We ran through the collapsing Grove. Glass trees shattering around us. The ground splitting beneath our feet. Astro's silver blood still spreading, still poisoning the trial.
Ori's screams grew louder as we got closer. Then weaker. Then silent.
We're losing him.
"I know." Astro's voice through the damaged red thread was strained. "Faster."
We pushed through a gap between falling trees and emerged into a clearing.
The center of the Grove.
Everything converged here. All the paths through the forest. All the glass trees. All the reflections. This was the heart of the trial. The source of all the mirrors.
And in the center of the clearing stood a mirror unlike any we'd seen before.
Massive. Twenty feet tall. Perfectly circular. Framed in bone that pulsed with silver light. The glass surface was flawless. Pristine. Untouched by the destruction consuming the rest of the Grove.
This was the central mirror. The original. The source from which all other reflections had been created.
