They say the walls of Ironforge Bastion have never fallen. Stone tempered in dragonfire, towers that pierce the clouds—a fortress carved during an age of heroes, written in story and myth and legend. Its foundation is the pride of a hundred kings, its shadow long enough to stretch across the histories of men. To the world, it is strength made manifest, enduring and untouchable.

But none of that strength lives in me tonight.

Tonight, the fire burns low. Its glow stretches across the stone walls, brushing them in rust and gold. Smoke clings heavy to the air. The shutters are closed, but a sharp wind snakes through the narrow cracks in the wood, whispering secrets I dread to hear. I sit at the edge of my bed, robe damp against my back, the cold seeping up through the stone. The kind of cold that chills to the bone, that grips tightly at the heart. 

I haven’t moved in hours. But the mirror waits patiently.

Seven feet tall, framed in a lusterless gold, gifted by a conquered king from a war no longer sung in the songs. It stands at the far end of the room, watching, masquerading as just glass. But tonight, it stands. It moves. It breathes.

I rise, bare feet whispering against the cold stone floor. Each step is louder in the silence. Three paces from the mirror, I stop. At first, it reflects only the fire behind me—only flicker and shadow.

Then, the image shifts.

He steps into view—not a reflection, but a version of me. Thinner. Paler. Shoulders hunched beneath a weight I know all too well. His skin looks as if it hasn’t felt the sun in years. Eyes darker than shadow. They drip with exhaustion but burn with the cruel spark of old secrets long held. His face is sharp, lips thin, the corners curled in a weary, knowing smile.

“You look tired,” he says—in my voice, but older. Slower. As if dragged down by a heavy iron weight.

I meet his gaze, steady. “I know who you are.”

He nods. “Of course you do. I’ve walked beside you since your first years. Every whisper of hesitation, every echo of doubt in the back of your mind… that was me.”

“You always appear when I’m ready to become something more,” I murmur.

He smirks and steps closer, shadows swirling like oil behind his image. “No. I appear when you stand at the edge—when you’re about to break that which cannot be undone and leap into the abyss with no promise of return.”

My fists clench at my sides. “You kept me silent. Safe. Small.”

“I kept you alive,” he says, eyes flashing like cold steel. “I steered you from foolish ambition. I turned your fear into armor. That crown didn’t land on your head by accident, Your Grace.”

I shake my head slowly. “A crown worn in chains is no victory. That wasn’t life. That was slow death with applause from the masses.”

The corners of his eyes twitch, uncertain.

“You told me to wait. To shrink. To swallow my fire before it burned too bright. You called it wisdom. But in truth, it was fear dressed in reason. Doubt under a veneer of prudence and practicality.”

He straightens, defensive now. “I demanded order. Structure. Without me, you’d have torn everything down chasing shadows.”

“Then I would have fallen,” I say. “But at least then, I would have known what it felt like to live.”

A sharp crack rings through the air. A fissure appears in the mirror—fine, but deep. A fracture of truth in the shadowy glass.

His lips thin. “You think you can cast me aside? Just like that?”

“No,” I answer. “But I can stop kneeling to you.”

Stepping forward, we are now inches apart. The mirror hums between us. My breath fogs the glass, but his form remains clear.

“You need me,” he hisses. “Without me, the pressure grips your mind. Your voice trembles. Your hands falter… I am the spine beneath your armor.”

“I needed you when I feared myself,” I say. “But that man is gone. I buried him under the ash, beneath every step I took into the fire.”

He falters. Blinks. The first tremor of doubt in his gaze.

I step forward, my voice a steel blade pressing into a forge of heat and fire and flame. “You silenced the part of me that dreamed. That reached for more. That believed!”

“I gave you clarity,” he insists. “I kept you from saying too much, from revealing too much, from being too much. You’re still standing because of me. You hold kingdoms. You hold respect. You still find breath because of me. That’s no small thing. You should be thanking me...”

“No,” I whisper. “You buried the best of me and called it mercy.”

Another crack joins the first—this one crooked. Angry. Light seeps through like dawn pressed against shadow.

His face twists. “The version of you that hoped? That man would’ve been torn apart.”

I nod. “But he would have felt a fire in his heart. He would have stood beneath open sky without armor between his beating heart and the sun and stars. He would have lived.”

He recoils, shrinking. His voice trembles. “You’re nothing without me.”

“Then I’ll be nothing,” I say. “But I will belong to myself. I will become something. I can become more.”

The mirror groans. A third fracture streaks downward, splitting his image. His figure flickers, blurred at the edges.

“You’ll fall,” he says again, almost begging now. “You’ll burn everything down.”

“Then let it burn,” I say. “And I’ll reforge myself by my own hands.”

Fear’s eyes burn with a desperate edge, voice low and urgent. “You think you can walk away from me? I am the shadow that guides your steps. Without me, you are nothing but a flame flickering in the wind—fragile and doomed to be snuffed out.”

I meet his gaze, steady and unyielding, voice calm but full of ferocity. “Maybe I was a flame that needed your darkness to burn steady. But now? I am the storm rising beyond your shadow. You were the chain I wore, but I am the force that will break it. This glass will shatter, and now… so will your hold over me.”

“I gave you strength when nothing else could.”

“You gave me chains and called them armor.”

“I held the weight you couldn’t carry.”

“You held me down when I tried to rise.”

“I silenced your doubts before the world could hear them.”

“You silenced my soul before it had a chance to speak.”

“I erased your weakness.”

“You erased my hunger.”

“I made you a king.”

“You made me a ghost.”

“You never had the fire to lead without me whispering how.”

“I’ve always had a fire no one could smother.”

“You couldn’t face failure, so I made you careful.”

“I no longer fear it. I didn’t get here being careful.”

“You’ll fall the moment I’m gone.”

“I’ll rise the moment you’re out of my way.”

“You’ve always run when things got too hard.”

“I’m done running. I walk through fire now.”

“You stared at the fire but feared stepping in.”

“I stand in it now, and it reforges me.”

 The mirror trembles between us, cracks spiderwebbing across the surface. Fear’s form begins to distort, shrinking, fading—but his voice remains, a whisper trailing off like dying embers. “You will fall...”

 I raise my voice, and in a roar, “Then I will rise from the ashes!”

With a thunderous crack, the fire behind me surges, throwing shadows across the room like wings. The cracks in the glass blaze with light. The figure of fear—the pale echo of who I was—shrinks, withers, and collapses into the shimmer.

 And I, forged in silence and scars and fire, turn and walk away.

 And behind me, the mirror cracks…

 And cracks…

 And finally, shatters.

Shards fly like scattered stars across the cold stone floor. Light fractures in a thousand directions, a brilliant, chaotic symphony of broken chains and shattered fears. For a moment, the room feels suspended—caught between what was and what will be.

The jagged edges of the mirror stand like scars—reminders of battles fought in shadow and steel. But the weight pressing on my chest is lighter now. The suffocating grasp of fear loosens, retreating like a tide beaten back by an unyielding shore.

The pale figure in the mirror splinters apart, fragments dissolving into the air like smoke caught in a sudden gust. His voice fades, a dying echo swallowed by the roar of the fire.

He doesn’t vanish. But he no longer fills the mirror. Fear still lingers—in glass, in shadow—but no longer commands.

Silence floods the chamber. Not dead. Not broken. But a silence of my own making. All at once, peace floods over me—deep and defiant. The kind of peace that comes only after the vanquishing of a predator that hunts you in the dark.

The chamber remains, cold and dim. The fire breathes around me, slower now, but steady.

I step forward, my breathing steady and sure, the firelight warming my flesh and soul alike. No longer a prisoner to whispers and shadows, I am whole—scarred, but sovereign.

Outside the chamber, now filled with shattered glass, dawn bleeds into the sky. A new day beckons.

Then, from within the chamber, I hear the low, sharp whisper of the figure that stood in front of me moments before. As he speaks, the words press into my mind, “You’ll never be rid of me.”

“Good,” I reply. “You remind me that I’m still alive.”

And I walk forward—unbroken, unbound, and finally free.

I was forged in the fire.