The sky was wrong.
It stretched wider than it should. No sun. Just a low, steady glow — like twilight stuck on repeat. The clouds didn't move. They watched.
Kaelen stood still, his shards humming quietly under his skin. The Veil here wasn't a border.
It was woven into the world.
Yreya stepped up beside him. "I think we're in a fragment. A... split."
Bren checked his weapons, eyes scanning the horizon. "You mean we're not in our world?"
Kaelen nodded. "No. We're in hers."
They stood on the edge of a massive plain, cracked and broken, with trees that flickered like mirages and rivers that flowed in reverse. In the far distance, sharp spires pierced the sky, glowing faintly with runes Kaelen could now read.
Sanctums. Veil towers. Ashra's pillars.
He knew this place.
Not from memory — from the shards.
They walked for hours, not speaking much. The wind whispered things only Kaelen understood.
"She walked here once.""She bled for this.""This was supposed to be the cure."
At dusk — or what passed for it here — they reached the edge of a massive crater.
In the center: ruins.
Black stone structures twisted with veins of living light. Architecture that bent at impossible angles. Floating segments, like someone had forgotten gravity existed.
And at the heart of it all: a mirror.
No frame. No base. Just a floating oval of silver, reflecting everything except the person looking at it.
Kaelen stepped toward it.
The shards inside him pulsed.
Yreya grabbed his arm. "Don't."
"I have to," he said. "It's showing me something."
"It's a trap."
Kaelen nodded. "Definitely."
Then he touched it.
He didn't fall in.
He was pulled through.
On the other side, he stood in the ruins again — but whole. Unbroken. The sky was blue. The towers stood tall, untouched. People moved through the city. Alive. Laughing.
He saw himself — older, cloaked in white and grey, standing beside a woman with glowing eyes and a slow, proud smile.
Ashra.
They were not enemies.
They were partners.
They had won.
This was the world that could've been.
The one where she didn't break the Veil, but reshaped it.
Where Kaelen never lost anyone.
Where the Choir never rose.
Where Tavrin lived.
And then it cracked.
The vision split, glitched, and bled.
Ashra's face twisted, torn by something inside her. Her hands glowed too bright, and her mouth screamed words that warped the air around them. The towers broke. The rivers caught fire. Kaelen's reflection turned to ash.
This world had collapsed in on itself.
Just like their own almost had.
Kaelen tore free of the mirror's pull, gasping.
The mirror shattered behind him.
Bren had drawn his sword. Yreya looked pale.
"What did you see?" she asked.
Kaelen wiped blood from his nose.
"The lie," he said.
Then looked toward the tallest tower, now glowing with pulse-light like a beating heart.
"She's still here."