Kael found the path again. Narrow. Cracked. Clinging to the side of a ravine so deep he couldn't see the bottom. The world below was just smoke and silence, as if the planet had decided to forget that gravity meant anything.
He placed his feet carefully. Not because he feared falling—the thought of a clean death almost seemed like mercy right now—but because the air here felt charged. Not with electricity. With memory.
Every time he stepped, something shifted in the stone. Not visibly. Not violently. But there was a pull, like the ground itself recognized his weight and was deciding whether to accept it.
He didn't ask the System anything. And it didn't offer.
The narrow trail widened at a bend. And that's when he saw it.
A clearing. Not natural, formed from shattered stone and scorched trees. Like something had exploded and left the forest to rot around it. Bones jutted from the soil in twisted patterns, fused into black rock. And in the center: three figures.
Humanoid.
But wrong.
Their bodies shimmered—as if stitched together from fire and illusion. One held a jagged sword of ash. Another wore armor fused with rust and bone. The third had no face at all—just a mirrored surface where features should be, reflecting everything and nothing.
[Ember Wraiths detected.]
Classification: Semi-bound echoes. Aggression level: High.
Warning: Flame resonance active. Mirrorfire unstable.
Kael stepped forward. The first wraith twitched.
Its sword screamed as it dragged across the ground.
He didn't summon fire.
He let it rise.
From his chest, his spine, his teeth—the flame surged not in anger, but in recognition. The Wraiths were not strangers. They were remnants of his own fire. Split off. Forgotten. Left to starve and hate.
The first charged.
Kael met it head-on. He didn't dodge. He didn't block. He stepped into the strike, fire erupting from his shoulder like a living blade.
[Mirrorfire Engaged.]
Ability: Ember Reave (Lv. 1)
Slash forward in a burst of emotionally-driven flame. Damage increases with clarity.
Kael didn't think. He felt.
He remembered the mirror.
He remembered the warmth of Lyra's pendant against his chest.
He remembered Solas saying, "Even the kindest flame burns when starved."
The Reave ignited.
A wave of fire burst from his hand, cleaving through the first wraith like smoke. It howled—not in pain, but in relief. Like something had finally broken free.
The second wraith lunged. Kael dropped to a knee and flared Mirrorfire around his legs, kicking upward in a spiral. Ash scattered. Flame arced. The wraith crumpled into a pile of scorched bone and ember.
Only the third remained.
The one with the mirrored face.
Kael hesitated.
It didn't move.
It tilted its head.
And he saw himself.
Not just physically. Emotionally.
In the mirror's surface, he saw every version of himself that had burned without meaning. Every time he'd lashed out. Every time he'd chosen silence instead of trust. Every life that ended in fire, without someone to witness it.
His breath caught.
The System flickered.
Warning: Mirrorfire feedback spike. Risk of emotional collapse.
Kael didn't retreat.
He walked forward.
The mirrored wraith raised its hand.
Kael raised his own.
Not to attack.
To meet it.
Their fingers brushed.
And then the flame surged—not in destruction, but in recognition. The mirrored wraith dissolved, its fire curling around Kael's arm like a ribbon.
[Ember Reave upgraded.]
Lv. 2 acquired: Slash in a spiraling arc. Chance to cleanse echoes.
Kael fell to his knees.
Breathing hard.
But not broken.
He looked at his hands.
The fire danced calmly now. No longer screaming.
The System spoke again, quietly.
You chose restraint. That was not in the original design.
Kael let out a breath that felt older than this life.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm not following your design anymore."
The System didn't reply.
But he felt it watching.
And for once, it felt… less like surveillance.
More like curiosity.
He stood.
And walked on.
The path ahead was still ash. Still uncertain.
But now, his fire walked with him.
And it did not burn alone.
He kept walking long after the clearing disappeared behind him.
There was a change in the wind. Faint, like the world was catching its breath. The trees here weren't twisted, just quiet.
His feet carried him along a slope lined with scorched ferns and white-barked trees that hadn't yet died but had forgotten how to live. The ground crunched underfoot, layers of dry leaves and bone dust mixing together. The weight in his chest hadn't lifted, but it felt more solid. Like something had been named, and in doing so, had lost its grip.
Kael paused to drink from his canteen. The water was warm and tasted faintly of metal, but it helped clear the heat buzzing beneath his skin. He looked at his reflection in the metal lid. Just a flash. But his eyes—they seemed brighter.
Or maybe just less hollow.
He found a fallen log and sat down, the fire inside him coiled now, like a creature resting.
His mind drifted.
He thought of the mirror-wraith. Of the way it had lifted its hand to meet his. Not to harm. But to reach.
"Why do you keep testing me like this?" he asked aloud.
The System didn't respond.
He almost didn't want it to. It had felt good, that silence. To act without prompt. To choose without commentary.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands dangling. He wasn't sure how long he sat there. Minutes? An hour? But eventually, he heard it—a soft sound.
Footsteps.
He stood slowly.
Not alarmed. Just alert.
The sound came from deeper in the trees, upwind. Deliberate. Steady.
Not a beast.
Not a Wraith.
Someone alive.
He waited.
And when the shape finally emerged from the trees, he caught only a glimpse—a figure in a cloak, red and gray, staff slung across their back.
She didn't speak.
She didn't stay.
She just paused. Met his gaze. Then turned, vanishing between the trees.
Kael didn't follow.
But his fire stirred.
And for a moment, in that stillness, he felt something like… trust.
Fragile.
But real.
And it was enough to keep walking.