The cathedral stood at the edge of the world.
It wasn't marked on any map Elias carried, nor did it appear in the dream-memories I'd slipped through. It rose from the cliffs like the spine of something long dead—tall spires cracked by time, windows veiled in ash and ivy. A storm brewed over it, though the skies elsewhere were calm.
"This is where it started," Elias said. "Or ended. Depending on who you believe."
We approached at dusk. The path was overgrown, yet the cathedral's massive doors remained untouched by rot. They were carved with scenes—figures asleep in glass coffins, robed men holding star-shaped blades, a woman with wings of shattered mirror shards.
I stepped forward.
The door opened with a sound like a sigh.
Inside, the air was thick with silence. Not the kind found in peaceful places—but a silence that pressed against your lungs, that whispered when you weren't listening. Candles lined the floor in shapes—circles, eyes, stars. None were lit, yet the room glowed faintly as if memory itself gave off light.
This place didn't feel abandoned.
It felt waiting.
We moved down the central aisle, our footsteps echoing too long. On either side, stone statues stared down at us—hooded figures with no names, no faces. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched by something old.
At the altar, Elias paused.
There, etched into the marble, was a name.
"Auroria."
I stared at it.
"That's not mine," I whispered.
"No," he said. "It's hers."
He touched the edge of the inscription.
"Before you were Aurora… before the fairy tale… you were someone else. Or something else. And this was her tomb."
I reached out, running my fingers across the letters. Cold. Deep. As if they'd been carved in a moment of mourning.
Suddenly, a low whisper rose from beneath the stone.
I froze.
Elias drew a dagger.
The altar split—slowly, deliberately—and from beneath, stairs spiraled into darkness.
We descended without a word.
The catacombs below were older than the cathedral above. Older than the kingdom. The walls were covered in writing—not painted or scratched, but grown into the stone like veins. The words pulsed faintly as we passed.
I felt them in my blood.
We reached a chamber at the very end. A circular room, domed and sealed by mirror-fragments arranged in a strange mosaic. In the center stood a pedestal. Upon it, a crown.
Not a royal crown.
A mirror crown.
Its points were jagged, forged from nightmare-glass, obsidian, and something that shimmered like frozen starlight.
Elias didn't move.
I stepped toward it, hand trembling.
The moment my fingers brushed the edge, the world shifted.
I stood alone, in a memory not mine.
The cathedral was whole again. People filled the pews—robed, masked, chanting in a language I didn't know but somehow understood.
A girl stood before them. Blonde. Young. Unsmiling.
She knelt. A priest raised the mirror crown.
"For her mind is open," they intoned. "And dreams are doors."
The crown descended.
She didn't flinch as it cut her brow.
Blood dripped down her face—and shimmered into light.
And then, she vanished.
Gone.
As if erased.
I screamed and dropped the crown.
Elias caught it before it hit the floor.
"You saw it," he said.
I nodded, shaking.
"That was her. The first sleeper. The first you."
I collapsed against the pedestal.
"They chose her. They made her this way."
"They made you this way," Elias corrected.
"They didn't save me," I whispered. "They created me."
Above us, the mirror shards began to hum.
A new whisper filled the chamber—feminine, ancient, familiar.
"Aurora… you were never meant to wake."
I looked at Elias.
"What happens now?"
He drew his sword.
"We make sure you stay that way… by choice. Not by curse."