Chapter 22: The Bargain's Price
Evan wrenched backward, breaking the figure's grip just as the mirror's surface rippled like water. Something pressed against the glass from the other side, a vast, shapeless presence that made the air hum with static. His skin prickled with the sensation of being watched by countless unseen eyes.
Lucian's voice cut through the rising panic in Evan's mind, clearer than it had any right to be. Now do you understand? This is what becomes of those who resist.
Selene shoved Evan behind her, her hands glowing silver. The light had returned to her eyes in full force, blazing like twin moons. "We're leaving," she said, her voice layered with that same otherworldly resonance from the forest.
The figure chuckled as it rose to its full height, its movements jerky like a puppet on frayed strings. "You can't outrun the inevitable, Arkwright. Not this time." It turned its hollow gaze on Evan, and for a terrible moment, Evan saw himself reflected in those depthless eyes—older, broken, consumed. "He belongs to the Vessel now. Just as you belong to the prison. Just as I—"
Aria's knife buried itself in the figure's throat with a wet thunk.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the figure laughed—a wet, gurgling sound—and pulled the blade free with a sickening squelch. No blood flowed from the wound. "That stopped working years ago," it said, tossing the knife aside with a clatter. The edges of the wound knit back together before their eyes, the flesh mending itself like closing water.
Rowan stepped forward, his terramancy making the floor tremble. "Enough." His voice was low, dangerous. The stones at their feet shifted in response, rising like obedient hounds awaiting their master's command.
The figure tilted its head, considering Rowan with detached interest. "Yes. Enough." It gestured to the eighth mirror, where the darkness had begun to seep through the glass like ink, forming tendrils that quested blindly through the air. "It's coming. And it's very, very hungry."
The first tendril of pure shadow slipped free of the mirror's frame, stretching toward Evan with terrifying purpose.
Selene grabbed Evan's hand, her grip like iron. "Run."
They fled as the chamber collapsed behind them, the sound of shattering mirrors echoing through the tunnels like screams. The last thing Evan saw before the darkness swallowed them was his own face in the eighth mirror, smiling as the shadows consumed it wholw