Chapter 68 BROKEN REFLECTIONS
Kael wasn't joking.
He whistled as he planted the C4 explosives they had salvaged from the train carriage onto the castle's obsidian (volcanic glass) gate.
"Plug your ears," Kael said, holding the detonator. "And open your mouths. Don't let the pressure burst your lungs."
Serra covered Atlas's ears with her hands and pressed him against her chest.
BOOOOM.
The explosion didn't just take out the door; it brought down the jet-black glass pillars on the castle's facade. Dust and glass shards scattered like a rain of shrapnel.
Dorian was the first to emerge from the smoke. Sword in hand. "Inside!"
When they entered the castle, there was no army waiting for them.
What awaited them was silence. And thousands of reflections.
The interior of the castle was lined with polished black obsidian. The floors, the ceiling, the walls... everything was a mirror. As they took steps, their reflections stared back at them from beneath their feet.
"I don't like this place," Lukas said, looking at his own reflection. His reflection on the wall was smiling at him. But Lukas wasn't smiling.
"Don't look at the reflections!" Dorian warned. "Valerius is an illusionist. What you see isn't real."
(THE SHADOW DUEL)
At that moment, the reflections on the walls moved.
Dorian's reflection drew its sword and stepped out of the wall. This Dorian wasn't tired or injured. His eyes were completely black, and he wore a cruel smile.
Serra's reflection stepped out too. But this Serra wasn't human. She had fully shifted into a wolf—a wild, uncontrolled beast.
"How does it feel to fight yourself?" Valerius's voice echoed from all mirrors simultaneously.
Shadow-Dorian attacked Real-Dorian. The sound of clashing swords wasn't metallic; it was the sound of shattering glass.
Dorian kicked at his shadow, but his foot passed through air. The shadow dispersed like smoke, then reformed behind him and slashed Dorian's back.
"We can't touch them!" Kael shouted, firing at his own shadow. The bullets ricocheted off the wall and came back. "But they can touch us!"
Serra was cornered trying to dodge the shadow-wolf's attack. The shadow sank its claws into Serra's shoulder. Serra groaned in pain.
"I'm bleeding," Serra said, looking at her wound. "They are actually causing damage."
(THE EYE OF ATLAS)
The group was helpless. Every blow missed, every dodge resulted in a new wound.
But there was someone they had forgotten.
In Serra's arms, Atlas was watching this chaos.
For Atlas, the concept of a "reflection" didn't exist. He didn't see light; he saw mass and energy.
The thing his father was fighting had no mass. The wolf attacking his mother had no heart.
To Atlas, these were just... smudges.
Atlas raised his tiny hand. A small, silver sphere formed in his palm. A gravity ball.
Atlas didn't throw this ball into the middle of the room.
He threw it at the ceiling, at the main mirror where the massive chandelier hung.
When the sphere hit the ceiling, it didn't explode. It vacuumed.
It sucked in all the light, all the imagery in the room. The mirrors went dark. The reflections, cut off from their source (light), screamed and vanished.
Shadow-Dorian evaporated just as he raised his sword.
The room was plunged into pitch darkness.
"I can't see!" Lukas said.
"You don't need to see," Dorian's voice came from the dark. "Atlas is showing the way."
In the darkness, that thin beam resembling the northern lights reappeared from Atlas's fingertips. Like a laser, it pointed to a hidden staircase at the end of the room.
(THE THRONE ROOM AND THE FROZEN PRINCESS)
Following Atlas's light, they climbed those seemingly endless obsidian stairs.
With every step, the air got colder. It got so cold that their breath froze and fell to the ground as ice pellets.
"We're close," Serra said, her teeth chattering. "This is Lyra's cold."
They reached the final door. Dorian kicked it open.
This was the Throne Room. But it had no roof; the ash storm rained directly inside.
In the center of the room, there was a massive Hourglass.
But sand wasn't flowing inside it.
In the upper bulb, suspended in the air, was Lyra. She was inside an ice cocoon.
In the lower bulb stood Valerius.
Lyra's ice energy was melting drop by drop, flowing down onto Valerius. As Valerius drank this blue energy, he was getting younger, his skin glowing, the black veins in his eyes turning to gold.
"You're late," Valerius said without looking at them. His voice was no longer scratchy, but booming and powerful. "The purity of the ice... is cleansing my rot."
Dorian lunged forward. "Let my daughter go!"
Valerius raised a hand. The ice dripping from Lyra's cocoon turned into sharp spears at Dorian's feet.
"Don't come closer, nephew," Valerius said. "If you interrupt this process... Lyra's soul will get stuck in between. And she will be lost in the glass forever."
Dorian froze. Was this a bluff? Or the truth?
Just then, Atlas in Serra's arms saw his sister in the hourglass.
Atlas didn't cry. He didn't scream.
Atlas smiled.
Because Atlas saw something his father couldn't see.
Lyra wasn't melting. Lyra wasn't giving energy down.
Lyra was freezing Valerius.