The first rule of Shadow Combat was simple: your opponent knows exactly what you refuse to admit.
The reflection wore Aeris's face with haunting precision—the same silver-threaded uniform, the same steady, calm eyes.
But there was something indulgent in its expression, a look of mocking pity that Aeris would never allow herself to show.
"You came back wrong," the reflection said. Its voice was her own, yet it was softer, draped in a terrifying sort of affection.
The hall erupted in a symphony of gasps and scraping boots. Across the arena, Liora's reflection emerged twisted with a paralyzing doubt that mirrored the girl's own features. Rowan's opponent tilted its head with a predator's cold precision. Beside them, Lucien's shadow did not speak at all; it merely watched him with an expression of amused contempt that seemed to rattle even his legendary composure.
Aeris glanced toward Caelan. His reflection was different. It didn't move or mock; it simply stood there with its eyes closed, as if waiting for a signal only it could hear.
Interesting.
Aeris rolled her shoulders slowly, her muscles coiled and ready.
"You're early," she murmured to the girl standing before her.
Her shadow's smile widened, stretching just a fraction too far to be human.
"I was always here."
_
The first strike wasn't physical.
The black glass dissolved, and Aeris was no longer in the arena. She was back in the execution chamber, the cold air tasting of iron and finality. She saw the blade descending again. She saw her father's unreadable mask, her mother's trembling hands, and her brother's cowardice as he turned away.
Her heart rate spiked—a jagged, frantic rhythm—and the shadow responded.
Darkness surged up her arm like ink under skin, solidifying around her wrist into a gauntlet of shifting smoke. As the executioner's blade fell, she didn't flinch. She caught the edge of the steel in her palm.
The memory shattered. The arena rushed back into place, the glass floor freezing beneath her feet. Her reflection stumbled back, clutching a hand that bled cold, black light.
Aeris inhaled slowly, forcing her lungs to expand against the crushing pressure of the cavern. "That's all?"
The reflection tilted its head, its neck clicking with an unnatural sound. "You liked it," it whispered, its voice a dark honey in her mind.
Her pulse jumped. Around her, the arena flickered and groaned. The trial was taking its toll; students screamed as their reflections pressed them into the glass, literal shadows devouring their counterparts.
Resonance. Alignment. If you denied yourself, the shadow consumed you; if you accepted too much, you became it.
Her opponent rushed her again, moving like liquid and bending at angles no human spine should allow. Instead of retreating, Aeris stepped into the attack. Always step toward what hunts you.
She let her heart rate climb, inviting the darkness in. The shadow responded, wrapping around her spine like wings unfurling from the marrow of her bones. In that union, she finally sensed them—the whispers.
Lies. All of them.
Across the arena, the sounds of failure echoed. Liora's voice cracked as she shouted a desperate lie; Rowan muttered that he didn't care, even as his reflection drove him to his knees. Only Lucien remained silent.
Then, Caelan.
A flicker of a future fragment pierced Aeris's mind: Caelan standing over her body. It wasn't the execution again—this was different. His hand was draped in shadow, his expression unreadable.
Her breath hitched, and her reflection's smile sharpened. "See?" it hissed. "You want this."
The shadow-self struck with a blade of condensed darkness, precise and merciless. Aeris didn't flinch; she caught its wrist, their faces inches apart.
"I want control," she corrected softly.
She didn't push the darkness away. Instead, she invited it. Her pulse surged with deliberate intent, and the shadow answered instantly, wrapping her in a mantle of liquid black. The glass floor beneath them spiderwebbed, buckling under the sudden pressure of her alignment.
The reflection froze, its predatory confidence vanishing. "You're not supposed to enjoy it," it whispered, its voice finally trembling.
Aeris leaned closer, her eyes dark with a power that wasn't her own—and yet, entirely hers. "That's where you're wrong."
She drove her shadow-coated fist through the reflection's chest. The arena shattered into blinding light.
[End of the chapter 9]