The shattered remnants of the Oracle Mirror shimmered faintly in the dim glow of the sanctum. They no longer showed reflections—only the fragmented echoes of what had been seen.
Serethiel stood amidst them, chest heaving. The taste of divine fire lingered on his tongue, bitter and metallic. A single shard of glass had embedded itself in the side of his palm, glistening with blood that was not quite red. He pulled it free without flinching.
He didn't bleed like he used to.
The voice still echoed inside him. You are what I made you.
"No," he growled, pacing back, his footfalls echoing like judgment through the hollow chamber. "I'm more than that. I'm—"
But the Mirror had shown him. Not just images, but truths buried deep—memories he thought long extinguished. The burning of the first sanctuary. The chains he'd worn willingly. The first time he bowed his head to the corrupted archangel not out of loyalty, but out of fear of oblivion.
His hands trembled.
He remembered fire. Not the holy kind. Not the fire of Heaven's purity. But the black fire that razed the divide between devotion and ambition.
"I was chosen," he whispered, almost pleading to the shadows. "I... I was strong enough to see what the others couldn't. To survive where others wept and fell. I had to become this."
Serethiel leaned closer, his breath ragged from the residual strain of the chase. He hadn't intended to look. He didn't need to. But something in the chamber—something in the air—compelled him. A whisper not of words, but of presence.
The black mirror of the pool welcomed him, its depths rippling as though aware of his gaze. And then, it took him.
Not in body, but in soul.
He gasped—his vision sucked inward like a rift pulling him through time and space. The sanctum vanished. The echoes fell away.
And he stood—no, knelt—on a floor of jagged glass. The world was a dome of cracked mirrors, each fragment reflecting something twisted and wrong: flames licking sacred scrolls; broken wings; chains forged of scripture; and at the center, a throne sculpted from bones and melted steel.
Upon it sat him.
The one who pulled the strings. The one who had unmade so many and remade them in his broken image.
The corrupted archangel.
But here—here in this place—their connection was not veiled by orders or rituals. It was raw. Direct.
"Serethiel," the archangel said, his voice a choir of rot and fire.
Serethiel tried to rise. He couldn't.
The chains at his wrists materialized from shadow, yanking him down. His celestial garb flickered, replaced by tattered remnants of a robe soaked in ichor. His own reflection—shimmering across every shard of glass around him—did not resemble the haughty elder of the Council.
It showed a hound. A creature of obedience. A servant hiding behind a mask of purpose.
"I am no slave," Serethiel snarled, but his voice trembled.
The archangel leaned forward, his face half-hidden by a halo of cracked light. "Aren't you?"
Serethiel tried to look away, but the mirrors would not allow it. They showed his past—his obedience, his zeal, his cruelty. How he crushed dissent with joy. How he silenced the doubters in the name of purity. How he hunted the Forsaken not for justice, but for pride.
Then came the images of Caleb. The boy's song. The light it conjured. The defiance in his notes.
The mirror flared.
"You hesitate," the archangel whispered. "Even now."
"I do not!" Serethiel shouted. "I came to kill them!"
"But you watched," the voice hissed. "You lingered in the shadows. You listened. What is it you truly seek, little blade?"
The pool's image shuddered. Flames bled from the mirrors and licked Serethiel's limbs, but they did not burn. They revealed.
Behind the archangel, something immense stirred—a shape of wings too many, eyes too deep, and a hunger so vast it cracked the heavens. It was what had birthed this corruption. It had worn the name of an angel once.
Now it had no name. Only will.
Serethiel screamed—not from pain, but from clarity.
He was leashed.
He was lost.
He was owned.
And deep down, he had always known.
The Mirror had peeled back every excuse, every rationalization, and left only the echo of a soul gnawed hollow.
He ripped his head back from the pool, stumbling onto the cold stone. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, the sanctum's silence now too loud, too hollow. The mirror had gone still. Blank. As if it had shown nothing.
But the taste remained. Ash and blood. Truth.
Serethiel knelt there for several breaths. His hands shook.
Not out of fear.
Out of rage.
Because the boy should not have mattered. Because the Fallen should not have wounded him. Because the prophecy should have been nothing more than a myth.
And yet... he hesitated again.
From the distance, he heard the group—Caleb, Serenya, Avesari—speaking as they ventured deeper. Their voices drifted through the ancient stone like ghosts.
He stood slowly, brushing dust from his cloak. His usual smirk returned, but it was a cracked thing now. A mask.
"Let them find their relic," he murmured to himself. "Let them believe they have a chance."
He turned toward the passage they had gone.
"I'll be waiting."
---
Far ahead, unaware of what stirred behind them, the trio moved deeper into the inner chambers of the sanctum.
The air had grown colder—not from malice, but age. The walls were adorned with mosaics worn smooth by time, yet hints of their artistry remained: angels weeping in light, humans kneeling at ruins, a great tree severed by a falling star.
"Avesari," Caleb said, halting. His voice was soft but urgent. "That last mural—what is that symbol in the roots?"
Avesari turned, her gaze narrowing on the depiction. Buried beneath the tree's roots was a sigil—half-forgotten, but unmistakable.
"It's the seal of the Sanctum's heart," she murmured. "The relic lies beneath it. The first light... the one used to guide the sanctuary through the first storm."
Serenya tilted her head. "You make it sound like this place... moved."
"It did," Avesari said, solemn. "Long ago, when the first cities fell and the stars screamed. This place was bound to song and will. When the war shattered the veil between Heaven and Earth, the sanctum drifted. Hidden not by distance—but by dissonance."
Caleb stepped forward, kneeling to trace the edge of the mural. "So we're not just looking for a relic."
"We're looking for a key," Serenya finished. "To a sanctuary that might not exist in the same reality anymore."
Avesari didn't answer immediately. She looked upward instead, to the curved ceiling far above them. Carved into its stone were lines of scripture in a tongue older than angels. Her lips moved, whispering the translation.
In the echo of the broken note, the way shall open.
Where light was bled and silence born,
The child of ash and song shall find the path forgotten.
A silence stretched between them.
Caleb's voice broke it, hesitant but steady. "That... prophecy. It's about us, isn't it?"
Avesari nodded. "It's always been."
Before more could be said, the chamber trembled.
Not from an attack—but from something awakening beneath their feet. The mosaic pulsed faintly, the seal in the roots glowing with pale light.
And from far behind them, though none yet noticed...
A shadow moved.