Katell’s pulse pounded. “Free? How?”
“It let you reach me—here, in my realm.” He gestured at the vast, crimson-streaked wasteland surrounding them. “I call it the Eternal Battlefield. Souls bound to me reside here… and it’s a fine place to train.”
Katell froze. “Souls?”
“Yes. Yours is here.” He shrugged, almost lazily. “Your body’s still in Kisra. With the Emperor.”
Her knees threatened to buckle, colour draining from her face. “What?!”
Laran kept walking without looking back. “Just follow me.”
They moved through the endless battlefield, the clash of steel echoing faintly across the horizon, though no warriors appeared. Only ghosts drifted among the wreckage, wandering without purpose, their hollow forms indifferent to them.
A shiver ran down Katell’s spine. “Who are they?”
Laran’s focus shifted to the drifting figures. “Warriors who gave up their souls to me.”
“Gave up their souls? Why?”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “For more power. Victory. Revenge. Many reasons.” At last, his gaze returned to her. “In an age of war and influence, power is the only true necessity.”
Katell wasn’t so sure. What had power done for her? She’d been the most powerful soldier in the legion, the strongest among them—and still, she had lost.
She forced herself to focus, casting another wary glance at the spectral figures gliding around them. “What do they do for you? These souls?”
“They’re looking for someone.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“My sister.”
Katell recalled everything she’d heard from Pinaria. “Turan, right? I heard her temple in Velch burned down.”
Laran’s brow creased. “Yes. Ever since the Westerner’s attack, she’s disappeared.”
A pang of sympathy rose in Katell. She knew the desperation of searching for a missing sister all too well. “And you couldn’t help her?”
His expression darkened, a shadow passing over his features. “No. My attention was needed elsewhere at the time.”
Before she could press further, the sound of rushing water filled her ears. A fountain rose in the middle of the battlefield, its pristine white stone stark against the blood-soaked earth. It depicted a naked young man draped in a flowing cloak, a sword in his grasp. Coiled around his legs, serpents slithered, their carved bodies frozen in motion.
Just beneath him, suspended above the basin, rested a circular bronze mirror with a dark surface.
Laran stopped at the edge of the fountain and planted his sword into the ground with a dullthud,his smirk widening.
“Here we are. Go on. Look into the mirror.”
Katell stepped forward, and the mirror’s surface shimmered to life. It reflected nothing of the crimson sky or endless battlefield—only a swirling void of darkness. The instant her gaze met it, Laran’s realm seemed to dissolve around her.
In its depths, she saw herself—in the mortal world.
She was standing in a candlelit tent, her body still as servants circled her, fastening the straps of her armour. The polished leather and metal gleamed under the flickering torchlight—just like her eyes, which were utterly black.
What was going on?
In the corner, Leywani stood stiff with unease, arms folded tight around herself, worry carved into every line of her face.
Dorias loomed beside her, his attention on Atticus, who was delivering a report. “Our current estimate is over a thousand rebels barricaded behind the palisade,” Atticus said. “They’ve been arming themselves with every salt mine they’ve attacked. Mostly spears and shields—some swords, too.”
