Chapter 6: The Memory Trap
The ruin was older than the trees surrounding it.
Carved from black stone that hummed faintly underfoot, it slouched half-buried beneath moss and ivy, like something ancient had tried to die here but never quite managed it.
Arith said nothing as they entered.
She limped—her wounded arm stiff, bandaged beneath layers of cloth. Her sword remained sheathed, but her eyes never stopped moving.
Kairis trailed behind her in silence, his own thoughts heavy. The light inside him had not faded completely. The runes beneath his skin still glimmered, faint and patient.
The inside of the ruin was colder than it should have been. The walls were etched with forgotten language, chiseled symbols that curled around themselves like snakes swallowing their own tails.
At the far end of the hall, half-collapsed under fallen pillars, stood a mirror door.
It was cracked, dull—not reflective. More like a still pond of silver dust, stretched into a vertical frame.
Kairis moved toward it.
Arith grabbed his shoulder. "Don't."
He looked at her. "What is it?"
"Not a door," she said. "Not anymore. It's a trap for memory."
He stared. "Whose memory?"
She didn't answer.
But his body already knew the answer.
He touched the surface.
The silver rippled. The world around him fell away.
FLASH.
The ruin was whole.
He stood in it—taller, wrapped in silk, eyes hidden behind a blindfold marked in gold ink.
Nahran.
He held a staff of black wood, its end marked by a jagged sigil. In front of him knelt a girl—older than him, or younger. It didn't matter. She looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"You don't have to do this," she whispered.
Nahran said nothing.
"The Scripture doesn't need blood. That's a lie. They twisted the ritual."
Still, he said nothing.
The girl reached for him.
"Please," she begged.
And he plunged the staff through her chest.
Not out of rage.
Not out of panic.
But with ritual.
With acceptance.
She gasped. Blood bloomed like a rose over her robes. Her fingers trembled—and clutched his sleeve before falling limp.
Nahran whispered something—
But the mirror shattered.
Kairis fell backward, gasping, lungs burning.
The silver dust coated his arms. He coughed once, twice, then steadied himself on shaking knees.
Arith stood in the shadows of the ruined hall, watching.
"You saw it," she said.
He didn't respond.
"You remember killing her."
Still silence.
Arith stepped closer. "That was the first time you sacrificed someone willingly. The first time the Eye didn't force you."
He looked up at her, voice cracking. "Why did I do it?"
"Because you believed you were saving the world."
"And was I?"
Arith's expression didn't change. "It's still here, isn't it?"
He stood slowly. The silver dust faded from his skin. The runes on his chest pulsed once.
He didn't know if that meant anything anymore.
That night, they didn't sleep inside the ruin.
They camped just outside, near a tree that bled sap that smelled like cinnamon and copper.
Kairis sat with his back to the trunk, eyes open, staring into the dark.
He thought of the girl in the memory.
Of her voice. Her tears.
Her blood on his hands.
You didn't forget, the Eye whispered. You buried it.
And worse—
He wondered if she'd smiled at the end.