The wind in the Crown's Reflection did not blow.
It remembered.
Every breeze, every shift in the twisted branches above them, moved with memory.
Not forward.
But backward.
Kaen and Lira stood in the silence left by the Judge's fall.
But something in the air felt heavier.
Like they were being watched—
by the world itself.
"How do we get out of here?" Kaen asked, his voice raw.
Lira didn't answer right away. She was staring at the sky again.
At the crack widening above them.
A slow, deliberate fracture.
Like a mouth that hadn't finished speaking.
"This place isn't just a prison," she finally said.
"It's a mirror. One that shows the worst of us. But also the truth."
Kaen touched the blade at his side—Vothkarr.
The Oath That Breaks.
It still pulsed faintly, a living thing. But now, its reflection had changed.
When he looked into the metal,
he saw not two futures.
But a third.
A path shrouded in grey flame.
Unwritten. Unseen.
Untethered.
"We can't stay here," he said. "It knows we're here. It's waiting for something."
"Not something," Lira whispered. "Someone."
She turned to him, and for the first time, Kaen saw the truth behind her eyes.
The fear wasn't for herself.
It was for him.
"You're changing," she said.
He nodded. Slowly.
"I have to."
The ground beneath them shifted—this time, not an illusion.
A path opened. Stone rising from the forest floor, bones of a forgotten bridge.
It led toward a shimmering ripple in the air—like the edge of a pond disturbed by a single tear.
A doorway.
Or a memory pretending to be one.
Kaen moved toward it. Lira followed, one hand on the hilt at her waist, eyes sharp.
As they crossed the bridge, whispers followed them.
Fragments of voices.
His mother's lullaby.
Lira's name spoken like a curse.
The Vault's last breath.
And then—
A new sound.
A song.
Soft. Childlike. Echoing through the branches.
Kaen stopped. "Do you hear that?"
Lira paled. "No… It's too soon."
From the mist ahead, a figure appeared.
Small. Cloaked in shadow.
But humming.
It looked up.
And Kaen froze.
A child.
His face.
His own face.
But the eyes were different.
Empty. Ancient.
Wrong.
The child smiled.
And the forest shuddered.
"Hello," it said, voice like a song sung backward. "I've been looking for you."
Kaen reached for his sword, but Lira stopped him.
"Don't. That's not… it's not an enemy you can kill."
The child's face flickered—like a glitch in reality.
"I am the ash that didn't burn," it said. "The memory the fire forgot. I am the Hollowed Star's first echo."
Kaen's voice was tight. "What do you want?"
The child tilted its head.
"You. Whole. Broken. Or gone. It doesn't matter."
Behind it, the forest twisted—bending, turning inside out.
Not with anger.
But with longing.
The child stepped closer.
"When you picked up the blade, you made a promise.
But you don't know to whom."
Kaen's grip tightened. "Then tell me."
The child's smile faded.
"I can't. I'm only your shadow.
The real answer... waits on the other side of the sky."
It pointed upward.
"To reach it, you'll have to break something more than oaths."
Then the shadow-child vanished—leaving behind a single feather, black and burning at the edges.
Kaen reached for it.
It did not burn him.
Instead, it sank into his palm, leaving behind a new mark—
not like the one he bore before.
This one was a symbol shaped like an eye—
closed.
Lira exhaled slowly. "That's the Sealed Gaze."
"What does it mean?" Kaen asked.
"That you've been seen. By the Star itself."
Kaen looked once more at the sky.
The crack had grown.
And now…
something was reaching through.
A hand.
Made of starlight and bone.
Not grasping.
Just waiting.