The Mirror Temple was collapsing.
Not in rubble or flame—but in meaning. Walls flickered between real and unreal. Names began to vanish from memory, even within the minds of those who bore them.
Keal fell to one knee as the floor beneath him rippled into glass. It reflected not his face—but his father’s. Aldric, hollow-eyed and broken.
“No,” Keal whispered. “That’s not who I am.”
“You carry all of him,” the mirror answered. “And not all of it was noble.”
The voice was too familiar. It wasn’t just the mirror. It was Aldric himself—or rather, the part of Aldric that lived in Keal’s shame. The long nights in the war camps, the choices Keal had made when no one was watching. The people he couldn’t save.
A cold wind blew through the temple, and the mirror fogged. When the glass cleared, K
