Kaelen's breath came in ragged bursts as he sank to the cool marble floor, the weight of his confrontation still pulsing through his veins. The mirror-beast his own echo had withdrawn into the glass, but its presence lingered. Flickers of his spine-scar burned bright beneath his tunic, each pulse a reminder that it had belonged to him. Horrifying as that was.
The Master stood silently, his back rigid, arms folded behind him. Even his robes didn't rustle. Whatever calm he wore now was as fragile as fragile could be.
Master: "Good. You saw it. You felt it. Did it frighten you?"
Kaelen swallowed hard. "It did. But more than that... it made sense."
Master: "Fear makes sense. But it should not be ignored."
Kaelen rolled to his knees, rubbing his side. "So I integrate it. I... acknowledge its place."
Master: "Exactly. You don't slay your darkness you hold it, shape it." He paused. "Now let's see if you can live with it."
They moved deeper into the Archive's lower vaults. The scent of old stone and cold magic clung to everything. Broken mirrors littered the floor like crystal bones. Here and there, bits of glyph-lit ash trailed along the walls half-erased spells or memories jettisoned, floating in the gloom.
Kaelen kept close to the wall, the shard he carried humming softly in his palm. It was a piece of all this a fragment of fractured myth waiting for him to claim it.
Master: "What you're carrying isn't just magic. It's part of you."Kaelen: "How can a shard be part of me?"Master: "Because it was forged by your myth. It knows your pain, your choices."
Kaelen lowered his gaze to the fragment. He imagined him again, the mirror-thing with those empty black eyes, reachable yet distant. "And if I lose it?"
Master: "Then you'll lose it for good." He rested a hand on Kaelen's shoulder. "This is your truth now, tied to you."Kaelen met his eyes. "Then I won't let it go."
They stopped at a large, round chamber covered in reflective tiles. In the center stood an altar inscribed with Kaelen's Living Sigil. It glowed softly blue-white grief encasing the space like mist.
A single figure knelt there, his back to them. His robes were Sanctum-made gleaming white etched with silver runes. At his feet lay shattered glass shards and a ceremonial dagger.
The Master stiffened.Kaelen recognized the figure immediately: a Sanctum acolyte referred to in whispers as Vaelith the Glyphseer.
Master (voice low): "He's forging a counter-myth."
Kaelen drew his rune blade, its flame seeping into the air. "Then he's gotta stop."
Vaelith lifted his head, revealing eyes so empty they looked carved from moonlight. The shards around him whispered. The altar crackled until etched glyphs glowed bright red.
Vaelith (softly): "You carved a myth that lost everything.You hold grief like a blade.Now it's time to make grief stop."
Kaelen tightened his grip. "Step away from that altar."Vaelith shook his head. "My myth doesn't fear you. It fears him the flame you refused."He raised the dagger to cut the ritual circle etched beneath him.
Kaelen lunged, spirit aflame. "You're twisting it! You use my myth as a cage."
Vaelith hissed, raising a shield of broken shards around him a mirror-womb of hate. Kaelen clipped it with his glowing rune, but the shards tinkled without cracking.
Vaelith: "Power without purpose. That's what you are. A myth for nothing."
Kaelen's blade flared brighter. "My purpose is living not running!"
He slashed through the shards. They splintered. Vaelith staggered, the circle cracking.
Master: "Don't kill him this is about integration, not destruction."
Kaelen lowered his blade enough to cast a glyph of resonance. With a pulse, the shards vibrated, collapsing into dust. Vaelith fell to the altar, cradling his broken dagger.
Vaelith (voice flat): "You took my truth from me."Kaelen knelt beside him.Kaelen: "Your grief isn't yours alone." He touched the shard. "It's mine now too."
Vaelith stared at him eyes flooded. Then the shard in Kaelen's hand glowed. Something soft and almost human shifted across Vaelith's face.
Vaelith: "You hold... everyone," he whispered.
The Master stepped forward.
Master: "This isn't mercy. It's mythcraft. You performed a living name."He turned to Kaelen. "I warned you."Kaelen nodded, breath uneven. He felt something release a heartbreak, maybe a forgiveness.
Master: "Good. But this is only part one."
Vaelith slumped forward. Shadows clung to him like a shroud. Kaelen knelt beside him.
Kaelen: "Rest. Something's happening."Vaelith squeezed his hand.Vaelith (half-smile): "For the first time… my pain makes sense."
From far within the vaults, a rumble shook the floor. Stone dust drifted from above. Kaelen turned. His hand flared with rune-light.
Master: "It knows your shift. The counter-myth stirs."Kaelen (voice low): "Then I face it. Now."
The shard in Kaelen's palm trembled. Vaelith blinked at him with lucid eyes.
Vaelith: "You... hold hope inside the grief. That's why it lives."
Kaelen clenched the shard, spirits bracing.
Kaelen: "Then we will not run."
The rumble turned to grinding roar. The sound of broken mirrors.Kaelen glanced at Vaelith, who nodded.
Vaelith: "I stand with you."
Together, the trio stepped toward the staircase leading deeper into darkness. The shard pulsed bright, illuminating the broken mirrors around them. Each reflection Kaelen's, Vaelith's blurred into one.
Master: "What was lost is remembered. Now... we claim it."
Kaelen's rune-blade burned calm flame in his hand. The shard throbbed too, matched in pulse.
Kaelen: "Then let it come."
A roar echoed again, louder and closer like engines built of myth.Shadows loomed in the corridor ahead.
Kaelen walked forward.Vaelith behind.The Master at his side.
They stepped into the darkness.