30. Chapter 30
T he bog had taken Ren nearly an hour’s walk from the castle grounds, its isolation pressing on her as heavily as the mist itself.
Out here, there were no watchful guards or lantern lights – only the endless mire, the stench of decay, and the uneasy hush of a place where even the air seemed to mourn.
Her boots sloshed through bone-white stone and soft, sucking mud. Gnarled roots curled from tree trunks, and everywhere, she stared back at her own reflections. They shimmered across the stagnant water, stared back at her from the trees.
Ren paused before one.
In it, she saw a version of herself hunched and burning, her skin charred, eyes gold with madness. It grinned at her with teeth like embers.
“You always knew you were a catalyst. Now look at what you’ve become.”
Ren turned away, only to stumble into another reflection. This one cowered in the water’s edge, small, bruised, trembling. The girl’s lips moved, voice too soft to hear, but Ren was able to read them.
“You’re nothing without fire. Just a scared girl pretending to be brave.”
Ren’s hand inched toward the hilt of Ashrend. There was a whisper of movement behind her, and she whirled in its direction .
The third version stepped across the stone. It beheld a shadow with her face, a sword held in her grip, and no hesitation in her stance.
Ren lunged.
Steel met steel. Sparks screamed between them. Ren blocked, pivoted, struck. The doppelg?nger moved like a memory sharpened into violence. Every strike was precise. Every movement the perfected version of a warrior.
The fight drove Ren back into the spiraling heart of the creature.
And then the creature rose from a black pool. Its body rippled and shifted, a fusion of dark water and jagged shards of reflections, each one catching her face, her form, twisted, broken, laughing. A hundred versions of her screamed from its surface. Some wept. Some snarled.
One mouthed her sister’s name.
Ren squinted up at it muttered under her breath, “What an ugly bastard you are.”
Ren reached for the fire in her chest.
Nothing.
She realized far too late that this was a trap that she fell into. This thing stripped her of her magic.
The creature surged forward, its limbs forming into arms.
Run , something deep in her whispered. But Ren planted her feet. Her other self, the silent one, rushed her again, blades flashing like twin stars. Ren ducked, rolled, and screamed as she buried her blade through the silent version’s chest.
It vanished.
Ren lifted her head. The creature still loomed at the edge of the mire, its body unmoving, yet the weight of countless unseen eyes crawled over Ren’s skin.
Ren bared her teeth. “You’re next.”
And she charged, but another stepped forward. The burning one. Flames poured from its mouth, followed by a howl of rage and power.
“You’re a monster waiting to lose control.”
“I’m not like you,” Ren snarled.
She slashed. The flames vanished.
The meek one rose last.
It whispered:
“You don’t deserve to be here. ”
Ren stared into her own terrified eyes.
And for a moment, her breath stuck in her throat. Her fingers went numb around Ashrend. She hadn’t realized how much she resembled Eve until she saw her own eyes. Those same soft, amber colored eyes.
“I know.”
And then she went toward the girl –
The image shattered.
The creature let out a guttural roar that rattled the bog itself, its limbs unfurling like wings, blotting out what little light remained.
Ren lifted Ashrend, knuckles white around the hilt. No magic surged to meet her. No fire coiled in her veins.
Only the raw, unyielding force of her will.
Her voice cut through the darkness. “You don’t get to tell me who I am.”
She charged, fury carrying her steps.