The sky was a canvas of deep bruised violets and haunting silvers, the kind of sky that foretold no weather, only omens. Above the warped horizon, celestial flares crackled silently, like distant fireworks from a universe unraveling. They stood on the ridge of a collapsed timeline, overlooking the impossible structure that loomed ahead—Veyra's citadel. It was not built, it was remembered into being. Every stone a memory, every spire a regret, every shadow a scream swallowed by time.
The citadel throbbed with an eerie, silent heartbeat, as if alive and listening. Its jagged silhouette cut across the fractured skies like a wound. The structure shimmered between realities—solid one moment, intangible the next—built not from bricks, but from history itself. The air around it was thick, not with fog, but with fragments of time: broken clock hands tumbling in slow motion, whispers from lives unlived, echoes of laughter that ended in tears, and the cold hum of alternate futures crumbling to ash.
Aeris stepped forward, her boots crunching through frost-kissed grass that shouldn't have existed in this scorched, post-temporal wasteland. Each breath she drew felt like inhaling memory. Her pulse quickened as a chill brushed her spine.
"This place... it's like walking through someone's dream. Or nightmare," she murmured, eyes flicking toward shifting phantoms in the peripheral.
Kael's hand rested on the hilt of his blade, not drawn but braced with intent. His gaze stayed fixed on the citadel. "It's hers. This is what Veyra wanted us to see. A monument to everything we failed to forget."
Dray, silent until now, moved beside them. His armor shimmered uneasily, rejecting the environment like a foreign body resisting infection. "Or what she wants us to remember. Not just her past—but ours. The parts we buried."
They descended in solemn silence, their boots sinking into ground too soft, too alive. Each step forward tugged at invisible threads in their minds—memories they never lived, regrets that weren't theirs, and truths too heavy for the present to carry. It was like walking through the residue of broken lifetimes.
Kael blinked—and suddenly he was standing before a grave.
His name was etched into a headstone of glass. Aeris was crying over it, her voice raw with grief. Dray stood behind her, hands red with blood that shimmered like ink. But then the ground split open, and the grave swallowed him whole.
Aeris staggered, her vision filling with another version of herself—younger, colder, more resolute—plunging a dagger into Kael's chest. Her own voice echoed: "Forgive me... I had to."
Dray clutched his head as a blaze consumed the citadel in his mind's eye. He stood upon its tallest tower, laughing madly, crowned with shadows, while below, the world burned.
The visions evaporated like mist.
They stood at the gate.
It was enormous, formed from interlocking symbols and bones of forgotten timelines. As they approached, the citadel responded—not with sound, but sensation. The heavy doors creaked open without resistance, revealing darkness—and a hallway lined with mirrors.
Not reflections. Windows.
Each mirror showed a different version of them: triumphant heroes basking in light, monstrous versions feasting on destruction, broken shells wandering alone, divine forms untouched by pain. A theater of endless maybes.
Kael stepped through first. The moment his boot crossed the threshold, he felt a sharp pull deep in his spine—not physical, but metaphysical. Like memory chains locking into place. The citadel knew him. It knew all of them.
The mirrors began to ripple, like disturbed water.
From one, a version of Kael stepped out—eyes glowing a violent crimson, lips twisted in a grin that mirrored none of his humanity. His blade, familiar yet corrupted, dripped with Aeris's blood. He said nothing. He simply charged.
Aeris faced her mirror-self, dressed in a tattered gown of shadow and crowned in living thorns. Her doppelgänger spoke in a language composed of screams, uttering truths Aeris had buried deep within.
Dray stood in a storm of children—each one a version of himself. One bore an innocent smile, one wept, one screamed, one held a rusted blade—and each one asked: "Why did you let us die?"
The battle was not of steel, but of psyche. They fought their deepest selves—fought not to kill, but to survive what they could become. To resist the truths that clawed at them.
Kael locked blades with his double, the clang of metal ringing like bells of judgment. He gritted his teeth, holding the upper hand by inches. "I am not this," he spat.
"No," the double smirked, "But you're only one bad day away."
Aeris stared into her reflection's eyes and whispered, "I'm sorry I feared you."
The mirror cracked.
Dray fell to his knees, clutching his head. "Not again… not this time." The children faded into stardust, their voices echoing one last word: "Choose."
When they emerged from the mirror hall, the citadel had changed.
The floor beneath them was now a sprawling garden—except everything was dead. Trees formed from black ash reached toward the sky, their leaves made of broken timepieces. Flowers bloomed in silence, petals of molten glass. Wind chimes of bone sang hollow songs.
At the center stood Veyra.
She looked radiant, terrible, and calm. Her eyes burned with ancient fire. Her voice carried like prophecy:
"Before you fight me," she said, "Know this: I did not create this citadel. You did. Every dark path, every cruel decision, every piece you chose to forget—it built this."
And with a single wave of her hand, the garden fractured.
The petals became blades. The trees burst into spectral flame. The sky above cracked—and the final war of remembrance began.