The descent was colder than I remembered.
Not physically—though the air did thin and sharpen as we went deeper—but emotionally. Spiritually. I could feel the weight of memory pressing in from all sides, coiling into the walls of the ancient structure like it had seeped into the very bones of this place.
Magic, old and resentful, pulsed faintly beneath our feet.
This was a sanctum once. A place of vision. Of prophecy.
Now it was just ruin.
We stepped through a shattered archway into a large chamber that still defied time. Its ceilings were high and domed, etched with constellations that didn't belong to our current sky. Dust floated in the air, unmoved by breeze. And in the center, standing unchallenged by decay, was a mirror.
It wasn't made of glass.
It shimmered like oil, its surface warped slightly like something alive.
The moment I saw it, my breath caught in my throat.
It was his memory. My memory.
But more than that—it was a tether. A wound that had never fully closed.
