Chapter 6: The Mirror Below
They left the temple before dawn.
The wind was colder now. The sky had changed again—less cracked, but darker, like something enormous moved behind the clouds. Elaria didn't speak for a long time. Neither did he.
Valteris was quiet too.
That silence made the boy nervous.
The ruins gave way to a field of glass. Not smooth—shattered. The earth here had melted once and cooled into jagged panes, each step a crunch. Their reflections followed in pieces. Faces distorted. Eyes stretched.
"Where are we going now?" he asked.
Elaria pointed ahead. "To the Mirror Below. That's what the dream called it."
"A place?"
"A wound."
The boy said nothing, but his grip tightened on the sword's hilt.
---
By midday, the sky turned pale.
The land dipped, then fell into a sinkhole wide as a city. At its center stood a circular structure made of dark crystal, half-buried and slumped like a corpse.
Elaria crouched beside the edge, staring down.
"This is it," she said.
The boy frowned. "What's inside?"
"Memories," she whispered. "Not mine. Not yours. The world's."
He looked again. The structure below pulsed faintly, veins of red light running through its walls. Not alive. But dreaming.
> "This is not a place of mortals," Valteris whispered. "Even the gods feared the Mirror Below."
"Why?" the boy murmured aloud.
> "Because truth cuts deeper than any blade."
Elaria had already begun climbing down. The boy followed, each step sliding on loose glass and dust.
---
The entrance to the Mirror was a maw—open, jagged, silent.
Inside, no wind, no light. Just darkness that pulsed like breath. The walls shimmered faintly, reflecting things that weren't there. Echoes of lives not lived.
They walked for what felt like hours.
Time bent.
Once, the boy saw himself walking ahead of Elaria—only it wasn't him. That version had no sword, no scars. Just empty hands, and empty eyes.
The illusion vanished as they passed.
Elaria flinched. "Did you—?"
"Yes," he said.
Then the air changed.
A hum, low and ancient. The floor beneath them lit with lines—runes, woven in spirals.
The corridor opened into a vast chamber.
At the center floated a mirror.
Not hung. Not held. Just there. Turning slowly in mid-air, surface rippling like water and obsidian mixed. Around it, fragments of statues lay broken—wings, faces, halos, horns.
Elaria stepped closer. "This is where the dreams always end."
The boy stayed back.
Valteris pulsed.
> "Do not look too long."
"Why?"
> "Because it sees you back."
But Elaria was already gazing into it.
And then… she changed.
---
She fell to her knees, gasping.
The boy ran forward—caught her before she collapsed completely.
"Elaria?"
Her eyes were wide, silver flashing, but distant. Her voice shook.
"I saw… myself. No, not just one. Hundreds of me. Lives I never lived. A girl burned at a pyre. A queen in a tower of bones. A servant who stabbed her god."
She grabbed his wrist.
"And you. Always you. Beside me. Sometimes saving me. Sometimes killing me."
He froze.
The mirror began to ripple faster. The air turned hot.
> "It awakens," Valteris warned.
Something in the mirror was moving—pushing toward the surface like a creature rising from black water.
The boy stepped in front of Elaria, drawing Valteris.
The light in the room dimmed.
Then the surface of the mirror broke.
---
The creature that stepped out was not flesh.
It was memory made solid.
A man-shaped figure, composed of flickering faces and echoing screams. Every movement twisted—like it had never truly been human.
It turned its head toward the boy.
> "Bearer of Ruin," it said. Its voice was dozens. Men, women, children, all speaking at once. "Why do you return?"
"I don't know who I am," the boy said.
"You are forgetting on purpose," the mirror-being replied. "Because what you are… should not exist again."
Valteris pulsed violently.
> "Strike it down," the blade hissed. "Before it seals us."
But the boy didn't move. "What am I?"
The being stepped closer. With every step, the air bent.
"You are the ruin remade. The vessel they scattered. The child they unmade to silence the storm."
The boy's knees buckled.
Elaria stood, swaying, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You don't have to listen," she said.
But he was already shaking.
The figure raised a hand.
From the darkness around them, more shapes formed—echoes of the past. Armored warriors. Masked seers. Fallen angels with broken wings.
All with eyes burning red.
> "This is the trial of memory," Valteris growled. "Either we accept what we were—or be destroyed by it."
The boy lifted the blade.
His hands bled just from holding it now.
The figures advanced.
He screamed and swung.
---
The chamber exploded into battle.
He moved like he wasn't himself.
Valteris did more than guide—it pulled. The sword slashed through memory-warriors like fire through paper, but each one whispered as it died:
> "You let us burn."
> "You were our god, and you abandoned us."
> "You broke the world."
The boy's mind cracked under the weight.
Still he fought.
Elaria joined him—her blade flashing silver. She didn't ask questions. She didn't need to.
They fought like it was the end of time.
Because maybe it was.
---
At last, the mirror-being stepped forward again, now cracked across its chest.
"You cling to denial," it said.
The boy raised Valteris.
"I don't care what I was."
The being tilted its head.
"I care what I choose now."
With a scream, the boy struck—
The blade sank into the being's heart.
Light erupted.
The mirror shattered.
---
When he woke, the chamber was empty.
Elaria was beside him, unconscious but breathing.
Valteris was dark. Silent.
The mirror was gone.
In its place stood a mark, burned into the stone floor.
A symbol: a broken circle, surrounded by flame, with a blade through its center.
The boy traced it with his eyes.
And for the first time, a whisper rose in his voice.
Not from Valteris.
From deep within.
> "I remember… the end."
---
Outside, the sky had turned red again.
Something had changed.
Something had noticed.
The boy helped Elaria up. Her eyes met his.
"You saw something," she whispered.
He nodded once.
"I think we just lit a beacon."
She glanced at the sky.
"Then we better start running."
---
And far to the north, in a place where ice never melted, a single eye opened in a dead god's skull.
The world shivered.
And the second Fall stirred.
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