The wind outside the Mirror Room had changed.
It no longer howled—it whispered. Soft and constant, like voices tangled in mist. Kaelen stood at the tower's edge, watching the distant storm that pulsed with the color of old fire. Something was shifting. Within him. Beyond him.
"You saw him," Elira said from beside him, her gaze locked on the horizon.
"My father," Kaelen said slowly, the name tasting like rust on his tongue. "Not as I remember him. Not as anyone does."
She didn't press him. Instead, she pulled the map Mira had given them from her satchel. It had changed. Subtly. The ink shimmered, shifting like the reflection of a torch in still water. A new mark had appeared near the southern edge—a crossroad symbol etched in gold.
Kaelen traced it with his finger. "It's calling us somewhere else."
"Whispers say the Crossroads hasn't opened in a hundred years," Elira said, folding the map with care. "Not since the Old Queen sealed it. It's where truths are traded... and paths chosen."
Kaelen blinked. "Truths traded?"
"Not in words. In pieces of yourself."
She said it like someone who had once lost a piece.
They left Kareth behind, the ruins sinking into silence once more. The obsidian mirror had not shattered entirely. A sliver remained—now tucked inside Kaelen's cloak like a hidden dagger, humming with potential.
Two days' ride south, the land began to twist.
Woods grew darker, their roots tangled like reaching hands. The moon seemed thinner. Even the stars grew quiet.
"This is it," Elira said as they reached a moss-covered archway, broken and forgotten, yet still standing in defiance of time. Strange symbols circled its rim—the same that Kaelen had seen in the Mirror Room.
A lone figure waited at its center. Hooded. Still.
Kaelen reached for his blade. Elira didn't stop him.
But the figure raised a hand. "The Crossroads see all who carry shadow."
The voice was neither old nor young. Neither male nor female. It simply was.
"What are we here to find?" Kaelen asked.
The figure didn't move. "You ask the wrong question. You are here to choose."
"Choose what?"
The arch behind the figure shimmered—splitting into three paths, each veiled by a different light:
One glowed golden, pulsing with warmth and familiarity.
One burned a deep crimson, fierce and unforgiving.
The last was silver and cold, like starlight reflected off a blade.
"The Crown," the figure intoned, "is not your only legacy. What you saw in the mirror was but one reflection. Now, you must decide which truth to follow."
Elira stepped back. "What happens if he chooses wrong?"
"There are no wrong choices. Only prices."
Kaelen looked to the paths. Each pulled at something deep in him—his loyalty, his anger, his fear. He stepped forward—
And something growled from the trees.
From the shadows came a blur of movement. A dark creature—too tall, too fast, too wrong—lunged toward them.
The hooded figure vanished.
Elira drew her daggers. "Company!"
Kaelen didn't hesitate. The Midnight Blade roared to life in his hands, its flame a wild answer to the encroaching dark. But even as they fought the beast—shadows wrapped in armor, teeth of obsidian—Kaelen felt the paths beginning to flicker. One would soon disappear.
He had seconds.
"Elira!" he shouted. "Go!"
"To which one?"
Kaelen's breath caught.
He looked to the silver path. The mirror. The boy with two names. The blood on the gate. The father in the shadow.
Then to the golden one. Home, maybe. Or what could still be.
Then to the red one. Fire. Revolution. No return.
Kaelen turned toward the silver.
And stepped in.
The world twisted.
And Kaelen fell—not into darkness, but into memory.
His own. And someone else's.
He hit the ground hard, dust rising around him. He looked up, gasping.
And froze.
He was standing in a throne room.
Not ruined. Not forgotten.
Alive. Real. Now.
And on the throne sat his father—younger still. Alive. Crowned. Watching him with eyes that knew everything Kaelen hadn't yet said.
"Welcome, Elion," the man said. "I wondered how long it would take you to find your way back."