## CHAPTER 85: The Mirror of Guilt
Lyra turned around frantically, her boots pivoting sharply on the stone pavement as the freezing grey fog from Silas's vanished body began to spread all around her. It trailed across her ankles, swirling upward in ghostly, phantom tendrils, whistling with a low, haunting hum that echoed from left to right. She spun, her breath catching in her throat as the fog grew thicker and thicker, completely swallowing the towering grass walls of the maze and plunging her into an absolute, blinding white void.
"Is this an attack?!" Lyra demanded, her voice echoing frantically into the mist.
Adrenaline surged through her veins. Acting entirely on her instincts, she snapped her right arm forward. A bright, intense orange flame brewed across her hand, crackling with localized heat. With a slow, calculated breath to stabilize her mana, she launched her hand forward. A massive fireball shot into the heart of the smoke, tearing a brief path through the gloom.
But there was nothing. No explosion. No physical feedback. No impact. The flame simply traveled into the distance and dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind only an oppressive, cold silence and absolute isolation.
Before Lyra could figure out what kind of barrier magic she was trapped inside, a cold, sickeningly familiar voice echoed through the fog.
"Even if you find out... why would I care?"
It was Silas. His low, dull voice seemed to manifest from every direction at once, vibrating through the very marrow of her bones.
"What is this?!" Lyra yelled, her eyes darting through the haze. "Show yourself!"
"Lyra Amelia Valerius, the first of her name," his voice drifted through again, calm and cutting. "Born into power. So much power that any royal or any high noble could ever dream to imagine... and yet, always so completely alone."
Suddenly, the cold fog violently warped. The white void rushed outward, and the scene around her shifted in a dizzying blur of motion. The smoke cleared instantly, and Lyra's breath hitched as she found herself standing in a grand, high-ceilinged room. It was an environment so familiar, so painfully accurate, that it felt terrifyingly real.
It was a majestic, crimson-themed bedroom, centered around a massive king-sized bed and elegant velvet lounge chairs. Lyra's eyes widened in absolute shock as she realized where she was: her own private chambers back at the Valerius estate. But what was most shocking was that she could see *herself*.
A younger, little version of Lyra sat quietly on the edge of the large bed. A flock of housemaids moved silently around the room, dusting shelves and polishing silver, while one senior maid stood directly behind the young girl, gently combing through her long, dark hair with a silver brush. Little Lyra sat perfectly still, her face dull, heavy, and completely devoid of emotion.
The present Lyra watched the scene unfold, remembering this exact day like the back of her hand. Her heart plummeted into her stomach. This was the exact day she had lost her best friend.
"How sad it is... isn't it?" Silas's voice echoed from the walls of the phantom room, dripping with an analytical chill.
"How are you doing this?!" Lyra shouted, her composure fracturing as she turned away from her past self. "Stop it! Stop this illusion!"
"Let's move on, shall we?" Silas's voice replied smoothly.
The world warped again. The crimson bedroom dissolved into a vortex of dust, reassembling into a massive, quiet library flooded with the gloomy light of early winter. It was a few months after the incident that had ridden her of her best friend. Little Lyra was sitting alone at a giant oak desk, surrounded by towering stacks of ancient texts. In order to violently divert herself from her own suffocating emotions, the little girl was reading frantically—studying, memorizing, pulling one heavy book after another, over and over again, as many times as humanly possible. She was pushing her mind to the absolute brink of exhaustion just so she could avoid her own raw emotions. Her own lingering guilt.
The present Lyra watched this display with deep, suffocating sadness. Silas wasn't just throwing illusions at her; he was methodically digging into her soul, opening old, bleeding wounds in her heart that she had spent years burying behind academic perfection.
"Stop this!" Lyra yelled into the empty library, her fists clenching tightly at her sides. "I order you to stop!"
" Humans are the most interesting creatures of creation," Silas's voice echoed, completely ignoring her demands.
"Because we are the only ones who build cages from our own illusions... and then call the cage home. We don't see reality as it is — we see the version we're brave enough to live with. Sooner or later, the illusion you feed becomes the prison you defend."
The phantom library began to burn, the pages of the books curling into ash.
"You said you wanted to know, didn't you?" Silas's voice mocked from the smoke. "Or was that just another lie you tell yourself?"
The scene shifted once again, replacing the library with a terrifying landscape of heat and destruction. Red, blazing fire erupted all around them, roaring toward the ceiling. A little girl stood directly in front of the younger Lyra, crying hysterically, her hands outstretched in a desperate plea for help. Little Lyra stood completely unmoving in the center of the inferno, her face entirely dull, her red eyes clouded with an immense, volatile power that she didn't yet understand.
The present Lyra watched in absolute horror. Her chest heaved, her sharp wit failing her entirely as her eyes widened in profound shock. The absolute weight of the trauma broke through her defenses, and hot tears began to flow freely down her cheeks.
But the maze wasn't done with her. Before she could scream, the raging inferno suddenly dissolved, shifting the reality around her one final time.
"Do you know what I think?" Silas's voice spoke, dropping into a deeply perceptive, quiet whisper. "Your constant ambition to cure your curiosity is simply the result of one single curiosity which you will never, ever get to cure... and that is the truth about your father."
The scene solidified into a high-class, grand dining hall. Present Lyra stood at the edge of the room, watching her younger self eating dinner alone at an immense, polished dining table fit for a royal princess. The silence of the massive hall was deafening.
Then, a familiar, heavy footstep echoed from behind the chair.
Lyra's head snapped toward the sound. Walking across the marble floor was her father, Alastair Rose—the Crimson Riot himself. He wore his formal traveling cloak, his stature imposing and distant as he began to turn toward the grand exit, preparing to leave the estate once again for urgent, high-stakes matters.
"Damian," Alastair spoke, his booming, authoritative voice cutting through the hollow dining hall.
A senior, impeccably dressed butler stepped out from the shadows near the door, bowing respectfully. "Yes, Lord Alastair?"
"I'll be on my way now," Alastair said coldly, not once looking back toward the table. "Do remember to take proper care of the house while I am gone. I have important business to attend to in the western rings."
The moment her father spoke, the little Lyra sitting at the massive table instantly turned her head over the back of her high chair. Her young, lonely eyes locked entirely onto her father's retreating figure, desperately hoping he would turn around just once.
"When shall we expect your return, sir?" Damian asked politely, holding the heavy front door open.
"Soon," Alastair replied simply.
Damian nodded, stepping outside to escort the lord toward his waiting carriage. The massive oak doors shut with a heavy, final thud, leaving the little girl completely isolated in the quiet, empty dining hall. And from the shadows of the illusion, the present Lyra could only watch her father leave, her heart breaking all over again as the phantom memory trapped her in her own unresolved past.