The air grew colder as they stepped through the shattered archway, leaving the dying light of dusk behind. Below the temple's broken floor stretched a narrow stone staircase, winding down into the earth like a serpent slithering into shadow. The faint scent of damp stone and rusted iron clung to the stale air.
Viriel's footsteps echoed softly, the only sound besides the distant drip of water. He held the mirror-shard tightly in his left hand, the wrapped relic like a fragile heartbeat against his palm.
Vali followed close behind, clutching a satchel heavy with charms, powders, and ancient texts. His eyes never ceased scanning the darkness, calculating, measuring. The weight of what they sought pressed on him like a stone.
"This place was sealed long before the temple fell," Vali said, voice low but steady. "The priests called it 'The Vault.' A sanctum meant to trap secrets better left forgotten."
Viriel's gaze was fixed on the descending steps. "Secrets worth death."
The stairs ended at a rusted iron door, its surface pocked with age and burn marks. Faded glyphs traced along its edges, wards to bind, or warnings to trespassers.
Vali kneeled, tracing the runes with trembling fingers.
"Salt and silver, yes… but something else. Something older."
"Can you open it?" Viriel asked.
Vali's lips pressed thin. "I can."
He began chanting softly, voice threading through the cold air like a weaving spell. Dust stirred in the darkness as the glyphs glowed faintly blue. The iron creaked and groaned as the door reluctantly swung inward.
Beyond lay a chamber vast and hollow, lit by ghostly phosphorescence that clung to the damp walls. At its center, a large circular pit stretched downward, endless in its darkness. The air beyond the door was different. Still, yet somehow moving, as though a silent tide swelled and withdrew in the dark.
"The Gate," Vali whispered.
Viriel approached, eyes searching the abyss below. His reflection shimmered and fractured in the strange light, a broken twin cast into darkness.
"Tell me what to do," Viriel said.
Vali studied the mirror-shard in his hand. "First, we anchor ourselves here. The Void pulls at all living souls like tides at the shore. One misstep—"
"Then we fall," Viriel finished.
A faint pulse hummed from the shard, like a heartbeat struggling to find its rhythm.
Vali knelt at the edge of the pit, drawing a circle of ash and silver dust on the cracked stone. He placed runes along its edge, each one humming with latent power.
Viriel watched, the weight of his grief pressing heavier than ever.
"This is no ordinary journey," Vali said quietly. "Once we cross, there is no turning back. You will walk in a place where time does not pass, where memories twist like smoke. If your mind fractures, so too will hers."
Viriel's hand closed around the hilt of his sword.
"I have waited too long to be afraid."
The chamber's phosphorescent light dimmed as the runes flared, a soft hum rising from the pit. A shimmer appeared on the black surface, rippling like water disturbed.
"Step forward," Vali said, eyes locked on Viriel. "And hold the shard close. We open the path to the Void."
Viriel took a deep breath, feeling the shard's faint warmth pulse against his skin.
He stepped to the edge and looked down into the Void, into the place where his lost love waited, where souls were forgotten, where the impossible might still be undone.
Slowly, the surface of the black abyss rippled and parted like glass, revealing a twisted reflection of the world beyond.
Viriel felt a cold hand brush at the edges of his mind, whispers from a place without time or mercy. The air grew thick with shadow and silence.
Through the swirling darkness, a shape resolved. A face, perhaps, or the memory of one. The curve of a cheek. Eyes he knew in his bones. For a breath, it was her.
For a moment, the world fell away.
Vali's breath caught. Even he, felt the impossible surge through the chamber.
"She's there," Viriel whispered, voice cracking. "Waiting."
Rhea's lips parted, but no sound came. Only the echo of a name lost between worlds.
The gate pulsed, the runes glowing fiercely as the darkness pressed inward, hungry for what lay beyond.
Viriel tightened his grip on the shard. The impossible was only just beginning,
Viriel hesitated at the edge of the Mirror Gate, the swirling darkness rippling beneath his feet like liquid shadow. The faint pulse of the shard in his hand was the only warmth in the biting cold that clawed at his skin.
Vali's voice cut through the silence, steady but cautious. "Remember, the Void is not a place. It is a realm between life and death. It twists memory and truth until they become indistinguishable."
Viriel nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. "I will not forget what I am here for."
With a final breath, he stepped forward.
The surface of the Void gave way beneath him like glass breaking, swallowing him whole.
For a moment, Viriel felt weightless. No air, no sound, only the faint hum of distant memories echoing through infinite darkness.
Then solid ground, or something like it, pressed beneath his boots. A shifting, iridescent plain stretched endlessly, fogged and fractured, like shattered glass reflecting impossible skies.
Vali followed close, the circle of protective runes shimmering faintly around their ankles.
"Stay within the runes," Vali warned. "Beyond it, the Void will reach for your soul."
Viriel's eyes darted over the landscape. Shapes moved just beyond sight: flickers of faces, half-formed figures, voices caught on the wind but never fully heard.
"Is it her?" Viriel asked, clutching the shard.
Vali shook his head. "No. This is the edge, the memory-scape. The Void feeds on what was, twisting it to keep souls trapped."
Suddenly, the fog thickened, and the shimmer of a figure appeared ahead, a woman cloaked in shadow, her features blurred and shifting.
Viriel stepped forward. "Rhea?"
The figure turned, and for a fleeting moment, the face was hers, the same sorrowful eyes, the faintest smile.
But then it twisted, warped into something grotesque, a mocking mask that dissolved into smoke and vanished.
"False," Vali said grimly. "The Void's tricks, an illusion."
Viriel's grip tightened on the shard, heart pounding. "Then where is she?"
Vali gestured toward a faint glimmer far in the distance, a fragile light pulsing like a heartbeat.
"That is the Anchor, the last tether holding her to this world. We must reach it before the Void consumes her entirely."
Together, they moved across the shifting plain, every step a battle against the creeping madness that whispered lies and pain.
The shard pulsed stronger now, as if guiding Viriel forward.
And somewhere beyond the swirling mist, the true Rhea waited. Lost, fading, but not gone.