Kael stood at the heart of the Vault, surrounded by glyphs that pulsed like stars caught in an eternal breath.
He was alone.
Not physically. He could feel the others nearby—Renn, Mira, Brenn—somewhere behind the sealed threshold. But within this ring of thought and light, he was severed from them, encased in a memory so heavy it warped the air.
And before him hovered the final glyph.
Not drawn in chalk, nor blood, nor dream.It was formed of remembrance.
⟁✶⧬⚝ — The Gate of Self.
It shimmered with every step he'd taken. Every moment, he'd suffered. Every lie he'd survived. It wasn't just a glyph.
It was his reflection.
"What will you sacrifice to awaken the path?"
The voice echoed in the Vault again—neither gentle nor cruel. Just inevitable.
Kael breathed in dust and ancient air. It clung to his lungs like ash. His hand shook as he reached toward the glyph. It didn't burn him. It didn't reject him.
It waited.
"You want something," Kael whispered. "Something I don't want to give."
"That is the nature of power."
The glyph pulsed, and the space around him bent. Suddenly, he was no longer in the Vault, but in the village—his village—rebuilt in light and smoke. It looked just as he remembered before the fires.
Wooden fences. Green patches. The creaking sound of his father's forge.
His mother's voice singing through the smoke.
He fell to his knees.
"You may choose," the voice said, drifting now through the memory. "Choose which memory to give."
"What you give, you forget. Forever. It cannot return. Not even in dream."
The sky flickered.
Three memories rose from the ground like statues made of molten glass:
1. A small room. His younger brothers laugh as they built a wooden toy together.2. His mother was brushing his hair, humming the lullaby he later heard Mira repeat.3. Mira's hand reached for his after the first time they used glyphs to save a child.
Each glowed. Each called to something different in him.
He stepped toward the third.
Then stopped.
"No," he whispered.
Kael turned to face the Vault itself, lifting his hand toward the hovering glyph. "You want something real, don't you? Something that will hurt."
The Vault didn't answer.
It didn't need to.
He turned back to the first statue. His brother's laughter still echoed. He could remember the shape of his face. The cracked tooth. The way he used to sleep with one hand over his heart.
Kael reached for it.
His fingers hovered.
And then—touched.
The glass statue shattered.
The laughter ended.
All at once, it was gone.
Not buried. Not hidden.Erased.
He gasped. His chest locked. His stomach turned over like it had been cut open.
"Wait—" he whispered.
But the name…His brother's name…
He couldn't find it.
Couldn't recall it.
Couldn't even remember if it was a brother… or a friend.
He dropped to his knees.
"Who was he?" he whispered. "What did I just give away?"
But the Vault was already changing.
The glyphs all around him realigned—shifting like teeth in the mouth of something massive.
He had chosen.
The Vault accepted.
A pulse shot through his head.
His eyes flared with symbols he couldn't contain.
Glyphs poured into him—not one at a time, but in clusters. Fragments of the Writ of the Eye. Rotations of Veilcut, mirror-inversions of Varn's Grasp, pieces of glyphs he hadn't even seen yet.
He saw past, future, and fire in the span of a single heartbeat.
He collapsed.
And then, silence.
He awoke lying flat on the Vault floor. The chamber was dimmer now, the glyphs muted like fire settling into embers.
Footsteps rushed toward him.
"Kael!" Mira's voice broke through the haze.
She reached him first, her hands on his face.
"You're burning up," she whispered. "Your eyes—"
He opened them.
They glowed silver. Just for a moment.
Then dimmed.
"I'm fine," he rasped. "I think."
Brenn pulled him to his feet. Renn flanked the rear, eyes scanning the shifting walls.
"What happened?" Renn asked. "You were in there for hours."
Kael wiped blood from his nose.
"I don't know."
He looked down at his hands.
"I don't know what I lost."
The Vault's voice echoed one final time as they turned to leave.
"The Gate is open. The Mind has chosen. Let the burden begin."
The wall behind them rumbled, and new passages opened—corridors wrapped in ink and dust. A way forward.
They did not speak again until the Vault was far behind them.
Later, alone at their campfire, Kael sat awake while the others rested.
He stared into the flames.
Trying to remember a laugh.
A face.
A name.
Nothing came.
Only a single line echoed in his mind—one the Vault hadn't spoken, but had imprinted on him in glyph-light and pain.
"To ascend the Mind, you must break the Mirror."
And Kael knew…
He'd only broken the first shard.