Fire and glass bent like breath around him.
The world beyond the door was not a place. Not in the way the monastery or the valley had been. It was weightless, formless—an expanse of shifting reflections, like walking through a storm made of memory and light. Each step echoed twice: once in sound, once in image. But none of the images were Leon.
He walked between versions.
In one pane of sky, he saw himself holding the blade aloft, cloaked in fire, standing alone atop a field of ash. In another, he lay still beneath the ruin of a city, the same blade shattered beside him. In another still, the child stood at his side, hand in his, both of them facing a black sun.
The images moved with him. They shifted when he turned. They rippled when he hesitated.
Elena followed just behind, eyes narrowed, her footsteps measured. "Is this the oath?"
"No," Leon said. "This is the warning."
