After the quiet horror of the Garden, the world shifted once more. Now they walked across a surface as black as pitch—perfectly flat, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. Above them stretched no sky, no vault—only a void pressing down with silence. The only guideposts were two endless walls of dark, nearly invisible glass, forming a corridor that stretched into infinity. This was the entrance to the “Hall of Mirrors.”

Renard walked behind the others, his steps soundless, his gaze fixed on the ground. Ever since he’d awakened after Elwin’s ritual, he’d carried hell within him. The whispers of names, flashes of strangers’ final moments, the taste of fear on his tongue—not his own, but that of those who’d stood before his blade. His companions’ trials had seemed like distant spectacles. His trial was inside—and he’d been waiting for it every second.

As they crossed an invisible threshold, the walls came alive. The dark glass cleared, becoming perfectly transparent—and in it reflected not their four figures. In the first mirror on the right appeared the face of a young mage, eyes wide with terror, mouth open in a silent scream. Beneath it, glowing as if engraved, floated a single phrase: “Do you remember my name?”

Renard froze as if struck in the solar plexus. He remembered. Erast. A novice illusionist who’d spoken too loudly about resistance.

To the left—a woman in a tracker’s cloak. “Why?” asked the mirror.
To the right—an old soldier with a scar on his cheek. “Why me?”

The mirrors multiplied ahead, an endless gallery of frozen moments. These were not threats. They were questions. Hundreds, thousands of eyes staring into him.

“Ren…” Sylvia began, but Alistair gently took her hand.
“This is his path. Alone.”

Renard stepped forward. His body was so taut with tension it seemed he might shatter at a touch. He stopped before Erast’s mirror. Every fiber in him screamed to look away, to shut his eyes, to run. But he lifted his head and met those eyes, full of a dying question.

“Erast,” he rasped, his voice alien even to himself. “I… don’t remember your middle name. I never asked. I was… bored. And you seemed like a challenge. I was weak. I chose this. Forgive me.”

The mirror did not shatter. It sighed. A faint ripple passed through the glass, and the terror in Erast’s eyes softened into empty bewilderment—less agonizing, less accusing. The image dimmed, becoming just glass again.

It was a ritual. Not magical. Human. Step by step, mirror by mirror, Renard walked the corridor of his guilt. He faced each one. Recalled the circumstances (often fleeting—the target was just a target). Spoke the truth. Horrible, shameful, childishly cruel truth.

“I liked your blocking technique. I wanted to break it.”
“You reminded me of a teacher who humiliated me. It was revenge on him, not you.”
“The usurper promised a new sensation. Your despair… I wanted to ‘taste’ it.”

There were no excuses. Only reasons—petty and insignificant against the enormity of what he’d done. Some mirrors fell silent. Some wept softly—tears of condensed sorrow streaming down the glass. Some screamed in silent, soul-rending grimaces. But he never looked away. He accepted their cries. This was his music. His echo.

Step by step, confession by confession, he pressed deeper into the heart of his nightmare. He was not being cleansed. He was being weighted down. Each admission, each gaze, settled on his soul like another leaden burden. He walked hunched, as if beneath an invisible press.

And then, at the end of the endless corridor, there were no more mirrors. Only one—vast, spanning the entire wall. In it reflected not the broken man standing here, but the Last Smile: flawless, cold, rapier in hand, that same empty, beautiful smile on his lips. In his double’s eyes gleamed the detached curiosity of a collector examining a new insect.

“Well?” the double asked. His voice was an exact replica of Ren’s old, velvety, venomous tone. “Tired of repenting? Sweet little performance. Touched me. Think it changes anything? You are me. I am you. We chose power. We chose sharp sensations. Everything else is just boring morality for the weak.”

Renard stared at his reflection—not at who he’d been, but at what he’d become. And for the first time on this nightmare journey, his voice did not waver.

“No. You are what I was. A slave to my own boredom. An empty shell afraid to feel anything real—even pain. Even guilt. You are my corpse. And I’ve come to bury you.”

He did not lunge. He did not argue. He simply stepped forward and punched the mirror with his fist.

The glass, expecting an elegant fencing thrust, could not withstand the raw, desperate force of rejection. It shattered with a deafening crack—but the shards did not fall. They hung suspended in the air, swirling around Renard. Each fragment no longer reflected victim or executioner. Instead, they showed fragments of truth: pain, fear, boredom, weakness, choice—all the threads of his guilt, now stripped of self-justification and polish.

The shards drew together, fused under the pressure of that unbearable admission, and formed not a crystal or a drop, but an Shard of Ruthless Truth. It was jagged, sharp, dangerous to hold. It held no comfort, no healing—only the cold, unyielding fact of what had been. Unbearable. But undeniable.

Renard took it. The shard bit into his palm—but no blood welled. It was as if the pain of the cut itself was part of the artifact. He did not cry out. He only gripped it tighter, accepting the pain as his due.

The corridor vanished. He stood once more with his companions on the black plain. Pale as death, his hand bleeding from the shard, but in his eyes was no longer madness. Only exhaustion—endless, cosmic weariness. And behind it—a strange, hollow calm. Hell had been walked. He was not good for it. But he was true—to himself.

He silently offered the bloodied shard to Alistair.
“Don’t expect redemption from me,” he whispered. “It won’t come. But you can count on my truth. It is… solid now.”

The third shard for the new Heart had not been won in battle against others, but in a ruthless, solitary battle against himself. It did not make Renard lighter. It made him unbearably heavy. But now, he could bear his own weight without crumbling.