(Somewhere between memory and fire, there's a place they swore they'd never return to—because it remembers everything they've tried to forget.)
The town of Ilyor wasn't on any map.
Not anymore.
It had been scrubbed from archives, erased from oral histories, swallowed by every spell designed to bury truth under myth. And yet, as Kai and Elio stepped through the mirror, it rose around them like a ghost coming back to haunt its own body.
Ash drifted in the air like snow. Burnt signs hung half-melted above doorways. The streets were paved with bones beneath cracked cobblestones.
"Tell me this isn't real," Elio whispered.
Kai didn't answer.
Because it was real.
Ilyor was the birthplace of the mirror. And its grave.
They walked past buildings that shifted in and out of different eras—one blink and the bakery was from a century ago, another blink and it was futuristic, glass-walled, blinking with AI runes. Ilyor existed in every timeline and none at once.
At the center of the town square stood the tree.
The same burning tree from the vision.
Except here, it didn't burn. It pulsed. Like it was breathing.
Elio reached out toward it.
Kai grabbed his wrist. "Don't. It remembers us."
The tree moaned, low and guttural, like it was waking up.
Then the whispers began.
Not in their ears—in their bones.
Names. Dates. Regrets.
Every version of Kai and Elio who had ever stepped foot here.
One who died saving the town.
One who destroyed it in revenge.
One who never left.
One who betrayed the other.
Kai dropped to his knees, clutching his head. "It's showing me the loop... all the ways we failed."
Elio knelt beside him, voice shaking. "Then maybe it's trying to show us how not to."
Suddenly, the ground split open beneath the tree.
A staircase descended into flame.
On the steps stood Syllis.
Alive. Smiling. Again.
"You came back," she said. "Good. This time, let's finish the story."
She turned and walked down.
Without waiting.
Without looking back.
They followed.
Down through stone lined with sigils that crawled like insects. Through tunnels that whispered, "turn back," and "you already lost."
The deeper they went, the more the world bent.
Time stuttered.
Kai blinked and saw Elio as a soldier again—armor bloodied.
Blink again. A priest.
Blink. A boy in love, the first time.
They reached the bottom.
And there it was.
The first mirror.
Not shattered.
Not cursed.
Whole.
It floated above a pedestal of bones, humming like it was alive.
Syllis stood before it, arms wide.
"This is where we broke everything," she said. "Where you two chose yourselves over me."
Kai stepped forward. "We didn't choose ourselves. We chose survival."
Elio added, "And still lost everything."
Syllis turned.
"No. You didn't lose everything. You just forgot what you had."
She raised a hand.
The mirror pulsed.
And then it showed them.
A version of the past where none of them died.
Where they ruled together.
Where the gods bowed.
Where love didn't end in fire.
Kai reached for it.
Syllis stopped him. "You can have that life. But one of you won't leave with your memory. The loop demands sacrifice."
Elio looked at Kai. "We've paid in blood, over and over."
Kai nodded. "Then this time, we pay in truth."
He touched the mirror.
And everything exploded.
He was falling.
Through lifetimes.
Through kisses and battles and betrayals.
He saw Elio's eyes in every one. And Syllis, too—sometimes a friend, sometimes a god, sometimes the thing that burned them all.
When he landed, the world was still.
He opened his eyes.
And remembered everything.
Beside him, Elio stirred.
"You remember?" Kai asked.
Elio blinked. "I remember what we tried to be."
Kai helped him up.
Syllis was gone.
So was the mirror.
Only the tree remained.
Now fully on fire.
They didn't run.
They watched it burn.
Because sometimes, the only way out of the loop—
—is through the ending you've always feared.
And as the gods watched from behind the stars, the two immortals held each other like anchors.
Because this time?
They chose each other.
Even if the loop didn't.
By morning, Ilyor had vanished again.
They stood where the tree had burned, now nothing but ash and glass fused into new shapes. A new mirror fragment shimmered in Kai's palm—cool, pulsing, whispering not in words but in futures.
"Is it over?" Elio asked, quietly.
Kai stared into the sky. "No. But the rules have changed."
He closed his fist around the mirror shard, and in that moment, time folded once again.
A clock somewhere began to tick backwards.
The gods turned their gaze eastward.
And in the ruins of Ilyor, a heartbeat echoed.
Not Kai's. Not Elio's.
Syllis had survived.
Far beneath Ilyor's ashes, a secret chamber pulsed awake.
A child's laughter echoed through the stone.
And from within the dust of gods and ruins, a mirror cracked open again—this time from the inside.
A spark flared, unseen by any.
And history began to rot in reverse.