Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 6: The Chamber of Reflection
For several minutes none of them moved.
The Maze of Echoes was gone.
The broad room looked exactly as it had before the first panels rose.
The temperature remained seventy-two degrees.
The floor was level.
The lighting had returned to normal.
Most importantly, Alliyanna could see Talak and Kahlan.
She could feel them too.
The connection remained quiet now that none of them was reaching deliberately, but it was there.
Kahlan finally looked at them.
“I said I would explain.”
Talak nodded.
“You did.”
“All of it.”
“Yes.”
Kahlan waited.
Talak looked around.
“Just not here.”
Alliyanna agreed.
“Not here.”
The temple had already reached deeply enough into all three of them.
There would be time later.
She hoped.
The illumination began to weaken.
Not darkness.
Seventy percent.
Then sixty.
Then perhaps half.
Talak looked upward.
“I suppose that means we’re not finished.”
Kahlan sighed.
“I was afraid of that.”
The floor rumbled.
Lines appeared around each of them.
Four seams surrounded Alliyanna.
Talak had the same pattern.
Kahlan too.
“No,” Alliyanna said.
“Tight formation,” Talak ordered.
They tried.
The temple reacted first.
A wall rose between Alliyanna and Talak.
Another came behind her.
A third separated her from Kahlan.
The fourth completed the enclosure.
“Allie!”
“I’m here!”
The walls continued upward.
Alliyanna reached mentally.
Talak?
Kahlan?
The connection remained empty.
A ceiling section descended.
The chamber sealed.
Alliyanna stood alone in an eight-foot square room.
The walls were smooth black stone.
No door.
No visible seam beyond the joints.
“Talak?”
Her voice barely existed.
There was almost no echo.
She activated the suit communicator.
No signal.
Changed frequency.
She tried telepathy again.
The isolation was complete.
The light faded.
Alliyanna activated her suit lamp.
The black stone absorbed most of it.
Then the remaining chamber light vanished.
She stood in darkness.
After the maze, the silence was almost worse.
She checked her chronometer. Five minutes passed, then eleven. She tried the communicator again. At fourteen minutes she tried telepathy. Neither worked. At eighteen minutes she sat down. By twenty-seven minutes, the chamber had done nothing at all.
Alliyanna stood again.
“This is ridiculous.”
The chamber did not answer.
At thirty-one minutes one wall changed.
A faint glow appeared.
Alliyanna stepped back.
After the maze she expected another lie.
The surface brightened.
A ballroom appeared.
Birsha.
The attack.
Alliyanna watched herself.
She watched Duke Birsha.
The scene continued exactly as she remembered.
No changed faces.
No altered dialogue.
The attack began.
Shouting.
Weapons fire.
Movement.
Then Birsha was struck.
He fell.
“I didn’t do this.”
Nothing changed.
“I didn’t kill him.”
The image continued.
“I didn’t plan the attack.”
“I didn’t even know it was going to happen.”
The scene stopped with Birsha on the floor.
Alliyanna folded her arms.
“If this is supposed to make me responsible for his death, it isn’t going to work.”
The chamber offered no answer.
She waited.
Five minutes passed.
The image remained.
“I didn’t kill him.”
The chamber apparently did not care.
Alliyanna turned away.
The opposite wall illuminated.
The same image appeared.
“You’re annoying.”
No response.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Birsha remained there.
“What do you want?”
The scene changed.
A library.
Alliyanna stopped.
She knew this room.
She had spent hours there after Gristov explained the marriage arrangement.
She had been researching herself.
What happened to House Kar’Jan after marriage?
What rights did she retain?
What authority did she lose?
Would her title merge with Birsha’s?
Could he control her estate?
Her younger self sat surrounded by legal references.
Imperial noble law was old.
Centuries of amendments, precedents and exceptions.
She turned a page.
Then stopped.
The provision dealt with succession through a registered noble betrothal.
Normally a title passed by blood.
But an old exception allowed a named betrothed to inherit a title and estate if a registered betrothal contract specifically established succession and the titled party died before the marriage ceremony.
The requirements were precise.
Specific language.
Authentication.
Witnesses.
Named title.
Named estate.
No later amendment.
Young Alliyanna read it once.
Then again.
Alliyanna remembered the feeling.
Interest first.
Then understanding.
Then possibility.
Her younger self pulled another reference toward her.
Cross-checked the provision.
Still valid.
Another source.
Still valid.
“I was protecting myself.”
The younger Alliyanna copied several lines.
Nothing changed.
“That’s what I was doing.”
The screen continued.
Alliyanna remembered the thought.
If something happened to Birsha, she would otherwise have little protection.
Perhaps none.
The marriage could leave her trapped between two Houses.
Unless the contract said otherwise.
Her younger self became still.
If something happened to him, the title could pass to her.
There it was.
Alliyanna looked away.
“I didn’t expect him to die.”
The image held.
“I didn’t want him to die.”
“I knew it was possible.”
The screen remained.
Birsha was powerful.
Powerful men had enemies.
Alliyanna had already seen enough politics to know noblemen did not always die quietly in bed.
She had not predicted an assassination.
She had understood death was possible.
Her younger self copied the codicil.
Adjusted it.
Checked it.
Again.
Again.
This had not been casual.
Alliyanna had been very careful.
“I knew what it could do.”
The image continued.
She remembered making certain the language remained in the contract.
She remembered the seals.
No one objected.
The codicil was lawful.
Birsha accepted it.
But the chamber was not asking whether it was lawful.
“I made sure that if he died, I would inherit.”
Nothing happened.
Alliyanna waited.
“I just admitted it.”
The chamber remained silent.
The scene changed.
Birsha died.
Then came the aftermath.
Shock.
Fear.
Confusion.
And another feeling.
Relief.
Alliyanna looked away.
She had always known it was there.
The betrothal was over.
The future she feared was over.
She would never have to become his wife.
And because of the codicil, she was not merely free.
She had inherited.
“I was relieved the betrothal was over.”
The image did not change.
“I was relieved I wasn’t trapped.”
“What do you want me to say?”
A man was dead.
And part of her had been relieved by what his death meant for her.
Not relieved he suffered.
Not relieved someone killed him.
Relieved at the outcome.
She sat down again.
Minutes passed.
“I was happy.”
The words sounded wrong.
She shook her head.
“No. I wasn’t happy he died.”
“I was happy about what his death ended.”
She stared at her younger self.
“And what it gave me.”
There it was.
She had benefited.
She had deliberately prepared to benefit.
“I saw an opportunity.”
She waited.
“I was in a situation I did not choose.”
“And I found a way to protect myself inside it.”
She looked at the library scene.
“But that isn’t all I did.”
Young Alliyanna copied the codicil.
“I made sure that if something happened to him, I would come out with more power than I went in with.”
The chamber remained still.
“I did that intentionally.”
Her voice was quieter.
“I knew exactly what I was doing.”
There was no greed on the younger woman’s face.
There was calculation.
That was more uncomfortable.
“I didn’t kill him.”
Alliyanna breathed.
“I didn’t want him killed.”
Another breath.
“But I planned for his death as a possibility.”
She looked at Birsha.
“And when it happened, I benefited.”
The image returned to the library.
Alliyanna stared at herself.
“Would I do it again?”
The chamber did not answer.
She thought about it.
Would she remove the codicil knowing everything she knew now?
Would she enter the marriage without protection merely to prove she was not ruthless?
No.
“No.”
She spoke quietly.
“I would put it in again.”
The image remained.
“I would do it again because protecting myself was not wrong.”
She looked at Birsha’s death.
“But I have to admit what else was there.”
She had seen possibility.
She had used it.
She could calculate.
She could position herself.
She could be ruthless.
“I am capable of being ruthless.”
The image flickered.
“That doesn’t make me a murderer.”
“It doesn’t make me greedy.”
“But it means I need to know that part of me exists.”
The library slowly faded.
“If I pretend I could never use people or circumstances to my advantage, I’m lying to myself.”
The image nearly disappeared.
“I did it.”
Alliyanna looked at where her younger self had been.
“I chose it.”
The wall returned to black.
Alliyanna checked her chronometer.
One hour, twenty-six minutes.
For another twelve minutes there was nothing.
Then she understood.
There was no next problem.
She had to sit with what she admitted.
She thought about the codicil.
She did not hate the young woman who wrote it.
That surprised her.
Power did not become dangerous simply because someone possessed it.
Power became dangerous when the person using it stopped questioning why.
“I know what I did.”
Her voice vanished into the walls.
“I know why I did it.”
She waited.
“And it is part of me.”
The floor rumbled.
Light returned.
One wall descended.
Alliyanna stepped out.
Talak and Kahlan were still enclosed.
Her chronometer showed one hour, thirty-nine minutes.
She sat on the floor and waited.
Talak’s chamber had gone dark at the same time as hers.
He spent the first twenty minutes testing everything.
Walls.
Communicator.
Suit systems.
Telepathy.
None of it answered him.
He did not sit.
Standing felt ready.
Sitting felt passive.
At twenty-two minutes he finally sat against the wall.
At twenty-nine the screen illuminated.
A clan convoy.
Years earlier.
Not long after Talak formally assumed leadership.
A scout report had arrived before departure.
Possible raider signatures.
Unconfirmed.
The safer decision was to delay.
Twelve hours.
Maybe eighteen.
The delay would cost money.
Contracts would be late.
One older captain spoke.
“Your father would have gone.”
Talak’s jaw tightened.
The man had not meant it as an insult.
That made it worse.
Another said, “We cannot stop every time a sensor picks up a shadow.”
Talak knew what came next.
He ordered the convoy forward.
“Proceed as scheduled.”
The raiders were real.
The attack began quickly.
A smaller escort ship was destroyed.
Three clan members died.
The official review did not find him negligent.
The scout report had been weak.
The decision had been defensible.
“Proceeding was reasonable,” Talak said.
The screen remained.
“There was no confirmed threat.”
“We could have delayed and been attacked later.”
Talak stood.
“I didn’t know they were there.”
The image returned to the meeting.
“Your father would have gone.”
Talak remembered his thought.
If I delay, they will think I am afraid.
He looked away.
“That wasn’t the only reason.”
“The report was weak.”
“But it was one of the reasons.”
He had been young enough to believe leadership had to look certain.
He had inherited the position.
Everyone knew it.
His father had been respected.
Talak was being measured against him.
The aftermath appeared.
A relative of one of the dead stood before him.
“You only sit in that chair because of your father.”
Talak remembered the silence.
He had not answered.
The words stayed anyway.
“That wasn’t fair.”
“He was grieving.”
The sentence had become part of him.
For years Talak worked as though he could permanently prove it false.
Study more.
Prepare more.
Take more responsibility.
Never use clan resources personally.
Never ask someone else to take a risk he would not take.
Be first into danger.
Be last out.
Know the answer.
Always protect.
The screen showed him different years.
Talak commanding.
Talak protecting.
Talak telling someone not to worry because he had it handled.
Again.
Again.
Again.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“I did my job.”
“I protected them.”
Then the chamber showed a moment when someone asked him a question and he did not know the answer.
Talak answered anyway.
Not falsely.
But more confidently than he felt.
Another scene.
Again.
Another.
Again.
The pattern was obvious.
“A leader cannot panic every time he doesn’t know something,” Talak said.
“A leader cannot make everyone else carry his doubts.”
The screen returned to the convoy.
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