Lira stepped through the mirror door.
The glass did not break.
It yielded, like water remembering how to hold shape.
Ansha followed.
Then Trellen.
Davin hesitated, muttered a prayer he hadn't said since childhood, and stepped through last.
They entered a skyless place.
A space without walls, without time.
The ground beneath them was smooth obsidian, polished to such a perfect black it reflected the stars — not the ones above… but the ones that had already died.
And in the center of the void stood a throne.
Not of gold.
Not of stone.
But of bones and fire.
Someone sat in it.
Not Ashrel.
Not a god.
A child.
Hair white as ash, eyes made of flickering coals. They looked barely ten — and impossibly old.
They looked at Lira and smiled.
"You made it," they said. Their voice echoed in her bones. "I wondered if you'd turn back again."
Lira stepped forward slowly. "Who are you?"
"A fragment," said the child. "Of the First Flame.
The part that regrets."
Behind the child, a second shape stirred — massive, unseen, but felt.
A heat that did not burn.
A presence that did not move — because it had no need to.
"That," said the child, nodding behind them, "is what remains of the flame's true mind."
"It does not speak. It remembers."
"What does it want?" Trellen asked.
The child turned toward him, head tilted.
They smiled wider.
"It wants to stop."
The air grew still.
Lira swallowed.
"The flame is dying."
"No," said the child. "It is tired."
"It has burned through creation. Burned through time. Burned through you."
"And now, it wants rest."
"And the Vaults?"
"They were locks.
Not prisons — but warnings."
"Of what?"
"Of becoming flame without memory."
Suddenly, the child's eyes dimmed.
Their smile faded.
"You're being followed."
The chamber trembled — not violently, but purposefully.
Something ancient was entering the threshold.
Not Ashrel.
But what Ashrel had become.
The door behind them cracked wide.
And Ashrel stepped through.
He looked unchanged — but the air moved around him, as if reluctant to touch him.
His ember-marked eye glowed brighter than ever.
He saw the child.
And smiled.
"You've been waiting," he said.
The child didn't reply.
Ashrel turned to Lira.
"This is the end, isn't it?" he asked.
"The last Vault. The final choice."
"Yes," Lira said quietly.
Ashrel nodded once.
"Then let's choose."
The child raised a hand.
Two paths appeared.
One was light — bright, roaring, hungry.
The other was shadow — still, soft, but final.
"One path keeps the flame," the child said.
"But it will never burn clean again."
"The other… ends it."
"All of it."
"We lose the flame?" Davin asked.
"You become more than it."
Lira looked to Ashrel.
Ashrel looked to her.
Their hands drifted toward the light.
But only one could choose.
And the child watched.
Smiling.
Waiting.