Midnight veiled Solace City in silence. In the attic chamber above Forgetful Haven, Lysander sat alone beneath a flickering oil lamp, half-buried in case scrolls, the tea below long cold. A draft whispered through the shuttered window—just enough to slip something through.
A jade slip. Thin, unmarked. It landed beside his cup with no sound at all.
He stared at it for a moment. It pulsed once, then etched itself with burning characters:
"Authorized Access: Instance Simulation Initiated"
Before he could move, sigils erupted across the floor beneath him. A teleportation array—complex, ancient—blazed into being.
"Not again," he muttered.
The world tilted. The room folded inward.
And Lysander vanished.
The path to Kharos was nothing like the stories.
No shattered battlements loomed against a blood-red sky. No graveyards of rusted siege engines whispered forgotten curses. There were no bones scorched black by celestial fire, no cries echoing across an ash-choked plain, no sandstorms screaming vengeance. There was only silence.
And glass.
Endless miles of it.
The Ember Wastes sprawled beneath a sky the colour of molten pewter, a vast mirror-flat expanse veined with obsidian and broken only by wind-shaped ridges and fractured crystal plains. The sun, if it still existed in this forgotten place, was cloaked behind a haze so thick it might as well have been swallowed by the firmament. It churned somewhere behind the clouds like a forgotten god, its rage reduced to a dull, ever-present bronze twilight.
No wind stirred the scorched horizon. No bird called. The Wastes breathed only the stillness of a land that remembered war — not as history, but as trauma.
Lysander stood at the edge of the last rise before descent. His cloak snapped lightly at his ankles, the air dense and dry, as if reluctant to move. Before him, the mirrored fields stretched into infinity, a shattered landscape of glass and memory. The sword strapped across his back pulsed faintly against his spine — less a warning than a response. This place resonated. With magic. With blood.
With him.
Behind him, Mira's breath caught in her throat. "It's… beautiful," she whispered, her voice reverent but uneasy, like someone admiring a cathedral built on a mass grave.
Seraphine, ever watchful, stood beside her with arms crossed. Her eyes scanned the horizon, not for beauty, but for danger. "It's a lie," she murmured, her voice sharp and low. "All of it. This place was born from betrayal. Forged in the fire of broken vows. It remembers. And it doesn't forgive."
They began their descent.
The slope beneath them was treacherous — slick with layers of fused glass that bore the scent of scorched air and the faintest traces of old blood. Every step they took left no footprint, only warping reflections beneath their feet. Lysander saw his own face repeated dozens of times — some frowning, others smiling, some with eyes that glowed or wept blood. One bore a crown of flame. Another had no face at all.
The Cradle was already whispering.
The silence, too, was deceptive. Their footfalls made no sound. The air refused to carry echo. Each heartbeat seemed to vanish into the glass like a drop into still water. It was a silence that didn't just suppress noise — it devoured it.
At the base of the slope, the basin widened into a flawless circle. The ground there was smooth and pale blue, like a lake frozen mid-scream. The light overhead shimmered just enough to create the illusion of depth. It felt like standing on a frozen memory.
Seraphine stopped and gestured with a flick of her hand. "This is the edge. Beyond this lies the Cradle proper. The Mirage Cradle. Once we step past this ring, the trial begins."
Lysander turned to her. "And it tests what, exactly?"
Seraphine didn't answer immediately. Her fingers brushed the edge of the basin's glass as if trying to sense the current of its spellwork. Her voice was quieter when she finally spoke. "Everything. It will read your blood, your past, your regrets. It will feed on them. Refract them back at you until you don't know which reflection is real."
Mira had already crouched down, one small hand pressed to the glassy surface. Her touch left no smudge, but the basin shimmered beneath her fingers — responding.
A symbol bloomed where she touched: a crescent moon cradled by wings.
"It knows me," she breathed. "It remembers me."
Lysander didn't hesitate. He stepped forward.
The moment his foot crossed the boundary, the world shifted.
The sky above bent unnaturally, light swirling into an impossible spiral. The glass beneath him deepened into liquid clarity, revealing a vast abyss of stars and flickering images far below the surface — too fast to catch, too real to ignore.
They were suspended, weightless, as if walking across the surface of a memory not their own.
Then the Cradle awakened.
Light fractured in all directions.
Walls of glass erupted from the ground, not with violence, but precision — forming corridors, intersections, and towers. The maze shimmered and reshaped itself like a living dream. Reflections bloomed in all directions: some sharp, others vague. All wrong.
Seraphine and Mira vanished.
Lysander spun instinctively, hand on sword, breath sharp.
They were gone.
He stood alone in a corridor of mirrors.
Each wall soared twenty feet above him, seamless and gleaming. And each reflection it cast was off — some subtly, some grotesquely. One showed him as he was now, but with black voids for eyes. Another with burn scars twisting up one side of his face. One showed him draped in courtly robes, a crown on his brow, flame flickering behind him like a halo. And one… showed nothing at all.
A whisper rose from the corridor, so soft it might've come from within his bones.
"You are not the heir. You are the echo."
Lysander gritted his teeth. "I've heard worse."
The sword at his back warmed, not in threat, but comfort.
Then the floor lit up.
A circle of golden light flared beneath his boots — a sigil carved of intertwining runes and flame. It pulsed once, twice, in time with his heartbeat.
It was not a trap.
It was a door.
He stepped forward — and the corridor dissolved.
The glass peeled away like mist, revealing a vast throne room bathed in sunlight. Marble columns soared overhead, inlaid with ruby and obsidian. Banners of crimson and gold hung from the rafters, emblazoned with twin serpents wrapped around a burning crown. At the far end, seated upon a throne of molten glass and bronze, was a figure cloaked in fire.
Azrael.
Not as a ghost.
Alive.
Whole.
His expression was younger, fiercer — untouched by death, unburdened by loss. His eyes glinted with fierce recognition as Lysander fell to one knee.
"I'm not ready," Lysander whispered.
Azrael rose. His voice echoed through the vast chamber. "You were never meant to be ready. That was their first mistake."
Lysander looked up. "What is this? A memory? A test?"
"Both," the king replied. "But not one of combat. This trial is of truth. If you would reclaim your name, your fire, your future — speak what you fear."
Lysander hesitated.
The silence grew heavy.
"I ran," he said at last, voice trembling. "When they came. When the fire started. I didn't fight. I didn't even scream. I ran. And then I forgot. I buried it. I let them take everything."
Azrael did not move. His face remained carved from flame and judgment.
"I watched them die," Lysander choked. "I let them die."
The throne behind Azrael began to crumble. The sunlight dimmed. The palace cracked, and the world returned to glass.
Azrael's voice whispered once more.
"Then you are ready to remember them."
The corridor returned.
But now, the reflections had changed.
They no longer lied.
They showed memories. A red-haired woman reading to a young boy beneath the light of dusk. A ceremony. A blade offered by hands too ancient to be mortal. A man in a mask, face hidden, but his blade unforgettable — falling in a crimson arc.
The sword in Lysander's hand hummed, its runes glowing pale blue.
He walked forward.
Elsewhere, the maze twisted.
Seraphine walked through a forest of mirrors. Each one showed her a different self. In one, she was draped in celestial robes, seated upon a throne of starlight. In another, she wore assassin's black, her hands bloody. In a third, she was bound in chains, eyes burning with fire.
In all of them, she stood alone.
She paused before one mirror — the only one that reflected her exactly as she was now.
But in that reflection, the wall behind her bore the Eye of Law.
She turned away.
And deeper in the Cradle, Mira faced her own reflection — except there was none.
The mirror did not reflect her.
It spoke.
"Your name is not Mira. That is what they called you. What did your mother whisper, child of twin blood?"
Mira stepped closer, hand trembling.
"I don't remember," she whispered.
The mirror shimmered — and cracked.
The glass pulsed with power, and somewhere, deep in the heart of the maze, a signal was given.
The centre of the Cradle awakened.
A coliseum of crystal unfolded from the void — its walls shimmering with ancient glyphs, its floor carved with the crest of the original Accord.
They would arrive there soon.
To face a trial that no sword could overcome.
To face the only enemy more dangerous than their past.
Themselves.