The silver trail led them into the mountains, where the air grew sharp and the wind whispered names none of them had spoken aloud. Rose kept her fingers just above the glowing path, occasionally drawing it back into visibility when it began to fade. Whatever Mortain had left behind was not meant to be easy to follow.
Basil walked silently at her side, eyes scanning every ridge, every crevice. Nimbus drifted higher, acting as their lookout—if you could call a sentient puffball with no sense of direction a lookout.
"You know," Nimbus said, circling above, "this trail feels cursed."
"It probably is," Rose replied. "But it's our curse, so we might as well wear it like a crown."
They reached the mouth of a cavern around dusk, the silver path diving straight into its yawning maw. Fanged stalactites drooped from the ceiling, dripping a slow ichor that steamed when it hit the ground. Basil stepped forward first, sword drawn.
"It smells like rot and thunder," he muttered.
Rose peered into the dark. "It smells like Mortain's memory. This is where he buried the pieces of himself he didn't want to face."
Inside, the cavern pulsed with a strange light. Faint echoes bounced around them, repeating their footsteps moments after they were taken, but out of rhythm—delayed, wrong. The deeper they went, the more the air seemed to press in around them, as if the cave itself were alive and watching.
Then, Rose saw it.
Bones. Stacked neatly like books along the walls. Hundreds of them—maybe thousands. Not random. Not careless. These were offerings.
Or trophies.
At the center of the chamber was a stone dais, and on it, a mirror framed in thorns and broken glass.
Rose approached, her breath catching. The mirror shimmered.
It didn't show her reflection.
It showed Mortain.
But not the god. The boy.
Twelve years old, drenched in rain, sobbing into his hands as a crowd chanted his name with fear and reverence. Not love.
Never love.
Basil watched her carefully. "Is it a vision?"
She nodded. "It's his worst memory. The day he lost everything. The day they made him into something else."
Nimbus floated near the mirror. "If I lick it, do we all die?"
"Probably," Rose said.
She reached out, but didn't touch the glass. Instead, she whispered, "I'm not here to break you. I'm here to find you."
The mirror pulsed.
And then, it cracked.
From the shadows behind the dais came a sound like breathing—but deeper. Hungrier. Shapes peeled from the walls, their mouths wide and full of jagged glass teeth.
"Ah," Basil said, stepping in front of her. "Guardians."
"Of trauma," Rose muttered.
The first creature lunged.
And the mirror shattered behind them—sending a wave of grief so powerful it knocked Rose to her knees.
This was Mortain's last defense.
Not against enemies.
But against remembering who he truly was.