Mara didn't say goodbye.
She left a folded map.
A half-filled water capsule.
And her silence.
Kael stood alone at the threshold of the lower pass.
The bottle pulsed once—
as if marking the moment she vanished beyond the bend.
The tunnel ahead sloped downward into fractured bedrock, where light didn't follow and logic often twisted.
They called it the South Rift.
Mara called it "a place the world forgot."
Kael walked.
Each step was guided not by sight, but by the weight in his arm.
The golden lines beneath his skin pulsed softly now—
tracing invisible paths across the walls and floor.
The bottle grew warm.
Not warning.
Not threat.
Just… engaged.
Hours passed in shadow.
At one point, Kael's breath misted in air that wasn't cold.
Another, his footsteps echoed twice—
once from ahead,
once from behind.
But no one followed.
No one led.
Only the path.
And the pulse.
Then—
light.
Not sunlight.
Not fire.
A soft, cold radiance
like starlight filtered through ice.
The tunnel opened into a wide cavern.
Ruined scaffolds.
Collapsed pillars.
A central structure like an altar built from memory.
Kael stepped closer.
At the center stood a tall obsidian monolith,
its surface perfectly smooth.
Until he approached.
Then—
The surface rippled.
And his reflection looked back at him.
But not like a mirror.
It blinked before he did.
Tilted its head before he thought to.
Smiled.
"Witness Node located."
"Signal: Stable."
"Conduit: Verified."
"Dialogue may proceed."
Kael froze.
His voice caught in his throat.
"What are you?"
The figure—his not-self—answered.
"A recursion echo."
"A synthetic fragment."
"I am the Mirror who Remembers."
The monolith shimmered again.
Images spilled outward—
Not moving pictures,
but memories in motion.
Kael saw:
Himself standing in a ring of fire, untouched.
A city of glass and code, crumbling in reverse.
The bottle, open—pouring green light into a child's body.
Elric, weeping. Not in anger. In recognition.
Kael staggered back.
The monolith stilled.
The reflection returned.
"You are incomplete," it said.
"Your vessel is unstable. The memory core is fractured."
"Your decisions deviate from projection."
Kael gritted his teeth.
"I'm not your machine."
The Mirror paused.
Then, with something like… sorrow?
"No. You are not."
"You are the variable."
Kael stared at his reflection.
The lines on his arm blazed now.
Not gold.
Emerald.
The bottle flared in his pack.
The air shook—just once.
The Mirror flickered.
"Your path forks."
"One leads to fire. One to silence."
"Neither returns."
Kael didn't flinch.
He stepped forward.
"What lies ahead?"
The Mirror did not answer.
Instead, the monolith's surface folded inward—
a doorway opening into shadow.
Kael stared.
And stepped through.
Behind him,
the reflection remained.
Still smiling.
Still watching.
Until it faded.