The other side was not a place. It was a presence.
The corridor led them into a chamber of translucent crystal, vast and hollow, like the inside of a forgotten god's eye. Structures floated in all directions, some humanoid, some… unnamable. In the center stood a mirror, taller than a tower, its surface rippling like water.
It did not show their reflection.
It showed versions of them.
Aran, scarred and broken, chained to a black throne. Elira, consumed by flame, her body fading to ash. Their son, crowned in silver, but surrounded by shadowed corpses.
"This isn't prophecy," Elira whispered. "It's temptation. Possibility."
Then the mirror pulsed — and stepped forward.
From it came a figure in a hood of crystal threads, face veiled, voice like grinding glass.
"I am the Watcher," it said. "I guard what should not exist. You are flame-wrought. You do not belong here."
Aran raised the Oathbrand. "And yet here I am."
The Watcher tilted its head. "Then you must choose."
Glass panels slid from the air, each containing a scene: worlds burning, realms reborn, lives sacrificed, lives spared.
"One road brings peace but demands loss," the Watcher intoned. "The other preserves love but dooms the stars."
Aran turned to Elira. Her expression was fierce, steady.
"No more false choices," she said. "We make our own path."
The Oathbrand ignited — not in fire, but in light.
The Watcher flinched.
And the mirror cracked.