A blanket of silence lay over the fallen kingdom.
As Rizz, Isaac, and Aethra stepped across the ancient stone bridge into Urethien, the weight of its history hit them like ash in the wind. The city beyond the gate was lifeless—buildings stood intact but empty, their spires cracked, their banners long faded into threads. Statues of flame-winged guardians lined the streets, each bearing a shattered sword and a sorrowful gaze.
"It's like the whole place… froze in its last moment," Aethra whispered, her hand gently brushing the broken crest of a temple archway.
Rizz's eyes scanned the surroundings. "No signs of life. No decay. Just… stillness."
Isaac crouched beside a fountain where water no longer flowed. "The corruption didn't destroy this place. It stopped it. Like time forgot it existed."
"That fits," Rizz muttered. "Aetheral decay. It's not a fire. It's an erasure."
A faint whisper rippled in the wind—like a voice murmuring between worlds. All three froze.
Aethra turned sharply. "You heard that?"
"Yeah," Isaac said, standing slowly. "It said… 'Come down.'"
They followed the call, past ruined chapels and abandoned homes, until they reached the heart of the city: the Grand Flame Cathedral. Its gates, once golden, were now blackened and cracked. Still, the divine runes etched into the stone pulsed faintly.
"This is where it started," Rizz said, stepping forward. "The center of Urethien's protection."
As they entered, the cathedral greeted them with oppressive silence. Rows of pews stretched before an altar where a great flame had once burned. Now, a pit of darkness lay in its place—slowly pulsing with violet tendrils of energy.
A massive mirror stood behind the altar, covered in a thick cloth.
But it was humming.
Aethra stepped back, eyes wide. "That mirror… it's calling to you."
Rizz approached cautiously, the Soul Seal beneath his shirt glowing faintly. "It's not just a mirror. It's a gateway."
Isaac's silver eye shimmered. "It's alive. Not sentient—but reactive. Like it's connected to something on the other side."
Without warning, the mirror surged with light, and the cloth was yanked away by an unseen force.
The glass revealed not their reflections—but a single figure.
Bound in chains of fire and shadow.
A boy with hair of silver-blue, wings of glass, and eyes that mirrored Rizz's own.
Rizz stepped closer. "Who is he?"
The voice returned, now louder and clearer.
"You see me… yet you do not remember."
A blinding flash erupted, and the room shifted. They weren't in the cathedral anymore.
They stood on a frozen lake under a twilight sky. Above them, two moons hovered too close—one glowing gold, the other bleeding crimson.
The boy stood before them, free from the mirror but still shackled.
"You are the Second Flame," the boy said, his voice echoing in layers. "But not yet whole."
Rizz's breath caught. "You… you're from the vision."
The boy nodded. "I am what was left behind. A fragment. A failed vessel. The mirror could not hold both light and shadow… so it split."
Isaac stepped forward. "You're part of Rizz?"
"No," the boy said. "I am the possibility of Rizz. What he could become if the Seal fails. I am wrath without wisdom. Power without anchor."
Rizz looked into his mirror-self's eyes.
He didn't see evil.
He saw pain.
Loneliness.
Endless echoes of power that never knew purpose.
Aethra placed a hand on Rizz's shoulder. "This is your trial, isn't it?"
The boy nodded. "Not to defeat me. But to accept me."
Suddenly, the chains cracked, and the boy clutched his chest.
"I am unraveling," he whispered. "The corruption has reached my prison. If I fall… the seal may break, and the gate between mirrors will open."
"What do we do?" Isaac asked.
The boy looked directly at Rizz.
"You must anchor me. Not as a shadow… but as a part of yourself."
Before Rizz could respond, the frozen lake shattered beneath them. Darkness pulled them down—into memory, into echoes, into the deepest part of the Soul Seal.
And Rizz heard Safa's voice again.
> "If you fear your power, it will rule you. But if you embrace your reflection… it will follow you."
The final words of the mirror-boy echoed as they fell:
"Wake me… or lose me forever."
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