"To wake is not always to return."
Darkness.
Lior opened his eyes, but the world around him was colorless. He was standing on a plain of white sand that stretched endlessly beneath a pale sky. There was no sun, no shadow, only a faint glow that seemed to come from nowhere.
His body ached as though he had fallen from a great height. He turned slowly, expecting to see Kael beside him, but the plain was empty.
"Kael?" His voice echoed strangely, repeating itself again and again until it faded into silence.
No answer came.
He pressed his palm to the mark on his hand. It was cold, lifeless. The connection to the pillar was gone.
A sound drifted across the plain, a slow, rhythmic hum, like breathing. Lior began to walk toward it, the sand shifting under his feet. Each step left no trace behind.
The hum grew louder until it became a chorus. Shapes began to rise from the ground, figures made of glass and light, faces that shimmered and broke apart when he tried to focus on them. They whispered in voices that were neither male nor female.
"You crossed too far. The bridge was not ready".
Lior stepped back. "Who are you?"
"Echoes", they replied. "Fragments of what was lost when the veil first shattered".
"The veil," he murmured. "So this is the place between."
The figures moved closer, their outlines flickering. "Every soul that touches both worlds passes through here. Few remember. Fewer survive".
He felt the weight of their gaze though they had no eyes. "Kael fell with me. Where is he?"
The glass shapes tilted their heads. "He was pulled away. The one who bears the golden eyes took him".
Lior's pulse quickened. "Where?"
They pointed toward the horizon, where the pale sky darkened into a storm of black clouds. "There".
Without hesitation, he ran. The landscape began to twist, the sand turning to shards of crystal that cracked beneath his boots. The light flickered with every breath, as if the air itself was struggling to stay alive.
He reached a ridge overlooking a chasm filled with swirling mist. At its center stood a structure of floating stone, circular like a temple without walls. A single figure knelt within it, motionless.
"Kael!" Lior shouted.
No response.
He descended the slope, ignoring the pain in his legs. As he reached the base, the ground trembled. The figure from before appeared once more, standing at the far side of the platform. His cloak rippled though there was no wind.
"You are persistent," the man said calmly. "That will make your end mercifully brief."
Lior's anger flared. "Where is he?"
The golden eyes glowed brighter. "Your companion stands at the edge of his own awakening. Do not disturb him. The hollow between worlds feeds on the unbalanced."
Lior clenched his fists. "You took him. You tore us from the real world."
"I preserved you," the man said softly. "The collapse would have consumed your body and your soul. You should be grateful."
Lior stepped forward. "You speak of preservation, but you destroy everything you touch."
The man's expression did not change. "I am a consequence, not a cause." He raised his hand, and the air shimmered with ripples of gold. "You still do not understand what you are."
Before Lior could speak, the light struck him like a wave. Images flooded his mind. A child standing before a burning city. A figure in white carrying that child through the flames. A hand reaching toward the stars as they shattered into fragments.
Then the vision broke. Lior fell to his knees, gasping.
The man approached, his footsteps soundless. "You are not merely from another world. You are its remnant. The last echo of a reality erased by its own creation."
Lior stared up at him, disbelief tightening his throat. "That's impossible."
"Is it?" the man asked. "You remember the feeling of déjà vu? The dreams that show places you have never seen? That is your truth bleeding through."
The air around them pulsed. Kael stirred on the platform, his eyes fluttering open. "Lior…?"
Lior tried to stand, but the ground split between them. The chasm widened, light pouring from its core.
The man looked down at the rift with quiet fascination. "The bridge awakens again."
He turned to Lior. "You can save one world or lose both. But if you seek the Shard's full power, remember this: mirrors do not choose what they reflect."
Then he stepped backward and vanished into the light.
Lior crawled toward Kael, reaching across the widening gap. Their fingertips touched for an instant before the world began to collapse again, light folding inward like a closing eye.
"Hold on!" Lior shouted.
Kael's voice was faint. "You always say that."
The light consumed them both.
When Lior opened his eyes again, he was lying on a bed of grass beneath a violet sky. The ruins of Vareth were gone. The air was warm, the scent of blooming lilies heavy around him.
Kael was beside him, breathing but unconscious.
Above them, three moons hung in perfect alignment.
And far in the distance, a spire of white stone rose from the horizon, its surface pulsing with the same mark that burned on Lior's hand.
He knew, without being told, that the next journey had already begun.