CHAPTER 10: THE MONARCH AND THE MIRROR
The throne of Dichotomy had no hall.
It sat in the center of a ruined cathedral, open to sky and storm, surrounded by the broken statues of forgotten divinities. The sky above Vantheir had not cleared in decades, and neither had the heart of Lucien Draeven.
He sat upon the throne, unmoving. Crown on his brow, its thorns bleeding into his scalp. Cloak of memory trailing down cracked steps. He did not shift. He did not sleep. He listened.
The wind whispered secrets through the stones.
The dead prayed in silence.
And in the farthest corner of the ruin, where light refused to tread, the Mirror of Fractured Fates pulsed with unseen truth.
Lucien had not looked into it.
Not yet.
But today would be different.
The courtiers he once knew were dust. The gods who crowned him, silent. He ruled over ashes and thunder, judgment and regret.
Yet his throne pulsed with power. And power always drew pilgrims.
Today, three approached the cathedral. Each from a different realm. Each with their own truth.
The first was a girl of glass and ember.
She called herself Mariel, but her true name was unspoken—locked behind seals branded on her tongue. She had come from the Abyss, where she was forged in a prison of screams and hope. Her body shimmered, transparent in places, glowing from within like smoldering coal.
She carried no weapon. Only a question.
The second was a war-worn man with eyes like broken blades.
Tirien of the Wastes. Once a general, now a ghost with blood still wet on his boots. He bore a sword made from the spine of a Leviathan. It whispered endlessly, but he did not answer.
He had come not to ask, but to challenge.
The third was a child in monk's robes, no older than ten.
They called her Vira. She spoke little, but the ground where she walked bloomed briefly—then withered. She held a book older than the Rift, bound in laughter and sorrow.
She came with prophecy.
Lucien waited.
They entered the cathedral together, though they were strangers.
And the moment they stepped beneath the broken arch, the Mirror awakened.
Its surface rippled like ink spilled in eternity. Each of them saw something different.
Mariel saw a version of herself unbroken—free of fire, unchained, smiling in a field that never burned.
Tirien saw the war never fought. His brother alive. His hands clean.
Vira saw nothing. And then, everything.
Lucien rose.
He did not need guards. The throne obeyed him.
"You've come seeking judgment," he said.
"No," Mariel whispered. "We've come to judge you."
The crown pulsed.
The thorns bit deeper.
Lucien stepped down from the throne. His boots echoed like thunder across the cracked floor.
He stopped before the mirror. For the first time, he faced it.
And it did not show him the past.
It showed him the future.
He saw himself wielding fire and void, bringing peace through annihilation.
He saw himself healing lands torn by war, uniting realms with kindness.
He saw himself die. Again and again. Betrayed by allies. Slain by tyrants. Worshipped as god. Condemned as monster.
He saw a thousand Luciens. None of them whole.
The mirror asked nothing.
But he answered anyway.
"I choose this path."
The mirror shattered.
The shards did not fall—they floated, orbiting him, each one holding a fate denied.
Tirien lunged. The sword of Leviathan sang.
But Lucien did not move.
The crown's thorns lashed outward, deflecting the blade with a scream of metal and soul.
"You seek revenge," Lucien said calmly. "But you carry regret."
He touched Tirien's chest. The general screamed, then fell—his memories of war seared into his bones now released.
He wept. Then vanished into light.
Mariel stepped forward.
She opened her chest—literally. Inside, a fire burned.
"I am a prison," she said. "Release me or end me."
Lucien leaned close. Whispered words not heard since before the Rift tore the realms apart.
The fire died.
She fell to her knees.
And for the first time, she was whole.
Vira did not approach.
She simply opened her book.
And the pages turned to wind.
A voice not hers spoke through her lips: "The monarch of contradiction has chosen. And in doing so, has rewritten the end."
Lucien looked at the throne.
It pulsed. Hungered.
He turned his back on it.
The thorns withdrew. The crown shimmered.
But it did not fall.
It followed.
The cathedral shook. Statues crumbled. The sky above cracked.
The Rift felt it.
Change.
Not of destruction.
Of choice.
Lucien stepped outside.
The first sun in years pierced the cloud cover.
Behind him, the throne of Dichotomy stood empty.
But it was not vacant.
It had become legend.
And legends, like mirrors, never truly vanish.
They wait.