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Kael stood frozen before the desk, staring at Lyessa's diary, as though it were an old scar reopened. The air in the underground study had turned heavier, cooler, despite no visible change in the temperature. It wasn't just the presence of something unnatural—it was memory. Familiar. Foul.
Rin sat across from him, slowly flipping through the diary's pages. Her brow furrowed. "She wasn't just a noble's daughter," she said softly. "She was a prodigy. Alchemy, anatomy, something called mirror-binding..."
Kael's eyes didn't leave the desk. "Keep reading."
Rin hesitated. "She talks about resurrection. Not in theory. In practice. Failed trials. 'Subjects' buried and brought back. But not whole. Not… the same."
Kael rubbed his hands over his face and finally spoke. "I saw this place once before. In a vision. Or a dream. I didn't understand it then."
"You dreamed of this exact room?"
"No." His voice was quiet. "I saw it as a child. I was barely old enough to speak. I thought it was a nightmare. There was blood. Bones. A woman humming while carving sigils into a skull. That same crest was on the wall." He gestured toward the familiar emblem engraved on the diary's spine.
Rin looked up sharply. "Kael… you said your family was cursed. Do you think this is why?"
He met her eyes, and for once, they were vulnerable. "I don't know."
She snapped the diary shut. "Then let's find out."
They turned toward the wall where the mirrored hallway had folded away. Behind the shelf of books was a false panel—lightly dusted, but scratched with marks of recent movement. Kael pushed it open.
Beyond lay a spiral staircase. Narrow. Cold. Winding down into complete blackness.
Kael drew his sword. Rin lit her alchemical flame again. Together, they descended.
The staircase led them into a hidden chamber carved into the cliffside rock. The air here reeked—not of rot, but of lavender and old blood. A haunting combination. The kind of smell that didn't belong in nature, only in places where unnatural things had happened.
At the center of the chamber stood a stone altar, surrounded by a series of etched lines forming an intricate alchemical circle. Bones were arranged along the edges—not scattered, but placed. Each was engraved with tiny sigils. Each one whispered of purpose.
Rin swallowed hard. "These weren't buried. They were displayed."
Kael moved closer, inspecting the markings. "And these sigils... they match the ones we saw on Lord Isamu's body. On the second noble too."
Rin's hand trembled as she pointed to the far end of the room. "Look. The crest again."
On the far wall, carved into black stone, was the Reiken crest. Beneath it: an unfinished mural, partly chipped, partly scorched.
It depicted a woman—Lyessa, judging by the diary—with outstretched arms. Around her, figures were rising from the ground. Not like the living, but like puppets on strings. Each had blank eyes. Some bore the faces of nobles. One of them, horrifyingly, resembled Isamu.
Rin backed away. "This isn't resurrection. It's control."
Kael stepped forward, and something shifted under his boot. A loose stone. He knelt and pried it up, revealing a parchment beneath, protected by wax seal and cloth.
He unwrapped it carefully.
It was a map.
But not of the city.
This was something far older. Etched in red ink, layered with symbols Rin didn't recognize and Kael did.
His fingers traced a pathway toward a marked point, labeled only with a faded name: "The Garden of Returning."
Kael's breath caught.
Rin stepped closer. "What is it?"
"This place… my father used to speak of it. He said it was just an old fable. A place where the dead waited in peace… until summoned again."
Rin raised a brow. "You think it's real?"
"I think everything that used to sound like myth is starting to feel like memory."
Rin looked down at the bones again. Her voice dropped. "Kael, what if this isn't just a noble's obsession with power? What if this is generational?"
Kael stood up slowly. "What if it was never meant to stop?"
They didn't notice the soft sound at first. Just a faint scrape. Then a metallic click.
Rin turned sharply.
At the far end of the chamber, behind a column, a wall panel slowly opened. A breeze pushed through, whispering over the bones and the altar.
They moved cautiously toward it.
Beyond the opening was a narrow hallway. Not natural, but constructed. Reinforced with stone and metal. Torches still burned, faintly green in hue.
And on the walls—scars.
Dozens of handprints etched into the surface. Not painted. Burned. The fingers elongated, some with too many joints, some twisted unnaturally.
Rin shivered. "This wasn't just a lab. It was a prison."
Kael stared ahead, as though something far away was calling him. "Or a testing ground."
They kept moving. The hallway led to another door, this one older, heavier. Runes lined its frame—some glowing faintly.
Kael reached out.
The door opened before he touched it.
Inside was a smaller room.
Empty.
Except for a mirror.
Cracked.
Blood-streaked.
And in its surface—they both saw something that froze their lungs.
Themselves.
Not as they were now.
But changed.
Kael with black eyes. Rin with blood on her hands. Both staring back—expressionless.
The reflection spoke. Not with mouths, but straight into their minds.
"We're not the first."
"We won't be the last."
Rin's legs buckled. Kael caught her.
The mirror darkened.
And behind them, the hallway sealed shut.