"The dead forget. Mirrors remember. What we see in them is not always reflection—it's inheritance."—Inscription above the Shrouded Gates of Miravas
Miravas was not on any current map, nor spoken of in any royal court or academy. It was a place scrubbed from memory, buried in superstition and layered in silence. Yet Kael Vaelorian stood before its iron gates, beneath a shroud of perpetual twilight where no birds dared fly, summoned by a contract inked in ancestral sin.
The gates opened not with guards, but with a voice from within:
"Welcome, Flameborne. You have come to pay the price."
The city was unlike any Kael had seen: all glass was banned. Water flowed underground. Even the moonlight was diffused by stained silk canopies stretched over rooftops. People wore veils over their eyes. Windows were filled with pitch or sealed with iron.
"Mirrors are forbidden here," whispered Elias, the scholar-knight at Kael's side. "They say reflections are... stolen."
They were brought before the Mirror-Council, nine robed figures who never raised their hoods. The chamber itself was pitch black, except for a circle of candles that flickered unnaturally—bending away from Kael.
A mirror was brought forth. Not of glass, but living mercury, bound in chains and scriptures older than empires.
"Your blood summoned him. It will either free him... or end him."
The tale was revealed: centuries ago, Prince Daevan Vaelorian, in his youth, came to Miravas to hide an unforgivable act—an entire village razed to silence a prophecy. He made a pact with a reflection-devil named Veraxis. In exchange, the devil devoured every witness, every memory, and turned their ghosts into reflections.
But the price was lineage-bound: each heir of his blood would be hunted by Veraxis, whose true form was the culmination of every sin unconfessed by the Vaelorian line.
To end the curse, Kael had to face Veraxis in the House of Infinite Reflections, a descent through a maze of echoing halls beneath the city, where mirrored obsidian lined every wall and whispers came not from behind—but within.
Each step downward peeled something from Kael's spirit. In the reflections he saw:
His mother's dying face, eyes hollow.
A future Kael in chains, screaming in a dungeon of light.
Lia's broken body lying in a river of ash.
At the threshold of the Mirrorheart Vault, Kael's godflame flared defensively, repelled by the absence of truth in the room. This was a place untainted by divine fire, but filled with something colder—remorseless memory.
Veraxis emerged not from shadow, but from Kael's own reflection. It wore his body like a silk robe, perfect but too perfect—its smile fixed, its eyes twin vortices of silver.
"I am the version of you who never failed. The one who never burned. The one who erased pain, not endured it."
Kael tried to strike him down, but each swing struck only mirrored phantoms. Veraxis showed him visions:
Himself ruling with absolute control—loved, feared, but utterly alone.
Lia begging him not to kill Darion... and Kael laughing as he plunged the blade.
Himself crowned by the Nameless One, black flame flowing from his veins.
"Let me unmake your sorrow," Veraxis whispered. "Just say yes."
Kael faltered.
But then... he remembered Elias's quiet loyalty, Lia's laughter in the wilds, the warmth of camaraderie, and the terrible beauty of facing the impossible together.
"No," Kael said. "My sins are mine. I won't erase them—I'll burn brighter than them."
Kael unleashed his godflame—not in fury, but in sorrowful resolve. It was not fire meant to destroy, but to purify.
The Mirrorheart Vault began to crack, Veraxis screaming as it fractured under the weight of Kael's unbroken will.
"I forgive nothing," Kael said. "And that's how I grow."
The mirror exploded, and Veraxis was shattered—not slain, but bound within a single shard of Kael's soul, now carried like a thorn behind his thoughts.
The curse lifted from the city. For the first time in three hundred years, the people of Miravas uncovered their mirrors, seeing their own faces again—some for the first time in their lives.
In thanks, the Mirror-Council presented Kael with a sacred relic: the Ocular Lens, a sliver of living silver blessed to pierce all illusion and deception. Kael wore it over his left eye.
Immediately, he saw beyond light—
—A silhouette cloaked in black fire, coiled inside his own godflame, eyes ancient and nameless.
It did not speak.
But Kael felt it smile.
And he knew…
"Something ancient now watches me. From the fire. From the mirrors. From within."