Beneath the city, time lost its shape.
Ash followed Lira through crumbling corridors older than any map dared to name. Their only light came from their shards—the flame hovering like a living ember near Ash's shoulder, the dark-glass mirror shard spinning slowly above Lira's hand, its reflection impossibly deep.
Every step echoed in silence not meant for mortals. These tunnels were not built for burial. They were built for hiding things the world should never remember.
And now, they remembered him.
They remembered Ashkarion.
Ash felt it in the way the walls breathed, how the stones vibrated faintly beneath his boots, whispering through his Flame Shard in a language of heat and truth.
Ahead, Lira stopped at a narrow arch framed in bone and silver roots. It pulsed faintly as she approached.
Without looking back, she said, "Once we cross this, there's no turning."
Ash stepped beside her. "Were we ever turning?"
She didn't smile. "I had to ask."
She stepped through.
So did he.
---
The chamber beyond was wrong.
The walls curved inward, yet the space expanded with each breath—as though the room shifted to match the weight of the secrets it held.
Seven thrones of black stone ringed a mirrored pool in the center. Each throne bore a different sigil—some broken, others scorched, one weeping dark ichor like a wound that never healed.
Ash's gaze caught on one in particular: a throne wreathed in frozen flame.
Lira walked to the edge of the pool and knelt, her hand hovering just above the glassy surface.
"This place isn't in the maps," Ash said quietly.
Lira nodded. "Because the first Mirror-Sworn erased it from memory."
She touched the water.
No ripple.
No reflection.
Only visions.
---
The pool came to life.
Ash saw images forming on its surface—not just pictures, but possibilities.
A woman cloaked in sorrow, seated on a throne of bleeding salt—the Queen.
Lira, standing over a broken mirror, alone, her shard darkened to black.
Ash himself, face hollow, eyes like burning coals, walking across a battlefield where the sky was on fire.
He staggered back.
"Is that the future?"
"No." Lira's voice was steady, though her fingers trembled. "It's what might be. The Mirror Shard shows the truths beneath your thoughts. Fears. Regrets. Choices not yet made."
Ash frowned. "Then it lies."
"It reflects," she said. "And sometimes, reflection is the cruellest truth."
---
Silence lingered.
Ash looked at her. "How long have you had the shard?"
"Since I was thirteen." Her voice hollowed. "It was hidden in a tomb beneath the Frost Courts. I touched it by accident. Or maybe not."
"Let me guess—visions, screaming, madness?"
"At first," she said. "Then silence. Then understanding."
She stood, brushing dust from her coat.
"I saw too much too fast. I ran. My family tried to take the shard. They thought it was poisoning me."
"Was it?"
She looked at him then, eyes bright with unshed memory.
"It showed me the truth they wanted buried."
"What truth?"
"That the Queen already has spies in the Frost Court," she whispered. "And she's waiting for the last bloodline to awaken."
Ash's breath caught.
"You mean—mine?"
"No." Lira looked toward the shadows behind the thrones.
"I mean hers."
---
The mirror flashed.
Both shards pulsed.
Lira turned sharply, eyes wide.
"Something's here."
Ash summoned the flame, instinct blazing to the surface. "Wraith?"
"No," she said, voice low. "Something worse."
A ripple passed through the stone. Shadows peeled themselves off the far wall.
A figure emerged.
Tall. Hooded. Cloaked in void-colored robes that bled smoke into the air. No face. No eyes. Only a shard pulsing above its palm—black, thorned with violet light.
Ash felt his own shard recoil.
The Path of the Hollow.
Lira hissed. "Run."
But it was too late.
The figure raised its hand.
The air shattered.
---
Ash threw up a wall of flame—pure, white-hot, no heat but overwhelming pressure. The chamber distorted. Time buckled.
The Hollow bearer moved without sound.
Shadows writhed along the ceiling, slithering toward Ash's heart. Lira shouted something—he couldn't hear her.
Only one word beat in his skull: Vaelor.
That was the name.
He didn't know how he knew it.
But the Hollow Shard whispered it with reverence.
Lira threw a reflection into the path of the Hollow strike—an illusion of herself. It crumbled the moment the figure touched it.
Ash blinked—and saw himself burning in that throne of flame again.
Saw Vaelor—laughing—surrounded by mirrors filled with dead cities.
He shook his head.
No.
Not his future.
Ash roared.
The Flame Shard erupted in a spiral of light.
Fire twisted into a sigil—a seal. Ancient. Forbidden. It blazed across the chamber like a command.
The Hollow bearer stepped back—flickered—and vanished into smoke.
---
Silence returned like a dropped shroud.
Ash fell to one knee, panting.
Lira knelt beside him, face pale. "That was Vaelor," she said. "One of the Queen's Mirror-Sworn turned Hollow. They say he devoured his own master to awaken."
Ash wiped blood from his nose. "What does he want?"
Lira's voice dropped. "Not you."
She looked into the mirror pool.
"He wants me."
Ash stared at her.
"Why?"
"Because I've seen what the Queen of Sorrow is trying to become." Lira's eyes shimmered. "And the Mirror Shard remembers her."
---
They climbed from the crypts before sunrise.
The city was still asleep.
Ash stood on a rooftop, staring out at the towers of Terenhold, golden light bleeding over the horizon.
Beside him, Lira wrapped her cloak tighter.
"She'll come for us," she said.
Ash nodded.
"I know."
Lira turned toward him, voice quiet. "You still don't believe you're who she's hunting, do you?"
He didn't answer.
But his shard did.
It pulsed once—clear, defiant.
Ash looked at the waking city.
If the Queen of Sorrow wanted war, then he would give her fire.