Prologue
The Mirror Blinks Back
Shadow Valley — a place where shadows own the darkness.
They whisper about it like it's a ghost story, the kind sailors only tell when the sea is still and the moon refuses to rise. They say it's hidden somewhere deep within the abyss of the ocean, far beyond any map, any chart, any name. No sailor has ever returned from its waters. No explorer has seen its shores.
But myths have a strange way of being true.
They say the island was created by Oruun — the forgotten god of reflections. He wasn't like the others. He didn't rule over fire or wind or war. Oruun ruled over the in-between. Identity. Duality. Illusion. Truth. He was the mirror no one wanted to look into — the kind that doesn't show you how you look, but who you really are.
His followers worshipped him in secret, hidden beneath the sands of an ancient desert. They believed mirrors weren't glass — they were gateways. Not just to the soul, but to the lies we build around it. The masks we wear. The truths we bury. The monsters we hide behind smiles.
But the other gods... they feared him. They said humanity wasn't ready. That if we looked too closely, we'd break.
So they shattered his temple-mirror — the divine object said to contain the "Original Reflection." The first lie ever told. The first truth ever revealed.
Then they banished him.
And with him, Shadow Valley was swallowed by legend.
Only one path remains.
To even step foot on the island, you must wear the Three-Pointed Crown — forged from three stones, each more dangerous than the last:
The Stone of Self — Aurumglass.Found in the Stillward Pool, in a forest where time holds its breath. The water is a perfect mirror. No ripples. No wind. The trees whisper your name. Your reflection watches you, sometimes before you move. Aurumglass shows you your truest self — just one moment, but enough to unravel you.
The Stone of Mask — Mimicite.Buried beneath a forgotten theater in the Mirror Court. Candles burn backwards. Music only plays when you lie. The stone is hidden in a shattered mirror heart, visible only if you pretend to be someone else. The longer you pretend… the harder it is to stop.
The Stone of Shadow — Noctite.Hidden in the Shattersink — a pit of absolute black beneath a ruined monastery. A graveyard of mirrors lies at the bottom, each shard a soul who failed. There is no light here. No sound. Only your voice… whispering things you never said. Or maybe things you did.
When all three stones are placed atop the Pyramid of Gaize beneath the rise of the blood moon — a moon that appears once every hundred years — the crown awakens.
And the mirror-door opens.
That's how it started.
The blood moon.
The crown.
The door.
I didn't mean to be chosen.
I didn't mean to find the stones.
I didn't even believe in gods, or mirror worlds, or ancient curses.
But the moment I touched that crown…My reflection blinked.
And I blinked back.