Kaelen screamed as the mirror cracked.
The sound wasn't sharp like shattering glass — it was deeper, wet, as if something inside the mirror had torn open. The echo of it pulsed through her bones, and for a moment, she forgot where she was.
Forgot who she was.
Then a hand pulled her back.
"Kaelen!" Tareth's voice was harsh, grounding. "Don't look at it!"
She blinked. The woman — the one with her eyes and a voice like memory — was gone.
The mirror had gone dark.
In its place, a thin line of black ichor leaked from the crack in the glass. It dripped to the floor like ink — but when it touched the stone, the air screamed.
Kaelen stumbled back, heart hammering.
"What… what was that?" she gasped.
Tareth didn't answer immediately. He stared at the cracked mirror with something like fear.
"An echo," he said at last. "Or a fracture. Doesn't matter. We need to leave."
Kaelen held her ground. "She knew me."
"She's not real."
"She was me."
"No." His voice hardened. "She was the part of you the Hollow God already touched. That's how it works. It breaks memory, then infects what's left."
He grabbed her wrist, pulling her back toward the flickering stairway.
"Come on. The anchor's not here. That mirror… was a trap."
---
They made it back to the surface just as the city began to collapse again.
Elrath-Ven shimmered, its towers flickering like dying flame. The market streets crumbled. Statues melted into mist. And then — just silence.
The city didn't explode. It forgot itself.
And Kaelen felt a piece of her mind twist in protest — like a string snapping inside her skull.
Tareth grabbed her shoulder. "Stay focused."
"I saw it, Tareth," she whispered. "I remembered it. Why is it still fading?"
"Because memory alone isn't enough," he said. "We need to find the anchor. The thing that holds its place in the world."
"I thought that was the mirror."
Tareth shook his head. "No. Mirrors reflect. Anchors remain. We'll try again. But next time, we bring a map."
Kaelen looked back at the valley. It was empty again. The city gone. The memory of it already fraying at the edges of her thoughts.
She gritted her teeth.
"I won't forget."
Tareth glanced at her — and for the first time, a flicker of something crossed his face.
Respect? Or worry?
"Then let's make sure the world doesn't either."
---
Somewhere Else…
In a chamber without walls, lit by thought and silence, something stirred.
A figure sat cross-legged in the void, skin pale as ash, eyes blind but aware. Around it, fragments of names spun in slow orbit — cities, songs, faces — all crumbling to dust.
One name resisted.
Kaelen.
The Hollow God did not speak.
But the silence twisted with hunger.