The ruins of Everfall lay beneath a sky bruised with stormlight.
Black stone spires jutted like broken ribs from the ground, their tips glowing faintly with runes that refused to die.
No wind stirred here.
Only whispers—the kind that crawled beneath skin and memory.
Lucian dismounted first, boots sinking into the ash-soft soil.
Seraphina followed, her cloak brushing against shards of ancient marble carved with forgotten prayers.
For centuries, Everfall had been buried by time and war.
Yet now, as if summoned by their arrival, the ruins breathed again.
> "It's waiting for us," Seraphina murmured.
> "Then let it wait a little longer," Lucian said, unsheathing his blade. "I don't trust ruins that remember names."
The mark on his hand pulsed once—slow and steady, like a heartbeat beneath stone.
She glanced at hers. It burned the same rhythm.
A tether that refused to weaken.
---
They entered through what once was a grand archway, now strangled by black vines.
Every step echoed like a memory waking from centuries of sleep.
Faded murals covered the walls—scenes of the same two figures repeating through time: a prince of flame, a woman of shadow.
In every image, one of them was dying in the other's arms.
Seraphina stopped, her throat tightening.
> "This isn't prophecy," she whispered. "It's… record."
> "Our record," Lucian said grimly.
He touched one painting lightly. The pigment shivered—then rippled, becoming something alive.
The mural came to life, replaying an ancient scene: their first selves standing before a golden altar, fire wreathing their bodies.
The same words echoed in the chamber, ghostly and broken:
> "I swear upon the flame that devours gods—if we are torn apart, may the world itself burn until we are one again."
The sound of their voices—so familiar yet older, heavier with madness—sent a tremor through both of them.
Lucian clenched his fists.
> "We were fools."
> "We were desperate," Seraphina corrected softly.
> "Desperate doesn't make it right."
---
At the heart of the temple stood a colossal mirror framed in obsidian.
Cracks spidered across its surface, but it still reflected their faces—twinned, haunted, bound by the same curse.
Lucian approached it cautiously.
> "This must be where it began."
The reflection flickered.
Suddenly, they were no longer alone.
Two other figures appeared within the mirror—identical, but cloaked in divine fire.
The First Lucian and The First Seraphina, bound in their eternal vow.
Their eyes burned with something that wasn't love anymore—it was obsession.
> "We were you," the first Seraphina said, her voice like silk over blades. "And you are us. You cannot unmake what we bled to forge."
> "We don't want to destroy what you made," the living Seraphina said, trembling. "We want to end the pain."
> "Pain is what kept us alive," the first Lucian hissed. "Without it, you would be nothing."
Lucian stepped forward, anger crackling in his veins.
> "Then I'll take nothing over your eternity."
The mirror pulsed, light bursting outward like fire from the sun.
Their reflections stepped free, forming bodies of molten gold and shadowed flame.
The air turned molten.
Stone cracked under the weight of divine wrath.
---
The battle was not fought with steel alone—it was fought with memories.
Every strike Lucian made, the ancient version countered with one of his past lives.
Every spell Seraphina cast, her older self mirrored it, whispering the incantations she had long forgotten.
> "You cannot kill what you are," the ancient Seraphina taunted, voice echoing like song.
"You already have."
With a cry, Seraphina thrust her palms forward—light and shadow spiraling into one.
Lucian joined her, their marks blazing until the air screamed.
The explosion shattered the temple walls, hurling both past and present into chaos.
---
When the dust cleared, Lucian lay beside her, bleeding but alive.
The mirror was broken—cracked completely down the middle.
Their older selves flickered like dying embers, voices faint but defiant.
> "You think this ends us?" the old Lucian rasped.
"No," Seraphina said coldly. "It frees us."
She raised her hand. The mark burned white—pure, searing.
The ancient reflections disintegrated, their last words fading into the wind:
> "Then burn the world together, as you always promised."
---
As silence returned, the shattered temple began to collapse.
Lucian grasped her hand, hauling her up.
> "It's done."
> "No," she said, her gaze drifting to the last flicker of light inside the mirror's cracks. "It's just beginning. The vow is breaking… but the fire needs somewhere to go."
Lucian met her eyes.
> "Then let it burn through us."
Together, they stepped into the fractured light.
The ruins fell away behind them—
—and somewhere, the curse screamed.