The stairs yawned before them, spiraling into the earth like the throat of a buried god.
Each step creaked with ancient sorrow. The frozen roots that formed the passage wept black ichor that shimmered in the light of Serana's torch. Kael led, Ashreign drawn, its blade glowing faintly as though responding to the depth of the magic below.
"This place is wrong," Ismara whispered, one hand on her hilt. "It's not made—it's grown."
"The Tower isn't a building," Ysera murmured. "It's a living memory. The Queen didn't build it. She birthed it."
Their descent was slow.
Time warped around them. Serana counted their steps—by the hundredth, her lips were dry. Veylan touched the wall and drew back a bleeding hand. The root had bitten him.
Kael, ever forward, saw visions flicker at the edge of his sight. Ghosts of people he never met… or couldn't remember.
Then, after what felt like a day, the staircase ended.
They emerged into a cathedral of crystal and frost.
Pillars spiraled upward into black void. Mirrors hung in the air, spinning silently, each showing a different version of their reflections—older, younger, broken, triumphant.
And there—at the far end—upon a throne of entwined glass and ice,
she waited.
The Queen.
Her gown shimmered with woven snow. Her eyes were closed, but her lips curled into the faintest smile—as though she'd been dreaming of this moment. Her hands rested on the hilt of a long, jagged blade that pulsed with light the color of winter stars.
As they approached, her eyes opened.
One red. One white.
"Kael," she said softly, as if tasting his name. "You've taken the blade. That makes you king."
"I didn't come to be a king," Kael said, raising Ashreign. "I came to stop what Draeven began."
She rose. Her footsteps made no sound.
"Draeven was a symptom. You are the cure."
"And I… am the cost."
The frost in the chamber deepened.
The mirrors began to spin faster.
Kael stepped forward.
"Then let's see your worth, Queen of Silence."
Her smile sharpened. Her blade sang from its scabbard like a scream.
And the Tower of Mirrors shook as two forgotten flames collided.
The Queen's first strike shattered silence.
Her blade, Luneblade, moved like liquid ice—no edge, just a flow of impossible cuts that glinted through air and thought. Kael met her charge with Ashreign, steel shrieking against frost as heat collided with ancient cold.
Flames burst with every clash.
Mirrors cracked overhead, raining shards that froze midair, hanging like constellations in pause.
The others backed into the shadows, weapons drawn, but the battle was too vast, too old, for interruption. They could only witness—watching Kael duel a being not of blood, but memory.
"Why fight me?" Kael growled, parrying a blow that numbed his fingers. "We want the same end."
"Do we?" she replied, her voice like wind across a grave. "You seek to end a tyrant's legacy. I seek to end the Cycle."
She twisted. He barely dodged.
"You are fire, Kael. You were forged to burn away the old. But you forget—some of us are the old."
Kael struck back, flames licking her blade—but Luneblade absorbed the heat, reflecting it back as searing cold. His vision blurred. Ice crept up his boots. His heartbeat slowed.
Then—
A mirror beside them exploded.
And Kael saw it:
A memory not his.
He stood—not as Kael—but as the Queen's companion. A knight. Loyal. Loving.
He saw himself kneeling at her side as a kingdom of stars crumbled.
He saw a promise.
"If the Cycle ever begins again, find me. Kill me. Before I remember who I was."
Kael stumbled back.
"I knew you…"
The Queen hesitated, just for a moment.
"You were my knight. Before you were reborn. Before Ashreign chose your fury over your love."
"Why would I promise to kill you?" he asked.
She smiled, tears glimmering like diamonds.
"Because if I woke… I'd become the storm that ends all."
She raised Luneblade again.
"Now strike, Kael. Fulfill your oath. Or fall… and let the world drown in frost and fire."
Kael's grip tightened.
Ashreign pulsed in his hand, ready to end what he once vowed to protect.
And in the mirrors surrounding them, every reflection held its breath.
Kael stood frozen—not by the Queen's magic, but by the weight of memory.
In every mirrored shard surrounding them, fragments of a forgotten truth stared back:
He had once loved her.
Not as a warrior, not as a king, but as Elyar, her sworn knight, her chosen flame. Before the Cycle. Before Ashreign.
She had been Aelira, not the Queen of Silence, but a guardian of balance… until the first king broke the pact and chained the world to repeating ruin. She had chosen slumber—until now.
"Why awaken?" Kael asked, voice cracked with fire and grief. "Why now?"
"Because Draeven broke the seal," Aelira said. "He stole fragments of my power, twisted them. The world teeters, Kael. I stir only to stop what I once helped create."
She lowered Luneblade—but its frost shimmered hungrily, resisting.
"I wanted you to kill me before I remembered what I am. But you were reborn too late. Now… I remember everything."
Kael stepped forward, Ashreign burning brighter.
"Then I won't kill you. Not yet. We fight Draeven—together."
"No," she said, pained. "If I leave this place, the locks on the other Wells break. The Cycle doesn't end—it shatters. No rebirth. No balance. Just chaos."
A gust of frozen wind howled.
Cracks spread through the mirrors.
"You must choose, Kael," she whispered. "Kill me, or become what I was. Take the burden. Sleep, as I did. Guard the Cycle, forever."
Silence.
Then Ashreign dimmed.
Kael looked to his companions. Serana—wide-eyed. Ysera—shaking her head. Veylan—silent, respectful.
He stepped toward Aelira.
And knelt.
"Then let me carry it. You've suffered long enough."
Tears streamed from her eyes.
"I hoped you'd forgotten. But you… you never change."
She touched his forehead. Magic bloomed.
Mirrors shattered.
The Tower howled.
Ashreign burned with a final light—then dimmed to amber.
Aelira vanished.
Only a faint song remained—like snowfall humming through time.
Kael stood slowly, changed. The fire in him stilled. His blade now silent.
"The Queen is gone," he said.
"Then what are you?" Ysera whispered.
Kael turned. His eyes, once golden, now shimmered with silver flame.
"A Watcher. The Cycle's last ember."
But far across the world, in a broken city beneath red skies...
Draeven smiled.
"Good. Let the knight rest. I've no use for ash."
Far from the Tower, beneath the ruined spires of Vaer'Sul, a storm churned red above the city.
The sky bled fire.
Lightning forked through clouds shaped like screaming faces.
Atop a throne of bone and obsidian, Lord Draeven sat—one gauntleted hand cradling a shard of crystal pulsing with blue light: a fragment of Aelira's essence, stolen before her reawakening.
His eyes glowed with corrupted silver, rimmed with the black veins of forgotten magics. Around him, the Sable Choir knelt—twelve cloaked figures, faceless, voiceless, bound to him through blood and oaths broken centuries ago.
"The Queen is lost," Draeven said, voice like thunder through hollow stone. "And the knight has claimed the yoke."
He stood, his armor whispering secrets with every motion.
"Good. Let Kael slumber beneath the world. Let him rot beneath the weight of duty."
He crushed the crystal.
Its scream echoed through realms.
A rift tore open behind the throne—a portal not to another place, but to a memory sealed by the gods themselves.
"Open the Vaults of the First Flame," Draeven commanded. "We do not need the Cycle to rule. We will remake the weave—without time, without death."
Beyond the rift, a desert of white fire awaited, dotted with colossal statues of winged titans, half-buried and weeping molten tears.
This was where the First Flame slept—where reality had been kindled long before men or myths.
And Draeven… would ignite it again.
"What of the knight's companions?" asked a voice—rasping, feminine, cruel.
Draeven smiled.
"They will come. They always do. Let them bear witness… as I become god."
He stepped into the fire.
And the world shuddered.
The Tower had grown quiet.
Kael, now the Watcher of the Cycle, sat in silent meditation within the Heartvault beneath the shattered mirrors. Ashreign lay across his knees—dormant, its once-blazing edge now wrapped in threads of starlight and frost. The oath he had taken bound him to the world's rhythm, to balance... to burden.
But the world did not wait.
Above, within the wind-scoured halls of the Tower, Kael's companions gathered.
Serana paced the chamber restlessly, her golden braid frayed and her cloak stained with frost. The flame in her spirit had not dimmed, but its direction had fractured.
"We can't leave him here," she snapped. "He's still Kael. I don't care what power he holds now. We need him."
Ysera leaned against a ruined column, eyes closed.
"If we try to pull him from the Cycle now, it might break him… or everything else with him."
Veylan knelt in quiet prayer, whispering to the Three-Eyed Serpent, the lesser god of shadowed paths. When he rose, he spoke:
"Draeven stirs. I felt it in the bones of the world. He walks where fire was first born."
The chamber fell into a hush.
"He's after the First Flame," Ysera said softly.
"Then we march," Serana replied, her voice iron. "Kael chose his burden—but we can still choose ours. We stop Draeven. Or die trying."
Suddenly, a low hum rippled through the Tower—like a forgotten heartbeat.
Kael's voice echoed within their minds—not words, but a feeling: a blessing, a parting, a silent strength. He was watching… not interfering, but protecting in ways even he did not fully understand.
"He sees us," Serana whispered. "He believes in us."
Outside, the skies over Eldara darkened.
Storms brewed.
Armies stirred.
From the shattered plains of Draveth to the windless marshes of Azran, old powers awoke, called by Draeven's fire and Kael's silence.
But the companions would not walk alone.
A shadow moved behind them as they departed the Tower.
A cloaked figure, limping slightly, bearing a jagged staff carved with runes that hadn't been spoken since the First Tongue.
He watched them go, then smiled beneath a mask of ivory.
"At last," he rasped. "The ember rises. And the forgotten king walks again."