow reached forward.
The glass hissed as his fingers touched it. Pain, sharp and deep, pierced him — not in flesh, but in thought. Visions clawed through his mind: the cliff, the fire, Saphira's last breath, the betrayal of Malrik and Kara, the war, Eryn falling.
He staggered — but stood.
"I remember," he whispered. "And I do not regret."
The obelisk split.
A stairway descended into the earth. Not carved — grown. Made of bone and silence.
He walked down.
Each step felt like a question.
Each breath — a judgment.
Deeper.
Until the sun above disappeared. Until only black remained.
Then a voice — neither male nor female, neither cruel nor kind — echoed in the dark.
"What do you seek, Shadow?"
He didn't hesitate.
"Not power. Not revenge. I seek the truth beneath myself."
"You cannot return from this."
"I've died once," he said. "That was enough."
The silence accepted him.
And the Tomb opened.
Inside, a vast chamber of mirrors — infinite and broken — surrounded him. Every mirror showed a different version of himself. King. Monster. Corpse. Child. God.
But none were him.
He stood still.
Then walked forward — toward the only mirror that showed nothing.
The one waiting to be filled.
The mirror didn't shimmer. It didn't ripple like the others.
It was a flat void — a perfect nothing.
Shadow stood before it, and for the first time in years, he didn't feel powerful.
He felt seen.
He reached out… and the void pulled him in.
No sound. No gravity. No form.
Just thought.
He fell into a space that didn't exist — and landed where no place ever was.
It looked like a garden.
The sky above him was weeping light — pale stars dripping into a forest made of memories. Leaves shimmered with scenes: his childhood in Elthorne, the training halls, Saphira's laughter, the blood that followed. Trees bent under the weight of all he had become.
And in the center: a figure.
Not a god.
Not a demon.
Just a man. Worn armor. Ash-gray skin. Eyes like dusk.
Himself.
But older. Quieter.
"You look tired," the other Shadow said.
Shadow blinked. "Are you—?"
"I'm what you become if you never leave this place. If you never choose."
"Choose what?"
"To stop being the sword."
Silence passed between them like wind over a grave.
"You've burned heaven. You've crushed betrayal. But there's more ahead than war. And war is all you've ever known."
"I don't want peace."
"I know," said the reflection. "You fear it. Because peace means facing what you've lost."
A tremor shook the garden.
The light bled.
The mirror world began to crack.
Shadow clenched his fists. "Then what's the point of this place? Why bring me here?"
"To offer one truth," the reflection said.
And it stepped forward.
Merged with him.
Suddenly, he saw it — all of it:
The chains Shädow left in his soul.
The grief carved deep, still festering.
The mercy he'd buried to survive.
And the power waiting — not to destroy, but to forge.
The light was not the enemy.
The enemy was stagnation. The rot of eternity. The silence of rule without purpose.
He fell to his knees.
But he did not break.
"I understand," he whispered.
The void released him.
And he rose.
Back in the tomb.
Stronger — but quieter.
Shadow stepped from the chamber. The winds of the Mirrorlands no longer howled.
They bowed.
He walked into the night.
And for the first time since the throne, his steps had no echo.
They had direction.