Kael's POV
Falling—though I laid still, her scream kept calling.
I couldn't move. Not yet. But god, I heard her voice like it was stitched into the marrow of my bones. That last cry before the floor devoured her, before she was ripped from my side.
And I'd sworn to never let that happen again.
Damn the Vault.
Damn its rules.
Damn my body for not moving fast enough.
The Warden was gone. So was Elora.
But whatever spell she'd laced around me had snapped the moment Elora dropped. A fail-safe, maybe like the Vault thought I'd behave better if I woke up too late.
It clearly hadn't met me.
I sat up with a groan, vision spinning. The corridor around me was shifting again, walls pulsing like the place had a heartbeat. The air reeked of something sour magic twisted out of shape.
"Elora!" I shouted, even though I knew she couldn't hear me.
But it didn't stop me from running.
Every part of me screamed for her. I didn't care if I was breaking the rules, or failing some ancient test. I'd seen what happened when people tried to survive the Vaults alone.
No one did.
Not really.
I tore through a hallway that wasn't there five seconds ago. The walls breathed, then opened. Stone melted into mist. I followed the sound of dripping water, then crackling fire, then—
Her laugh?
A whisper of it.
Soft. Mocking. Not quite hers.
I stopped.
"Elora?" I breathed.
The laugh came again from the left wall.
It was definitely her voice. But wrong. Crooked.
"Try not to die, Kael," it said sweetly.
And then… silence.
I didn't answer. The Vault was playing games again.
But it made one mistake.
It thought I didn't know her.
I moved slower now, blade in hand, ears straining for real signs of her.
Then I found a door.
Not like the others. This one was made of ice. Sharp-edged and humming with power.
And at its center was her face.
Etched in frost. Eyes closed. Trapped.
"Elora—" I reached for the handle.
It didn't have one.
Instead, there were runes around the frame. Ancient. Bloody.
I knew them.
The Trial of the Mind.
She'd fallen into her own head.
A Vault trick as old as the realm itself.
And there was only one way in.
I pressed my palm to the ice and whispered the rite.
"By bond and blood, by fire and fall, I break the veil, I risk it all."
The door shuddered.
Cracked.
Exploded into shards of magic and smoke.
And the world yanked me inward
Elora's POV
I was eleven again.
My shoes were too tight, my braid too long, and my heart too full of questions no one ever answered.
In this memory, the world was warm.
Still untouched by ash.
Still whole.
I stood in the hallway of my childhood home, staring at the locked door that had always made my skin crawl.
Mother's study.
I turned the knob.
It opened.
Inside, everything was covered in white cloth. The bookshelves, the desk, the mirror.
Especially the mirror.
It pulsed.
"Come closer," a voice whispered.
But it wasn't mine.
It was hers.
The other me.
The one the Vault wanted me to become.
The one who never made a mistake.
Never cried.
Never burned her family alive by accident.
"You want to forget," she cooed, stepping out of the mirror. "I can help."
She looked like me.
But her eyes were empty.
Cold.
"I don't want to forget," I whispered. "I want to survive."
Her smile cracked into something monstrous.
"Then break."
She lunged and suddenly the world burned again.
The fire. The guilt. The screams.
They wrapped around me like chains.
Until—
A voice.
"Elora."
Kael.
Real. Solid. Like an anchor in a storm.
"Elora, listen to me! This isn't you!"
But it was.
Wasn't it?
"I destroyed everything," I whispered.
"You lived," he said. "And you're still fighting."
The flames closed in.
And he reached through them.
"Take my hand."
The mirror-Elora shrieked behind me. "He'll never accept you! No one will!"
She lunged again, clawing at my back.
I turned.
And I faced her.
I didn't scream.
I didn't cry.
I just looked her in the eyes and said:
"I don't need you anymore."
Then I shoved her back into the mirror.
And it shattered.
I gasped awake.
Kael caught me before I hit the ground.
"You came," I whispered, dazed.
"I always will," he muttered.
We sat there for a moment, holding onto each other like the world was still trying to peel us apart.
And maybe it was.
But it didn't win today.
Not today.
"I'm tired," I said.
"Me too," he replied.
Then, without warning—
The floor lit up beneath us.
And the Warden's voice returned:
"Final trial begins now."
Kael and I looked at each other.
"I really hate this place," I muttered.
"You and me both."
And then—
The floor vanished.
Again.
But this time, we fell together.