"Some wounds are not meant to be healed, but remembered."
— Fragment from the Code of the Unspoken Age
---
The mirror cracked again.
Not in the Tomb.
Not in the Fold.
But in the center of Lyra's chest.
She woke up screaming, gasping for air.
Her hands shook as if the fire inside her wanted to burn the world down.
Vayren was already kneeling beside her.
> "Lyra! Stay with me!"
But she could barely breathe. Her vision blurred.
---
It wasn't real.
It couldn't be real.
But the mirror kept cracking.
And behind it stood the one thing she thought was gone forever.
---
Scene: A Nightmare Reborn
Her sister stood in the doorway.
Not a memory. Not a vision.
Her.
Lyra's hand shook as it reached out.
> "Jena?" she whispered.
Jena didn't smile.
Her eyes weren't alive.
They were dead.
Hollowed out.
But still her.
> "You're not here," Lyra gasped, backing away. "You're not real!"
But the reflection—no, the illusion—smiled.
> "I'm everything you never wanted to remember."
And in the blink of an eye, she was gone. Vanished.
The door behind her slammed shut.
---
Scene: The Truth Revealed
Lyra's flame didn't burn.
It flickered cold.
Uncertain.
She felt it inside her, clawing.
Her memories weren't whole anymore.
They were broken.
> "It's my fault," she whispered. "I let her die. I let her go."
Vayren stood silently for a moment. His eyes didn't waver from her.
> "You didn't let her die," he said softly. "You were just the one who couldn't save her."
---
Scene: Kaien Watches
In the southern mountains, Kaien stood still. His figure was a silhouette against the rising moonlight, casting a shadow over the landscape. His grip on the spear tightened as the wind whispered his name.
The world was wrong. It had always been wrong.
But now it was all starting to line up.
Every step, every echo, had led him here.
> "Vayren," he whispered. "You can't escape what we are. We're the same."
---
The wind carried his words to the far corners of the world.
And Lyra—still on the ground, flame flickering weakly—felt something deep within her stir.
Not the fire. Not the memory of the past.
But something alive.
---
Scene: Vellamira's Plot
Far in Sanctum Auris, Vellamira stood over a pool of ink.
Each drop that fell was a piece of the world's fabric.
Each piece, a sliver of forgotten knowledge.
> "Kaien's return changes everything," she said, eyes locked onto the pool. "But Lyra… she still carries something."
Her fingers twisted the ink, shaping it into a form not yet seen.
> "She will be the key to ending this. Or the reason it all burns."
---
Final Scene: Lyra's Choice
The wind stopped.
Lyra stood alone, the space around her still vibrating with echoes of a past she couldn't outrun.
She clutched Tenebranth tightly.
> "I don't want to lose you again," she whispered, speaking not to Vayren, but to herself. "I don't want to become the person who can never remember the ones I've failed."
A dark figure moved in the distance—shifting between reality and dream.
It wasn't a person.
It wasn't a reflection.
It was her.
Her past self, walking back from the shadows.
> "I can't save you from this," Lyra said quietly, staring into the space where her old self should have been. "I can't save you from what you were."
The shadow smirked.
> "Then stop pretending you ever could."