Chapter 172: Reflections Learn to Lie Better
The platform shuddered, and the crystal floor beneath them dissolved into a million points of light. The world remade itself in a heartbeat of blinding disorientation. The sharp scent of ozone deepened, and a low, resonant hum vibrated in Antonella’s teeth.
They were no longer in a corridor.
They stood at the edge of an impossible chamber. The Prism Court. Vast, silent, and horrifically beautiful. Towering pillars of pure, flawless glass rose to a ceiling of focused sunlight. The entire floor was a single plane of mirrored gold, reflecting a dizzying duplicate world above. Walls weren’t walls; they were radiant, shifting planes of light that created archways, dead-ends, and bridges that flickered in and out of existence based on the angle of view.
Antoinette’s voice was a cool distillation in the humming air. “Second sector: the Prism Court. The Light Amulet holders are within. Close the distance. Remember, a reflection is just light leaving. It doesn’t mean there’s anything solid to return to.”
Movement flickered in the center of the chamber. Alfredo stood atop a wide, sunlit dais that glowed with artificial warmth. He saw Antonella and spread his arms, the gesture magnified by a hundred mirror slices.
“The main stage!” he announced, his voice amplified, echoing with a layer of synthesized crowd murmur. “Took you long enough. I was getting bored of my own company.”
He snapped his fingers.
The court erupted with glamour. Glimmering holograms of Alfredo—smiling, winking, striking poses—materialized on every other platform. A wave of sound, like the roar of an adoring stadium, washed through the space. It was perfectly engineered, addictively celebratory. Spotlights danced, highlighting bridges of solid-looking light that crisscrossed the void between pillars.
“See?” the real Alfredo called, his form now difficult to pin down among the copies. “People don’t follow the right path. They follow the bright one. The one that sounds like winning.”
Antonella’s eyes stung from the sheer overload. She forced herself to look down, to find a shadow, like she had before. But here, every object cast multiple, conflicting shadows in the kaleidoscopic light. Some shadows were too deep, some moved independently. Even the evidence of absence was a lie.
“A performance is only airtight,” she shouted into the glare, her voice swallowed by the fake applause, “until someone looks for the tape holding it together.”
She stepped onto the nearest light-bridge. It held for a second, then its shadow—a faint purple smear on the golden floor—winked out. The bridge itself dissolved into sparkles. She threw herself back onto the main platform, heart hammering.
Alfredo’s laugh was a melody. “Wrong guess, counselor! The court doesn’t like people who think in black and white.”
Frustration sparked, hot and urgent. She smothered it. Evidence. If light and shadow were unreliable, what was left? She crouched, pressing a hand to the glass floor. It was warm, but unevenly. A thread of cooler air traced a path from her left. She looked at the shining bridges. The most dazzling one hummed with a faint, artificial vibration. The dullest, a simple milky pane, was silent.
She listened past the fake crowd noise. There. A faint, solid click. A real footstep on glass, from the direction of the cool air current. It didn’t match any of the moving holograms.
She stood and walked directly toward the dull, milky bridge, ignoring the spectacular avenues.
“Oh, that’s just sad,” Alfredo’s voice chimed, close now but directionless. “That’s the service entrance.”
She stepped onto the plain bridge. It felt different—a subtle give, a quiet resonance.It held. She kept moving, following the sporadic click of the real footstep, tracking the cool air. A hologram of Alfredo blew her a kiss as she passed through it; it tasted of static and nothing.
Across the court, separated by a translucent wall of light that multiplied her image into a hesitant crowd, Iva faced her own maze.
Ryszard was already there, strolling backward through a series of mirror gates, hands in his pockets. He looked like he’d wandered in from a casual outing. “Hey. You survived the shiny lawyer bait. Good for you.”
His tone was so flat, so utterly devoid of urgency, it was more disorienting than Alfredo’s spectacle. “Makes for a good story, I guess. The sweetheart who almost made it.”
“I’m not here for a story,” Iva said, her voice smaller than she wanted in the vast space.
“Sure you are,” he said, stopping. He nodded toward three paths radiating from her feet. One was a warm, glowing gold, wide and welcoming. “Everyone is. The question is, what’s your role?” He studied her, a faint, amusementless smile on his lips. “Innocence is a charming look on a finalist. Photogenic. But is it useful?”
The golden path shimmered, promising safety, approval. She felt its pull, a deep, old yearning to be the good one, the liked one. She took a step toward it.
Then she saw the wall beside it. It reflected her, but not as she was—dirty, wounded, determined. It reflected the old Iva, smiling nervously, eager to please, hands clasped hopefully. A version that wanted to be chosen because she was nice, not because she was capable.
She froze. Her breath caught.
“That’s the one, isn’t it?” Ryszard murmured, his voice almost kind. “The one that wants a gold star.”
Iva turned from the golden path. She looked at him, and the firmness that had grown in the grove solidified into something cold and clear. “I’m not here to be impressive to boys who think aloofness is the same as having a soul,” she said, the words precise and sharp. “You confuse distance for depth. It’s boring.”
Ryszard’s eyebrows lifted. His casual smirk didn’t change, but his eyes focused on her, really focused, for the first time. He let out a short, genuine laugh. “Okay. Touché.”
The Prism Court seemed to react. The light intensified, blindingly. Every surface flashed, and suddenly there were dozens of Antonellas, a hundred Ivas, a legion of Alfredos and Ryszards, all moving in a terrifying, synchronized chaos. The real path vanished in a labyrinth of self.
Antonella shut her eyes. She blocked the fake applause, the blinding glare, the multiplying visions. She listened only for the click. She felt only for the cool thread of air. She stepped where the glass thrummed with a weight it was meant to hold, not where it shone.
Iva, her vision swimming with copies of herself, did the opposite of what the court demanded. She stopped trying to find the right path. She looked at the dimmest, least reflective section of the wall before her—a mirror gate that showed only a blurred, dark shape. A place that didn’t celebrate anything. She ran straight for it, trusting the substance of her own shadow over its pretty reflection.
The gate accepted her. She stumbled into a narrower, but solid, passage, gaining precious ground.
Alfredo, from his new perch on a higher crystal spire, frowned down as Antonella emerged from a cloud of prismatic mist, still on the trail, her method unwavering. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Persistent,” he muttered, and vanished behind a radiant wall, the light amulet gleaming as he retreated.
Ryszard, now just a silhouette against a blinding backdrop, watched Iva progress through the dim channel. His pose of casual indifference was gone, replaced by a still, assessing watchfulness. He faded backward, letting her come closer before disappearing himself.
The end of the Prism Court was a single, sheer wall of oscillating light. Antonella reached it first, a sheen of sweat on her skin, squinting into the pulsating barrier. A heartbeat later, Iva emerged from a side channel, her chest heaving, close enough that Antonella could see the fresh determination etched beside the exhaustion on her face.
Through the wall of light, distorted but clear, they could both see their targets retreating into a final, glowing chamber.
“This place,” Antonella said, her voice raspy from the dry air, “it’s getting better at lying.”
Iva wiped her bloody palm on her vest, leaving a smudge. She met Antonella’s glance. “We’re getting better,” she breathed, “at seeing through it.”
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The Elemental Race Dimension — Light Stage, Third Sector: The Solar Mirror Apex, a high chamber of burning glass ramps, spotlight rings, prism bridges, golden reflection walls, and two Light Amulets suspended inside radiant illusion cores. After Light Stage 2/3, with Antonella barely leading and Iva almost caught up.
The wall of light didn’t part so much as it consumed them. For a nauseating second, Antonella felt her molecules vibrate, disassembled by the glare. Then solidity rushed back, hotter and heavier than before.
The Solar Mirror Apex wasn’t a chamber. It was a fever dream of light given architecture. They stood on a narrow, burning glass ramp that spiraled upwards around a central void. Below, an abyss of pure, dazzling gold reflected a dizzying echo of the space. Above, rings of searing white spotlight rotated slowly, casting moving bars of blinding illumination. Bridges of fused crystal prism arched between platforms, each one bending the light into painful rainbows. The air itself shimmered, thick with heat that smelled of hot stone and ozone.
In the very center of the void, two pulsating orbs of condensed radiance hovered, each containing a sliver of piercing white light on a chain—the Light Amulets. Alfredo stood casually before one, Ryszard leaned against a console near the other.
Antoinette’s voice cut through the hum, stripped of all warmth. “Final Light Stage objective is now active. Secure your assigned Light Amulet. The exit to the Darkness Stage will manifest for the first to do so. There are no more reflections to judge. Only the source.”
Antonella was already moving, her boots sizzling on the hot glass ramp. Alfredo smiled, a brilliant, empty thing. He lifted a hand.
A wave of synthesized, ecstatic applause erupted from the very walls, layered with cheers and chants of his name. Three gorgeous, perfect bridges of solid-looking light flashed into existence between Antonella and his core, each a direct, shimmering shortcut. Spotlights swooped to highlight them, making them look like pathways to heaven itself.
“See?” Alfredo called over the noise, his voice smooth and reasonable. “The clearest path. The beautiful one. Why fight through the hard, ugly glass when you can just… take the compliment?”
Antonella skidded to a halt at the edge of the first gorgeous bridge. It looked flawless. “Truth doesn’t need a spotlight, Alfredo. It just needs to hold weight.”
“Truth,” he laughed, shaking his head with pity. “Truth only matters if people are watching, cariña. If it trends. Otherwise, it’s just noise in a dark room.”
She couldn’t afford his philosophy. She had to move. But the Prism Court had trained a new caution into her bones. She snapped a shard of glass from the ramp’s edge and tossed it onto the center of the beautiful bridge.
The shard passed through the light like a ghost and plummeted silently into the golden abyss. The bridge was a hologram, a perfect lie.
“Tick-tock,” Alfredo sang.
Every second verifying his illusions was a gift to him, and to Iva behind her. Rage, cold and sharp, tightened her throat. She had to check each one.
Across the vertiginous space, Iva reached the base of Ryszard’s platform. He hadn’t moved. He watched her approach with the bored interest of someone watching a slightly odd insect.
“This is it, you know,” he said, his voice barely carrying over the ambient hum. “The grand final push. And they’ve got you here, still looking like you just want everyone to have a hug and a juice box.” He tilted his head. “You really think kindness is a weapon here? It’s a liability.”
His words were a blunt probe, jabbing at the bruise Haala had left, at the memory of Skellir’s shattered trust. Iva felt a tremor start in her hands. She forced it into her fists.
“I don’t need you to believe in kindness,” she said, her voice uneven but clear. “I just need to know what I am. Your opinion is your own problem.”
He shrugged, conceding nothing. “Sure. Okay.” He gestured to two bridges leading up to his core. One was a spectacular arch of interwoven gold and white light, broad and inviting. The other was a dim, narrow gangway of smoky quartz, radiating a gentle, real warmth. “Pick your proof, then. The impressive one, or the honest one.”
The golden bridge was what the world applauded. It was what people expected. The dim bridge was what she’d felt in the grove—the warm, true path. It looked weak. It looked like a compromise.
She didn’t hesitate. She stepped onto the dim, warm quartz.
Behind her, the spectacular golden bridge flickered and died with a sound like shattering ice. It had been another trap, a test of vanity.
Ryszard’s careless mask slipped. He stared, a line forming between his brows. “Huh.”
Antonella, meanwhile, was sweating through her shirt. She’d tested two more blinding shortcuts. Both were illusions. The real path was a treacherous, almost invisible ledge of rough, non-reflective black glass that curved away from the amulet core, a longer, harder route. Alfredo’s beautiful distractions had cost her twenty seconds.
“Even evidence needs a good presentation, lawyer,” Alfredo called, smiling widely now. He could see Iva climbing. “Otherwise, it just sits there, useless!”
Antonella didn’t answer. She was on the black glass ledge, moving faster than was safe, fingers scraping for purchase. She focused only on the core, on the amulet, on the single, silent reflection in the golden abyss below that showed only her true, struggling form—no applause, no spotlight, just effort.
Iva reached the top of the quartz gangway. Ryszard was right there, her Light Amulet dangling from his finger. He held it out, not giving it, just showing it.
“You’re less naive than you look,” he said, it wasn’t a compliment. It was an observation that unsettled him.
“And you’re less mysterious than you hope,” Iva shot back. She didn’t wait for him to offer it. She snatched the amulet chain from his hand.
The second her fingers closed around the cool white shard, a section of the wall behind Ryszard’s platform irised open into a maw of pure, utter blackness—the exit. The Darkness Stage.
Iva didn’t look at him again. She ran.
Antonella saw it happen from the corner of her eye. A spike of pure, adrenal fury. She lunged the final distance up the black glass, her hands burning. Alfredo, realizing the game was shifting, tried to step between her and his core.
She didn’t try to go through him. She shoved hard against the glowing core structure itself. It wasn’t anchored. It tilted.
Alfredo, off-balance, stumbled back with a sharp curse. Antonella plunged her hand into the radiant orb. The light felt like hot water. She grabbed her amulet and pulled.
“You’re just making a point no one’s watching!” Alfredo shouted after her as she spun toward the exit Iva had already entered. His voice echoed in the chamber of beautiful lies.
“Lies always beg for an audience!” she yelled back, not breaking stride. “The truth doesn’t have time!”
She hit the dark opening at a full sprint. The blinding light of the Apex vanished, replaced by an absolute, suffocating black. The cold hit her skin like a physical slap. She could hear nothing but her own ragged breath and, just ahead, the swift, sure footsteps of Iva Stigsdottir, now leading the race.