The tower of doubt 2
361 Words
She looked at him—this man who had betrayed their mission—and yet, here he was, standing in the darkest place, choosing to fight for something again.
Ariah straightened. The voice of doubt was loud, but it wasn’t truth. Truth didn’t break you. It refined you.
At the final landing, the tower opened into a wide chamber of mirrors. Dozens of them, all twisted and warped. They didn’t show her reflection—they showed versions of her: angry, broken, selfish, cowardly.
She stepped toward one.
The image showed her abandoning the others, running into the forest alone. Another showed her kneeling before the Dark King, hands stained with blood. Another: her flame dying out, her eyes hollow and lost.
Ariah’s breath caught in her throat.
“I am not those things,” she whispered.
The mirrors laughed.
“Not yet,” they replied.
Then came silence.
Rael stood beside her, his reflection showing him chained, kneeling in shame. But he didn’t flinch.
“I was that man,” he said quietly. “But I am not him anymore.”
Mira, trembling, stepped to her own reflection and whispered, “I forgive myself.”
One by one, the mirrors cracked.
Ariah faced her own.
“I was afraid. I still am. But I choose the Light anyway.”
Her mirror shattered with a sharp cry of sound, and at once the tower began to tremble.
The stone beneath them groaned. Cracks webbed through the floor.
“We need to go!” Jalen shouted.
They ran, stumbling down the winding staircase as the Tower of Doubt began to collapse. It didn’t fall like stone—it crumbled like smoke and ash, as if it had only ever existed in the minds of those who believed in its lies.
Outside, beneath the open sky, they collapsed to the ground, breathing hard.
The tower was gone.
In its place: only a patch of scorched earth and a gentle breeze.
Rael turned to Ariah.
“You led us through,” he said. “Even when you were uncertain.”
“I’m still uncertain,” she replied. “But doubt doesn’t rule me anymore.”
- Writer
