(Before we broke the mirror, we broke each other.)
The staircase spiraled endlessly, not up or down, but sideways—like it bent space into a question mark the universe hadn't answered yet.
Kai and Elio climbed it in silence, each step echoing like a heartbeat through timelines that no longer respected order.
Halfway up, the walls began to breathe.
Stone pulsed like muscle. Shadows curled and uncurled like fingers. A low hum vibrated beneath their feet—the kind of sound that made your teeth ache and your past recoil.
"We're being watched," Elio said quietly.
Kai didn't answer. He didn't have to. He felt it too.
At the top of the stairs, they didn't find a door.
They found a throne.
It sat in a void of white so blinding it burned the outlines off things. The throne itself was obsidian, veined with veins—literal veins—that throbbed with red light.
On it sat a god.
Or what was left of one.
Its body was stitched from time. Half-rotted history. Faces overlapped on its skull like masks that kept shifting. Voices whispered from its ribs.
Kai fell to one knee. Not out of reverence. Out of instinct. Pain shot through his head—memories surfacing all at once.
The day he kissed Syllis in the rain.
The moment Elio left him behind.
The first time he died.
The god leaned forward.
"You shouldn't have come back," it said.
Its voice was a chorus. Male. Female. Child. Monster. All at once.
Elio stepped forward, defiant. "We're looking for the Mirror's origin. The town of Ilyor. The first break."
The god laughed, and time fractured around its breath.
"There is no first. There is only again."
Kai stood, clutching his head. "We remember her. Syllis. The prophecy. The loops. Why us?"
The god tilted its head, and thousands of eyes opened along its body.
"Because you wrote it."
The void shook.
Kai staggered. "That's not possible."
The god rose from the throne, every movement peeling time backwards. Kai felt his memories shifting. His heartbeat skipped.
"You were the first mirror," the god said. "And he—" it pointed at Elio, "was the first flame. She was the first lie. Together, you made a story that refused to die."
Elio's fists clenched. "Then help us end it."
"You can't end a mirror," the god said. "You can only choose who it reflects."
The ground beneath them cracked. Stars spilled out.
Then came the screaming.
Not from the god. Not from Elio.
From Kai.
Because the mirror sigil on his palm was glowing again searing into him like it wanted out.
He dropped to the ground, screaming, as light burst from his hand and formed a gate.
Not a door.
Not a portal.
A gate made of bones and letters, spelling *SYLLIS* in every dead language ever spoken.
The god stepped back. "She remembers."
Elio rushed to Kai, grabbing his shoulders. "Stay with me, Kai. Don't let her in."
Kai's eyes rolled back.
And he whispered:
"She was never out."
They fell.
Through the gate. Through the sky. Through themselves.
And landed back in Ilyor.
But it was not the same.
Now the sky was upside down. The stars bled ink. And the streets whispered names in voices that hadn't existed yet.
And at the center of the city stood Syllis.
Alive.
Smiling.
Waiting.
Elio reached for his blade, but Kai held up a hand.
"No. Let her speak."
Syllis stepped forward. Her feet didn't touch the ground. The air trembled beneath her.
"Did you think erasing me would save you?" she asked. "Or did you just want to forget what you did?"
Kai opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Syllis raised a single hand, and the wind around them stilled. Even the broken sky seemed to hold its breath.
"You loved me once," she said. "Enough to burn the gods. Enough to rewrite death."
"And then we broke it," Elio said quietly.
"No," she corrected. "You broke me."
Kai felt something split open in his chest.
Syllis walked in a circle around them, and as she moved, the buildings around them shifted—becoming versions of the past. A chapel where they first met. A battlefield. A bed soaked in tears.
"These aren't just memories," she said. "They're blueprints. You've been building me again and again. Hoping one of me would forgive you."
"I don't want forgiveness," Kai said, voice shaking. "I want truth."
Syllis stopped.
"Then follow me."
She turned—and opened another mirror, this one smooth as still water.
On the other side: a burning tree, surrounded by children chanting.
"She's taking us to the Loop's root," Elio whispered.
Kai looked at the reflection. "Let's go."
They stepped through.
And the mirror rippled behind them, sealing with a soft click—like a lock.
They didn't speak again until the fire faded from their backs.
The burning tree still loomed in the near distance—blackened, skeletal, but somehow pulsing like a beating heart. The children had vanished, and the chanting had become thunder, rolling across the hills in reverse.
Elio touched his chest. "The sigil's still there. Even through the veil."
Kai nodded. "It marked us in more ways than one."
They walked through ash and dirt and memory. Around them, fragments of other timelines blinked in and out—brief flashes of faces, rooms, whole cities suspended in decay.
And then they heard it.
A bell. The one from the old foundry.
Except now, it rang inside their heads.
Kai stumbled. "It's pulling something forward."
Elio steadied him. "A memory?"
"No," Kai whispered. "A promise."
Just then, the air parted.
And from it stepped another Kai.
Eyes dark. Smile cruel. Cloak stitched from broken mirrors.
The other Kai spoke first.
"I remember how this ends. Do you?"
Elio stepped in front of his Kai. "You're not him."
"I'm who he becomes if he chooses wrong."
Then he raised his hand—and the burning tree screamed.
From somewhere far away, the god on the throne whispered:
"Let the gods watch now. Let them see what bleeding memory truly means."