The Mirror stood tall within the Sanctum of the Unsleeping, a void of liquid silver framed by jagged metal, older than the temple itself. They called it The First Relic. Others prayed to it. Elias feared it.
Today, it spoke.
The ceremony was meant to be routine, a procession of offerings brought in clay vessels: breath-smoke, drop-blood, mind-ink. Children of noble lineages came forward to speak their "Names of Becoming," watched over by veiled acolytes. All the while, the mirror loomed behind the altar, silent and gleaming. Until Elias approached.
The priests had prepared him, well, they had prepared Kéon. He was to speak the invocation of lineage, lay his hands on the base of the mirror, and listen for the murmur of the God-Sleeper.
He barely began when the mirror shimmered, not in reflection, but in recognition.
It breathed.
A ripple ran across its surface, and the offerings nearest to it, smoke and ink and blood, were sucked into it like dust drawn to a storm.
A low sound followed. Not a voice, but a remembering.
Then, words. Words not in the liturgical tongue.
"ELIAS SOVANN. DESIGNATION: CORRUPTION KEY."
He staggered. Not even Ayélè moved to steady him. All eyes were fixed on the mirror. On him. Someone screamed. Another wept. A child clutched his mother and began reciting wards of unmaking.
The voice spoke again.
"YOU WALK IN STOLEN SKIN. YOU ARE KNOWN."
And then: silence.
But Elias was no longer there, not wholly. In the span of a single breath, he was pulled inward, not into the mirror but behind it, into its memory.
He stood on a plain of fractured obsidian, surrounded by echoes, lives stacked upon lives, flickering like flame. He saw himself, but not as Elias. As others. A dancer on a ship made of bone. A king with no kingdom. A girl with a machine in her chest whispering to stars.
They turned toward him. Each bore a shard of the mirror in their eyes.
One stepped forward.
"We thought we could control it. We were wrong. It feeds on choice. And you keep choosing wrong."
Elias reached out, but the vision shattered.
Back in the sanctum, the high priests declared it a Reckoning Sign. The God-Sleeper was stirring. A division arose among the temple faithful: some believed Kéon had been chosen to bear divine truth. Others believed he had become a vessel for an ancient, unspeakable blasphemy.
That night, Ayélè confronted him again.
She looked like she wanted to strike him. Instead, she whispered:
"The mirror saw you. Not my brother. So I'll ask only once: Who are you?"
Elias, unable to lie anymore, whispered:
"I don't know."
But the mirror did.
And it was waiting.