The scent of burnt parchment lingered in the air, sharp and dry, like something once sacred had been scorched.
Kyren stood before the third door.
Unlike the others, this one was bound—thick chains looped tightly around its frame, nailed deep into the rotting wood as if someone had tried, desperately, to keep whatever was inside from getting out. The iron links were stained with something old. Dried black. Not rust.
Blood, maybe.
Or ink.
His breath fogged slightly, though the air wasn't cold. It was the kind of chill that came from within, sinking up from the gut and spine. Like memory. Like fear that had taken root.
Behind him, the first two doors had sealed.
The first had shown him fragments of forgotten days. Broken glass memories.
The second had revealed something worse—truths he wasn't ready for. The girl's voice had echoed through the ink-drenched space:
"Once the ink touches your soul, it writes in both directions. Past and future."
Now, the third door waited.
It didn't whisper.
It didn't hum.
It simply stood.
Chained.
Silent.
He hated how much it reminded him of himself.
Kyren raised a hand, pausing inches from the wood. The ink beneath his skin pulsed in warning, tightening like veins drawn taut with pressure. His fingers trembled, not from fear—but from the knowledge that whatever lay beyond this door wouldn't be a memory.
It would be a choice.
He touched the wood.
The chains shifted.
Not from his touch. But as if something inside had stirred.
Something that knew him.
The chains uncoiled with a slow metallic groan, like breath released after centuries of restraint. Not unlocked—undone, as though the door had chosen to let him in.
Kyren stepped back on instinct, his body tensing. But the door remained shut, its surface warped and cracked, etched with faint markings that pulsed once with the ink under his skin. Not symbols. Not runes. Just... scars.
He didn't like the thought that the door had been wounded.
He didn't like the thought that he was meant to open it.
Still, he reached forward and pulled.
It resisted—not physically, but spiritually. As if the act itself had weight. And then, it gave.
A sudden rush of heat and ash poured out. Not fire. Just the breath of something long buried. The room inside was narrow, with walls made of splintered wood and pitch-black stone. It wasn't a room—it was a cell.
At the far end stood a mirror.
No reflection.
Just the outline of a figure, made of shadow and ember, chained to the glass like a prisoner caught mid-scream.
Kyren stepped forward.
The door shut behind him with a thud.
And the figure in the mirror opened its eyes.
They were his.
But wrong.
Wild, fractured, brimming with something feral and unfinished. The thing that wore his face tilted its head. When it spoke, it was with a voice scraped raw by silence.
"You came late."
Kyren froze.
The thing inside the mirror watched him with a slow, predatory calm—his face, but peeled of restraint, of empathy, of humanity. The version of himself that had never looked away. That had seen too much too soon.
"You were supposed to choose earlier," the mirror-Kyren said, voice like cracking bone under silk.
Kyren's hand twitched toward the knife at his hip. It wasn't there.
He wasn't armed.
Not here.
"I don't remember being given a choice," Kyren replied, his voice tight.
The other Kyren smiled—not with lips, but with eyes.
"You did. When you looked at the door instead of walking away. When you kept walking into shadows, hoping they'd open."
The mirror rippled. Ash leaked from the edges like black snow. The chains around the mirrored figure groaned, tightening.
Kyren stepped closer despite the instinct screaming otherwise.
"What is this place?" he asked. "A test? A prison?"
"A seed," came the reply. "Buried inside you long ago. This door only cracked it open."
A memory surfaced—half-formed and splintered. The ink. The whisper. The coin pressing against his soul.
"You were made to carry echoes," the mirror-Kyren said. "But not all echoes want to be remembered."
Then the chains snapped.
Glass cracked, not shattering, but fracturing across the entire wall, a spiderweb of reality breaking apart.
The figure stepped out.
It wasn't Kyren anymore.
It wore his face, but its body was built of old regrets, half-dreamed futures, and the weight of choices not made.
Kyren stumbled back. His breath hitched. For the first time in a long while, something like fear clawed up his spine.
It stepped toward him, and every footfall was like a name being forgotten.
"I am what you buried," it whispered. "And I've come to be read."
Kyren's fingers clenched at his sides. There was no weapon. No Thread to grasp. Just him, and this thing—this memory made flesh, wearing his skin like a borrowed coat.
Its gaze burned—not with heat, but the sear of recognition. Of knowing everything he'd hidden from himself.
"I didn't come here for this," Kyren hissed, voice low, hoarse. "I came for ink. For the rite."
The creature smiled.
"You think the ink is separate from me?"
It raised its hand, and veins of black began to crawl along its arm like wet ink threading across parchment. They writhed, letters forming then dissolving before comprehension took root.
"You've already written the first line. You just didn't understand the language."
Kyren felt something stir beneath his skin—threads twitching like nerves awakening. But not of power. Of exposure. As if he were being read from the inside out.
The creature lunged.
Kyren dodged to the side, barely. Its hand scraped the stone wall, leaving behind words etched in a language that made the air hum wrong.
He didn't fight. Not yet. He watched.
The thing moved like him. Fought like him. But it didn't hesitate. And in its lack of hesitation, Kyren saw a terrible truth:
It was stronger.
Because it didn't care what it became.
"What are you?" he asked, circling, eyes scanning for anything—anything he could use.
"The cost of every truth you swallowed. The scream behind your silence. The man who never closed his eyes at night."
It struck again. This time, Kyren was too slow. The blow landed square in his chest, sending him crashing into the mirror's edge. Blood welled in his mouth. His ribs screamed.
The creature stalked forward.
Kyren coughed, spitting red onto the stones. His mind raced.
This wasn't a battle of strength.
It was revelation.
So he stood. Steady. Breathing through the pain.
"I know you," Kyren said. "I know what you are."
The creature paused.
"Then say it."
Kyren met its gaze, unwavering.
"You're the reflection I left behind in Fall's End. The part of me that never came back. The moment I chose silence when I should've spoken. You're my guilt made flesh."
A moment passed. The figure tilted its head. Something cracked—in the mirror, in the air, in Kyren himself.
The creature laughed—not cruelly. Sadly.
"Then you are ready."
It stepped back into the mirror, and the surface sealed shut, cracks vanishing like dreams at dawn.
A single line appeared across the mirror's face, etched in glowing ink:
"You have been read."
And then the door behind Kyren opened.
Not the one he entered through.
A new one.
Smaller. Wooden. Unchained.
Waiting.
Kyren, bloodied and unsure, stepped forward.
Not because he wasn't afraid.
But because this time, he wasn't hiding anymore.