Kael's POV
They say you only break what you can't contain.
And I—I was breaking. Faster than gravity could claim me.
The tunnel had vanished like a lie told too well. No walls. No ground. Just weightlessness and a pit of dread gnawing at my ribs.
I reached for something ,anything but my hands found only cold air and the ghost of Elora's fingers.
She was gone.
And I had sent her.
I didn't have time to regret it, because the fall ended as abruptly as it began.
No net. No bounce.
Just... silence.
I hit something soft. Not the golden net again but it felt alive,pulsing,warm. My limbs sank slightly, like I was lying on a giant heartbeat.
"What the hell now?"
A low voice echoed around me. Not one I recognized. Not human.
"Welcome, Lost One."
Well, that's new.
I sat up slowly. My surroundings shimmered into view like someone was dialing reality into focus.
A vast chamber stretched before me, lit by veins of glowing crystal running along the walls like arteries. In the center stood a throne—empty. Around it, massive figures carved into the rock loomed down like silent gods. Each had a face I knew.
One of them was mine.
I stared at it, stunned.
"Elora didn't get this kind of weird," I muttered.
"Because Elora chose light," said the voice. "You chose the burden."
"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice bouncing like a stone skipping water.
"I am the Vault's memory. The part it hides from the light."
That explained absolutely nothing.
But then the floor shifted beneath me, morphing into a path. At its end: a door made of mirrors.
I took a step, and my reflection stepped with me.
Except... it wasn't me.
Elora's POV
The light swallowed me whole.
For a moment, I couldn't tell if I was floating, burning, or dissolving. My scream echoed back at me, stretched and warped until it sounded like someone else entirely.
Then the world snapped back into place.
I was standing.
Not in a hallway. Not in a room.
In a memory.
My memory.
I knew this place—my childhood home, long burned to ash. Except here, it was untouched,vibrant, alive.
I looked down. I was small again. Eight, maybe nine.
"No, no, no," I whispered. "This isn't real."
My mother walked in. She smiled, warm and alive and whole. "Ellie, time for your lessons!"
My knees buckled.
She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to be alive.
"Elora," said a voice behind me. My real name. My real age.
I turned.
My adult self stood there, watching me.
This was not a Vault test.
This was a reckoning.
Kael's POV
The reflection walked toward me.
It had my face, my voice but its eyes were hollow. Lifeless. They didn't shine with mischief or fire. They looked... resigned.
"You know why you're here," it said.
"Unfortunately."
"You've always feared becoming me."
The air shimmered, and suddenly, behind it were dozens of images: me in battle, me destroying things I was supposed to protect, me betraying people who believed in me.
I clenched my fists.
"That's not who I am."
"But it could be."
"No."
I charged.
The reflection did too.
We collided.
And the mirror shattered.
Elora's POV
My mother's arms wrapped around me, and it nearly undid me.
I wanted to stay there forever. But I couldn't. I knew she wasn't real.
"You're gone," I whispered. "You died because of me."
She pulled back and cupped my face. "No, sweet girl. I died because the world is cruel. Not because you survived it."
Tears blurred my vision.
"You're stronger than your past," she said. "But you must forgive it. Or it will be your prison."
Then the house burned down again—slow, golden fire this time. Beautiful. Cleansing.
And when it was gone, a doorway stood in the ashes.
I stepped through.
Kael's POV
I stood, bleeding from the knuckles, breathing hard.
The false me was gone. The mirrors were gone. But something had changed in the chamber.
The stone figure of myself cracked down the middle.
Then a second door appeared—this one wrapped in iron vines.
The Vault's voice returned.
"You may ascend. But you are not whole."
"Thanks," I muttered. "I'll work on that."
I pushed open the door.
And walked into fire.
Elora's POV
I was no longer in the past.
Now I was in the storm.
Wind howled. Lightning crashed. I stood on a cliff overlooking a chasm that screamed my name.
This was my power.
Uncontrolled. Raw. Everything I had ever been afraid of becoming.
"You think you can handle what lies ahead?" a voice called.
I turned.
My shadow had grown fangs. A crown. Wings made of thorns.
It looked like me if I let the world break me.
"If you take another step," it said, "you become me."
I narrowed my eyes. "If I don't, I become nothing."
I stepped forward.
And the storm obeyed.
Kael's POV
The fire didn't burn me.
It shaped me.
My scars glowed gold. The pain I carried became light.
And standing in the center of the inferno... was Elora.
Not the real one.
An echo.
"Why do you keep pushing people away?" she asked.
"Because everyone leaves."
"Even me?"
I didn't answer.
Because in that moment, I didn't know.
She stepped closer.
"Love isn't a weapon, Kael. It's the one thing that might save you."
Then she vanished.
And the fire faded.
And there at last was the real door.
I stepped through it.
Elora's POV
We both arrived at the same time.
Two paths.
One door.
And there he was.
Kael.
Real, breathing, battered Kael.
We ran to each other, collided in a hug so fierce it knocked the wind out of me.
"You shoved me!" I shouted into his shoulder.
"You're welcome," he whispered back.
We pulled apart, just enough to look at the golden door now glowing in front of us.
Only one may enter.
But this time, something was different.
The door split in two.
Two halves. Two paths. One purpose.
Kael took my hand.
"What now?" he asked.
I smiled through my tears.
"We end it. Together."
Kael's POV
The Vault's voice was everywhere.
"Unity is the rarest treasure."
The doors opened.
Side by side, we stepped into the light.
And the Vault dissolved around us.
What lay ahead?
I didn't know.
But for the first time in a long time—
We weren't falling.
We were rising.
Together.