The descent beneath Lysandra's sanctum felt like falling into another world. The spiral staircase was narrow and endless, the torch in Kael's hand guttering against walls that glistened as if the stone itself wept. It smelled of forgotten things—iron, dust, and something faintly sweet, like overripe fruit rotting in the dark.
He had expected a chamber. What he found was a womb.
Vast and circular, the ritual chamber pulsed with a heartbeat he could feel in his gums. The floor was carved with interlocking circles of runes, some glowing faintly in deep crimson or ghostly blue. In the center sat a basin—low, wide, and made from obsidian so polished it seemed to drink the torchlight. But its surface wasn't solid. It rippled.
"Mirror of Binding," Lysandra said behind him, her voice almost lost in the chamber's eerie hush. "Made from the blood of a dead god. It doesn't show reflections. Only truth."
Kael turned slowly. "What truth?"
"Your own," she said, stepping beside him. Her hand brushed his sleeve. "And the god's. This trial will either awaken what lies buried… or break you."
Kael stared at the basin. "Break me?"
She didn't answer.
For a long moment, he hesitated. The silence stretched until it became unbearable. Finally, he stepped forward, kneeling before the basin like a penitent. The silver-black liquid was colder than he expected—unnaturally still, like a frozen sky.
As he reached out, his breath hitched.
"Will I come back?" he asked, more to himself than to her.
Lysandra's silence was heavier than any answer.
Then, Kael touched the surface.
The Descent
There was no transition. No sensation of being pulled, or falling. One heartbeat he was kneeling—
The next, drowning.
He couldn't breathe. Not because he lacked air, but because there was too much—too many voices, images, thoughts crashing over him like a storm tide.
Flashes—
Fire in the sky. Screams.
His mother, reaching for him.
Blood. Chains. Eyes that were not his.
He tumbled through them, caught in a spiral of memory and nightmare, until everything snapped.
Memory One: The Burning Sky
He was small again—seven, maybe eight. His body thin, limbs still growing into themselves, fingers clasped tightly around a woman's calloused hand.
His mother's.
They stood outside their cottage as fire rained from the sky. But it wasn't fire in the normal sense. These were not embers or sparks, but sigils, burning red like open wounds. Where they landed, the earth blackened. Where they touched people, they screamed.
He remembered this—
The way the chickens had exploded into feathers.
The smell of burning wood.
His mother yelling at him to run.
But this time, the scene didn't blur. It sharpened.
Soldiers in gold and ivory armor marched in, faces hidden behind divine masks. Their swords glowed, and their voices boomed with the cadence of judgment.
"You harbor the blight!" one shouted, dragging a weeping woman by her braid. "By the Creed of Flame, we cleanse the corrupt!"
Kael felt his body tremble. This wasn't a memory. It was a trial. The world knew he was watching.
One soldier approached him. Towering. Mask carved like a lion.
His mother stepped between them. "Please," she whispered. "He's just a boy. Leave him—"
"He reeks of it," the soldier said, raising his hand. "The old god's stink. In his blood."
Kael shook his head. "No, I didn't do anything!"
But then—
The man reached for him—
And his arm burst into flame.
No, not fire. Something darker. Black lightning erupted from Kael's hands, searing through armor, through flesh, through bone. The man crumbled into ash.
The other soldiers screamed.
Kael's mother turned.
Her face wasn't fear.
It wasn't shock.
It was horror.
"What… are you?" she whispered.
Kael opened his mouth—
And the world cracked like glass.
Not like glass this time, but like skin being peeled back—revealing sinew and screaming thoughts underneath. Kael stumbled through it, gasping, falling into the next memory like slipping between jagged pages of a book never meant to be read.
Memory Two: The Garden of Chains
He was older. Fifteen, maybe. Taller, leaner, and dirtier.
He stood in the middle of a garden.
But this wasn't his. The trees bore silver leaves. The flowers bled. The soil pulsed with veins like skin stretched over muscle. There was a fountain in the center, made of bones wound together in a grotesque spiral.
And at the base of it knelt himself.
Kael took a step closer and watched as the kneeling boy—his past self—screamed silently, chained by his wrists to the bone fountain. His mouth was open, but no sound came out. Only blood.
"What is this…?" Kael breathed.
A voice slithered up behind him. "You know."
He turned.
There stood the figure—cloaked, tall, face hidden behind a white porcelain mask cracked down the middle. Its voice was neither male nor female. It echoed with layers. Old. Cold.
"You did this," the figure said, stepping around him. "You killed the Garden of Silence. You let it rot."
"I don't know what that is."
"You will."
The ground shifted. The trees screamed—voices rising from their leaves in unison, whispering his name in thousands of tongues. Each syllable etched pain into his spine.
KAEL
KAEL
KAEL
KAEL
He clutched his ears. "Stop!"
But the figure didn't stop. It stepped behind him and whispered—
"You are the unmade echo of the Forgotten Flame. The god's curse is not a punishment, but a seed."
Kael spun, shoving the figure away—but when his hand struck the mask, it cracked fully.
And underneath was—
His own face.
Eyes gold and dead. Mouth stitched shut. A crown of thorns growing from the skin of his forehead like something planted there, not worn.
Kael screamed.
Interlude: Fragmented Realities
He fell again. This time into himself.
Voices layered over one another.
"He's dangerous."
"He's chosen."
"He's not supposed to exist."
"He will burn the world to start it anew."
He saw a hand—his hand—wreathed in divine fire. Buildings collapsed beneath it. Screaming innocents ran from him. Blood. So much blood. Not his. Never his. But always because of him.
The line between victim and villain blurred.
And just as his mind began to shatter—
A single voice broke through the storm.
Memory Three: The Boy in the Mirror
It was quiet.
For the first time since the trial began, there was no screaming, no fire, no judgment.
He stood in a plain stone room with only one thing inside it—
A mirror.
Kael stepped forward.
And there, reflected, was a boy.
Not him. Not exactly.
The boy was younger—twelve, perhaps. His eyes were silver, not gold. But his expression… hurt. Not because he was in pain, but because he understood pain. His gaze was ancient.
Kael stared. "Who are you?"
The boy tilted his head. "Don't you remember?"
"I've never seen you before."
The boy smiled softly. Sadly.
"Then why do I wear your heart?"
Kael couldn't answer.
The boy stepped forward in the mirror. Closer. His breath fogged the surface.
"You think this is about power. About escaping fate. It's not."
"It's about becoming."
"Becoming what?"
The boy's eyes darkened.
"The one who was cursed… for mercy."
Kael backed away. "No."
"You begged for the world to be spared. The gods said no. So you stole their fire and paid the price."
The mirror cracked.
"And now… you'll remember."