Kael couldn't move.
The wall held him like it had hands. His back cracked against the stone again as invisible force coiled tighter around his limbs, freezing him in place. His lungs scraped for air. The man—no, the thing—before him didn't move quickly or with effort. He commanded the space around him like it obeyed his will.
Sera lunged.
"Don't," the man said without looking.
She flew backward mid-strike, flung like a ragdoll against a column. Her glaive clattered across the stone.
Iris raised a barrier with a twist of her wrist, runes sparking gold in the air—but they fizzled the second they formed.
The man smiled. "I didn't come here to fight."
Kael forced his jaw to move. "You… have a funny way of showing it."
The man stepped into the circle of fractured glass where the mirror once stood. Now the light that pulsed from the earth formed a new shape beneath his feet: a crest Kael recognized, though he had no reason to.
The House of Ashes.
The sixth seal's original keepers.
"I am Velis," the man said. "Last of the Broken Wills. First to bend the Veil and live."
Kael grit his teeth. "You're the one who corrupted the others."
Velis looked disappointed. "You still think in binaries. Corruption. Purity. There's no such thing. There's only what we were meant to become… and what your kind feared."
The pressure eased slightly. Kael collapsed to his knees, gasping.
Velis looked down at him. "You opened the gate, Kael. You awakened what sleeps. You brought me back into the stream."
"I didn't mean to," Kael snapped.
Velis knelt in front of him. "But you did. And that's all the world will remember."
Behind him, the shards of the shattered mirror rose into the air, spinning slowly.
From them, a weapon began to form.
Piece by piece, the blade assembled itself—not made of metal, but of reflections. Every edge was a glimpse into a life Kael might've lived: holding his sister's hand in a world where she still lived, standing in Sera's place at the academy podium, laughing with the other Scions at a fire that never happened.
The blade hovered before Velis.
"This is the sword that remembers," he said. "Forged from every path you turned away from. It can cut possibility."
Kael's Eye surged with pain. A ripple of gold and red flared across the chamber floor.
Velis stood again.
"You will need a weapon to face what's coming. The Seventh sleeps, but not for long."
He placed the blade at Kael's feet.
"Take it," he said. "Or I'll give it to your shadow."
Kael looked up sharply. "What shadow?"
Velis just smiled.
Behind Kael—something moved.
He spun around.
And saw himself.
But not the version from before.
This one bled. Its hands were soaked in black. Its face was twisted, wild with grief.
Kael stumbled backward. "What—what is that?"
Velis's voice was quiet.
"That's the Kael who fails. And he is very, very hungry."
Kael backed away from the figure slowly, every muscle screaming for him to run—but his legs wouldn't move fast enough.
The thing that looked like him didn't mimic. It remembered. Every line of its face was twisted by agony that hadn't happened yet. Blood that hadn't been spilled. Its Eye burned with full red, streaked with gold veins that pulsed like lightning. It grinned, jagged and wrong.
"Get away from it!" Sera yelled, pushing herself off the column, stumbling toward him.
Velis didn't move. He simply watched.
Iris began to chant, her voice low and urgent, glyphs spinning around her hands.
But the shadow Kael moved first.
It lunged—not at Kael, but at the sword.
Kael's instincts kicked in. He dove forward, slamming into the blade just as the shadow's fingers brushed the hilt. The chamber flashed white—
And everything froze.
Kael blinked.
He was standing again, but the world around him was unmoving. Sera mid-step. Iris mid-chant. Velis still, like a painting.
Only the blade pulsed with life.
Its edge shimmered with impossible reflections. Every time Kael tried to look at it straight, it shifted—showing people he loved. People he failed. Versions of himself that never made it through the first trial. Versions that never met Sera. That never lost Reina.
He reached out slowly.
The moment his hand touched the hilt, heat surged into his chest. Not pain. Memory.
Reina's laugh.
The way the academy bell sounded on clear mornings.
Sera's stupid grin when she stole his bread.
Iris reading aloud to herself and pretending she wasn't.
And then—
Blood. Screams.
The mask.
The gate.
Him.
Kael gritted his teeth, took hold of the sword, and pulled.
The chamber exploded back into motion.
The shadow Kael staggered backward, hissing, smoke trailing from its fingertips. The blade in Kael's hand burned with a low, crystalline hum.
Velis tilted his head. "So… he chooses."
Kael didn't speak.
He launched forward.
The blade sang.
And for the first time, Velis moved to block.
They clashed—steel meeting force that wasn't steel. Sound bent. The stones beneath them cracked in perfect, flower-like spirals.
Kael spun, brought the sword down again—but Velis vanished, reappearing behind him in a flicker of veil-light.
Kael ducked the incoming strike, parried mid-roll, and surged back to his feet.
Sera threw her glaive from the side. It struck Velis's shoulder with a burst of golden light—he staggered.
Iris slammed a sigil into the ground. "KAEL! NOW!"
Kael lunged.
The blade cut through the air—
And straight into the shadow Kael's chest.
There was no scream.
Just… release.
The shadow dissolved, unraveling into black threads of smoke.
Kael collapsed to his knees, panting, the sword clattering beside him.
Velis looked amused. "That was only the beginning."
Kael looked up, eyes burning. "You'll answer for what you've done."
Velis stepped back into the fractured light. "I already have. You just haven't lived it yet."
He vanished in a blink, veil-fold cracking like thunder.
Silence returned.
Only the sword pulsed with breath.
And beneath the chamber, through the stone, something else stirred.
Something listening.