The path after the clock room was strange. It didn't lead up or down, it just curved. Like walking on the rim of a bowl too big to see all at once.
Everything smelled like stone and rain.
The sky blinked.
No sun.
No moon.
Just clouds that sometimes moved like they were breathing.
They came to a mountain.
But it had no name.
No carvings.
No bones.
Just a voice.
"Climb, or turn."
"Turn where?" asked Flick.
The voice didn't answer.
The mountain didn't look tall.
But it was.
The more they climbed, the more it grew.
Like it didn't want to be reached.
Sera growled. "This place cheats."
"No," said Elira. "It forgets."
As they climbed, the air grew thicker.
And the memories came.
Not loud.
Not sharp.
Just… there.
Solin saw a flash of silver feathers. "That's not mine," he whispered.
Amaryn stopped and gasped. "My brother."
Varn winced. "I'm bleeding."
But he wasn't.
Not outside.
The mountain made them feel their oldest wounds.
Not the ones that changed them.
The ones they forgot to remember.
Then the path split.
Into six.
Each path carried a whisper.
Each whisper used the name of one of them.
But not their real name.
The name they hid.
"I'll go first," said Elira.
She chose the middle path.
Darkest.
Stillest.
She walked alone.
Her path smelled like warm paper.
And something burnt.
She turned a corner, and there it was.
Her childhood home.
But cracked.
Crooked.
Wrong.
Inside, the door creaked.
A lullaby hummed.
Her mother's voice.
But not happy.
Not real.
Just a loop.
A wound with a song.
"Elira," said the shape inside.
She stepped forward.
"No."
"I am her," it insisted.
"No."
"You wished I would save you."
Elira's hands trembled.
"But you didn't."
The shape flickered.
And the house shook.
"Because you were just a girl."
Elira nodded.
And whispered, "I still loved you anyway."
The shape broke like glass.
The path behind her cleared.
She found the others, one by one.
Each path had tested them.
Not with monsters.
But with old truths.
Varn held a small flower from his dream.
Solin was silent.
Flick looked younger.
Amaryn's eyes were red.
Sera's sword was missing.
But none of them looked broken.
At the top of the mountain, there was no fire.
No throne.
Just a mirror.
It showed none of them.
Only their footsteps.
And the way the ground bent around them.
"This is what we are," Elira said.
"Proof."
"Of what?" asked Flick.
"That we kept going."
The wind blew once.
And the mountain gave them its name.
Not in stone.
But in song.
A note carried by sky-things.
Soft.
Gentle.
Real.
They left the mountain behind.
It didn't vanish.
But it smil
ed.
As if it had waited for them for a very long time.