He walked out of the chamber housing the shattered altar and the tear, only to stop as he noticed the mist slowly retreat, revealing the dead bodies spread out on the ground. The roots covering the entire floor had been dyed red with blood.

  He felt blood drain from his limbs as his gaze lingered on the silhouettes standing above the bodies. It was almost as if they were formed from the mist, their wispy silhouettes fading in and out of existence. While their bodies were crude imitations of human bodies, their faces were visibly formed, mimic huma expression.

  A frigid cold spread throughout his body. His fingers went numb, and his steps staggered to a halt.

  “Brother?” Ilya’s voice was barely audible over the deafening sound of his racing heart, and his shallow, sharp breathing. “Midhir?” she approached him and glanced in the direction he was looking at. “What’s wrong?” she asked with furrowed brows, and a tense expression.

  They stood above the dead bodies, some kneeling, trying to shake them awake, while others seemed confused and lost, looking around aimlessly.

  He averted his gaze, only to see ethereal flowers blooming on the walls, and thick, burly roots hanging from the vaulted ceiling. The sound of flowing water reached his ears from afar. Shadows moved on the walls, but when he tried to look for what cast them, he found naught.

  It was happening again. The world overlapped with itself, allowing him to see things that weren’t there. He could barely tell apart what was real, and what was simply a trick his mind was playing on him. With uneven steps, he marched on, past the bodies laying on the root covered floor, and the spirits hanging above them.

  The soft wailing of the spirits rang in his mind. Their hands reached for him, he felt their cold touch on his arms and legs. He shivered, hastening his steps to try and escape. He could hear the footsteps of Ilya and the others behind him, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn and look – not while the spirits pleaded for help, for direction.

  He couldn’t help them.

  The hallway leading out of the catacombs was no different. There were no spirits lingering here – the cultists had all died by Ilya’s blade in the hexagonal chamber after all – but instead, blooming flowers reaching his knees brushed against him as he marched on. Flowers that weren’t there when they came here less than an hour ago.

  He heard hasty footsteps, then Ilya appeared beside him, matching her pace to his. Her hand gripped his shoulder, and she forced him to stop, and look at her. “Tell me the truth.” Her voice was sharp, her eyes filled with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “You were right. I shouldn’t have come here.” He glanced around. “It’s happened again. Not as badly, but…” his voice trailed off as Ilya’s eyes widened.

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  She took a deep breath. “Alright.” She nodded calmly. He felt her hand on his shoulder shake, but her expression was soft with a smile. “It’s fine, mom will know what to do.” She nodded towards the stairs ahead of them. “Come on,”

  Despite her reassuring smile, he could tell how scared she was – and it was for good reason. Ilya was just a child back then too. Seeing him like that before that veiled woman and their mother healed him must have been more than disturbing.

  “What’s wrong?” Arwen’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts as they reached the stairwell. His brows furrowed as he shot her a cold glance, only to flinch as a shadow passed through the air a few steps behind her.

  She glanced over her shoulder, looked straight at the shadow, only to turn back at him with a confused expression. “Is… there something behind me? You look like you saw a ghost.” She hesitantly asked. Willow’s gaze followed hers, and she seemed just as confused as Arwen.

  “Yeah.” Midhir shook his head, then turned ahead and walked up the stairs, following Ilya who had hastened her steps.

  “There was something behind me?” Arwen asked, even more confused and somewhat alarmed. He heard the women’s hasty steps behind him as they rushed up the stairs.

  As they reached the ground floor of the old Induen mansion, his surroundings changed quite drastically. The overlap he saw only got worse as some walls had whole tree trunks complete with leafy branches growing through them. He spotted more shadows moving around them, but once again there was nobody to cast them.

  It was difficult to navigate through these ethereal branches, but even that couldn’t prepare him for the outside.

  The thirteenth district was wholly covered in a forest. The trees were so large, they dwarfed nearly every building around them. Even the large, ancient trees they saw in the Old Growth near Bareon were tiny next to these. Their roots created mounds on the ground, spreading across the earth like a blanket covering everything.

  It all made him feel so small. He couldn’t even see the trees past a certain point because of the mist, but he knew they were there. He knew the whole of An’Larion was covered in an ancient, terrifying forest.

  A hand gripped his shoulder, forcing him to turn around. Arwen’s fiery gaze locked with his. “What is going on?” She demanded to know. “You’ve been acting odd since Lonan went through the tear. What-“ she abruptly stopped, and took a single, cautious step back.

  “What?” He asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Willow, Princess,” Arwen glanced at them. “Does either of you carry a mirror?”

  “No. Why? We shouldn’t waste any more time, come on,” Ilya impatiently shook her head.

  Willow reached for her bracelet, pondered a moment, then summoned a small hand mirror. “Does this work?” She asked as she handed it over to Arwen. The other woman nodded.

  She took it, turned it’s reflective side towards Midhir and held it in front of his face. “Your sister was oddly against coming here. I pushed back because I feared what Lonan would do with such immense power. It was a mistake. I should have listened.”

  He stared at his own reflection. His clothes were damp from the mist, and somewhat tattered. There was blood on his chest – blood that didn’t belong to him. The streaks of dried blood going down from his left eye made him look far worse than he was, though most of that was covered by his messy hair. The ribbon he used to tie it had fallen off at some point, so he looked quite unkempt.

  Seeing his confused expression, she reached for his face, and gently pushed his hair behind his ear.

  A blue eye stared back at him, circled with dried blood.