(It was just a myth. A caution in the prophecy. A ruin no map dared name—until they stood in its ashes.)
The train rattled like it was falling apart between realities.
Kai sat with his fingers clasped in his lap, the branded mirror sigil on his palm still faintly glowing, like it was remembering him against its will. Elio sat across from him, silent, face turned to the window—but not seeing anything. His reflection didn't move when he did.
They were heading to Ilyor.A place that should never have existed.A place that only shows itself to the broken.
And they were both cracking.
The conductor hadn't asked for tickets.
There hadn't even been a schedule. Just a train that waited at midnight, on a platform that appeared when they whispered "Ilyor" in the wrong part of the city.
"I don't like this," Elio said finally. His voice was sandpaper, low and frayed.
"You don't have to," Kai said. "You just have to remember."
Elio shook his head. "That's the problem, Kai. I do remember. That town—it burned me in a dream. It had your voice... but you weren't there."
Kai didn't respond. He was staring at the seat next to Elio. It was... changing. Flickering.
One second, it was empty.
The next—a little girl sat there. Silver eyes. Bare feet. Blood on her hands.
"You're close now," she whispered.
Then she vanished.
Kai jolted upright as the train lights flickered, bathing the carriage in red for just a second.In that flash, he saw rows of people—no, reflections—sitting in the seats around them. Versions of themselves from other lives. One wearing armor, blood across his chest. Another in priest robes. One sobbing. One laughing manically.Then darkness again.
"What did you see?" Elio asked.
Kai's mouth felt dry. "Us. But not us. I think the loop is bleeding into now. The timelines are collapsing together."
Elio nodded, as if he'd already suspected. "Then Ilyor must be the tear."
The train screeched to a stop.
No announcement. No lights. Just the scent of burnt cinnamon and ash in the air.
The doors hissed open—and beyond them: Ilyor.
Or what was left of it.
Smoke drifted from cracked lanterns. The street was made of cobblestones that blinked like eyes. Every building looked like it had died, been reborn, then died again.
And in the middle of the town square, carved into the stone, were five names.
Kai read them aloud without meaning to:"Elio. Kai. Mira. Roen. Ilatha."
Elio's voice cracked. "I know those names."
Kai nodded. "So do I."
They walked deeper into the ghost-town, every step echoing like thunder.A shadow darted across the rooftops.
"You saw that?" Kai asked.
Elio drew his blade from his coat. "We're being followed."
A whisper came from the fountain up ahead.
A child's voice. The same girl with silver eyes.This time, her face was clearer. She was older. And her voice was split, as if two timelines were speaking through her.
"You're late," she said.
Kai froze. "Who are you?"
"You named me once," she whispered. "In a life where you chose to remember."
The sky above them cracked like glass.
The sky above them cracked like glass.Not thunder. Not magic.Something deeper.
Kai stared up as a fracture line split the clouds, glowing white-hot like a scar across the universe.
Elio moved to shield the girl, instinct kicking in. "Is it starting again?"
She looked up, unfazed. "It never stopped."
And then she was gone. Dissolved into light. Or memory.Maybe both.
They reached the center of Ilyor.
It wasn't a city.
Not really.
It was a loop wound into architecture—alleys that led back to themselves, doors that opened into the same room no matter which building they entered. The air reeked of memory.
Kai muttered, "This place wasn't built—it was remembered into existence."
Elio reached into his coat and pulled out the shard of the mirror they kept hidden in a velvet pouch.It vibrated.
"I think this town is what the mirror was made to hide," Elio whispered. "The memory of something too big. Too dangerous."
Kai turned slowly."Ilyor isn't just a location. It's... the first loop."
And just then—
The bells rang.
Loud. Dissonant.From a steeple that didn't exist five seconds ago.
A church rose from the ground in slow-motion, stone carving itself as they watched. Stained glass slid into place mid-air.
"Now what?" Kai said, breathless.
"We go in," Elio replied. "Because something in there wants to be remembered."
Inside the church, they expected decay. Dust. Silence.Instead—
It was alive.
Candles burned in silver sconces. The pews were full—but the people were frozen, unmoving, eyes wide open, whispering the same word on loop:
"Valeth. Valeth. Valeth..."
Kai grabbed Elio's hand. "That was the word that opened the Archive."
Elio nodded. "It's older than magic."
A shadow moved across the altar.
A woman stood there—dressed in mirror glass, her body stitched together from broken timelines. Her face shimmered with a thousand expressions, none of them human.
"You returned," she said.Her voice echoed in past and present at once."You're closer to remembering. But the cost is rising."
Elio stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"I'm what remains of the god you buried."
Kai's breath caught.
"No," he whispered. "That's not possible."
She smiled with a mouth full of timefire.
"Everything is possible in a loop. Even gods dying more than once."
Then the walls of the church shifted, revealing murals made of moving light. Kai and Elio saw themselves across ages—lovers, enemies, rebels, kings. Always ending. Always beginning again.
"You must choose," the Mirror-God said."To end this loop... one must forget, one must burn, and one must walk alone."
"No," Elio said.
She raised a hand."You already did. You just don't remember which life."
Kai stumbled backward.
Visions flooded him again:A child with silver eyes, standing in fire.A promise he made and broke.A loop he begged the gods to rewrite, even if it cost them everything.
He collapsed to his knees.
"Ilyor isn't the town that broke us," he whispered."It's the one we broke ourselves to create."
Elio grabbed Kai by the arm and pulled him up. "We can't fall apart here."
Kai looked dazed. "We made this place, Elio. Ilyor exists because we chose to forget."
"And now we choose to remember," Elio said. His voice was fire. "Even if it ruins us."
The Mirror-God stepped down from the altar, her feet not touching the floor. "You think love survives loops. But it doesn't. Love mutates. Frays. Becomes something else."
Elio clenched his fists. "It brought us here, didn't it?"
She tilted her head. "Then prove it."
The church vanished.
They were standing in an orphanage now—or something like it.
Children moved in slow motion, their laughter warped. One child, with a stitched doll, turned her head 180 degrees and smiled at Kai."You left me here," she said in a singsong voice.
Kai's pulse spiked. "No, no, this isn't real."
Elio backed into a wall—but it pulsed under his hands like flesh.
"It's the Loop's heart," the Mirror-God's voice echoed around them. "Every forgotten choice, every twisted end—it all pools here."
A hallway split in two ahead of them.
One path was lined with fire.The other with falling stars.
"You must walk alone," the Mirror-God said again.
Kai turned to Elio. "No. Not again. Not this time."
But Elio was already stepping into the fire.
"Elio!"
His voice didn't echo.
Elio was gone.
Kai stood trembling in the falling stars corridor.Each step forward triggered a different memory—not his own, but someone else's.
A war in a skyless world.A wedding where no one showed up.A battlefield where Elio begged him to run.
He reached a door at the end.
Etched on it was one word: Ilyor.
He touched it—
And saw a memory not from the past,but from the future.
He stood at Elio's grave.
No mourners. Just the wind. Just the sound of bells tolling in reverse.
Kai was holding the mirror shard.
And he was smiling.
"No more loops," the future version of him said. "You're free now."
Kai ripped his hand off the door, gasping.
The Mirror-God reappeared beside him.
"That's one future," she whispered. "But not the only one."
Kai clenched his jaw. "What do you want from us?"
"I want you to remember that you were the ones who wrote the first prophecy."
"What?"
She placed her hand on his chest—and visions slammed into him again.
He and Elio. Young. In love. In a temple made of mirrors. Writing something on parchment soaked in godsblood.
A vow.
A curse.
A promise that love would survive the unraveling of all things.
And then—
A scream.
The paper burned.
Kai collapsed again.
Tears rolled down his cheeks.
"I remember," he whispered. "I remember why it keeps breaking."
The Mirror-God nodded. "Good."
Elio stepped from the fire path, bruised, burned—but alive.
He looked at Kai, eyes wide. "Did you see it?"
Kai nodded. "We caused the loops. We cursed ourselves."
Elio knelt beside him. "Then it's time to undo it."
Somewhere in Ilyor, the bells rang again. But this time—they rang backwards.
The town began folding in on itself, buildings dissolving into mist.
The Mirror-God opened her arms.
"Choose."
Kai looked at Elio.
Elio said nothing.
But his hand reached out.