Delvin shifts his gaze upon Abigail. In great awe, the group pounced on her like a lion after its prey.
".... What?....."," ....How?....", "..... When?...."
Trying to understand what was going on, from the legendary sword choosing Delvin to the prophecy about Abigail carrying the saviour of the worlds.Persie stood still, his golden- lotus irises glowing as it was fixed on her. She felt caught in a maze of questions, standing still with her eyes fixed on Persie.
" The conch reveals the Balance; the Heartstone reveals the Tools. She is one. Ask her when the time is right, and she remembers." King Fritz said, cutting through the questions. In a split of a second, he continued " Ignis, holds the other piece of the prophecy."
King Fritz's words hung in the charged air, doing little to quell the storm in the room. Abigail's face was a mask of pale confusion, her eyes darting from Persie's glowing gaze to the stunned faces of her friends. She wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly cold.
"I… I don't remember," she whispered, the sound barely audible over the hum of the crystal chamber. "I don't know what he means."
"The Heartstone does not lie," King Fritz said, his voice softer now, almost paternal. "The knowledge sleeps. Forcing it would be like cracking a seed to see the tree. You must journey to where the memory was planted. Ignis holds the fire that can awaken what the water has preserved."
Persie finally moved. The light faded from his eyes as he placed a steadying hand on Abigail's shoulder. The touch seemed to anchor her. He looked at King Fritz, a silent understanding passing between the two men. "Then the path remains unchanged. We go to Ignis. But our purpose has deepened."
Delvin's knuckles were white on Justice's hilt. The sword felt different now—not lighter, but its weight had shifted. He was the Keystone, a foundation. But a foundation for what? For her? His eyes met Abigail's, and he saw his own fear reflected there, mixed with a vulnerability that made his chest tighten. He gave a small, grim nod. They were in this together, however it twisted.
"The Sea of Glass is not a journey to be taken lightly," King Fritz said, turning to a carved map on the wall. He traced a route with a finger. "You will need a vessel that can navigate its… solid illusions. And a guide who knows its moods. My harbour master, Neri, will provide both. She is waiting at the Western Docks."
The dismissal was clear. The prophecy had been revealed, the next step given. The questions would have to wait for the fire.
As they filed out of the Heartstone chamber, the group was enveloped in a heavy, thoughtful silence. The easy camaraderie of the feast in Paragon was gone, replaced by the gravity of fractured destinies. Cid opened his mouth, likely to crack a joke to break the tension, but one look at Abigail's distant expression and Ethan's warning shake of the head made him snap it shut.
Penelope took the lead, her stride purposeful. "The Western Docks are this way," she said, her voice all business, a familiar anchor in the sudden strangeness. "We'll meet Neri and see what manner of ship sails on a sea of glass."
They followed her, leaving the pulse of the Heartstone behind, each step taking them closer to the fire that would either forge their resolve or burn their hopes to ash.
Stocks flew around the ships as they got nearer to the docks. Not just Aquamarians but fire- walkers and peasants flooded the western docks- a place for merchandise and traveling. Clatters of carts, calling of peasants, a solid wall of commerce and transport. A small hut sat at the edge of the docks, heavily guarded.
The noise of the dockyard was a physical assault after the sanctum's silence. Penelope shouldered through the crowd with the ease of a native, the others forming a tight, protective knot around Abigail in her dazed state. The guarded hut was their lighthouse in the human sea.
As they approached, two guards in the iridescent crustacean armour of the Aquamarian royal house straightened, their tridents crossing with a definitive clack. Their eyes, shadowed by their helms, held no curiosity—only duty.
"The harbour master sees no one without an appointment," one stated, his voice as flat as the sea on a windless day.
Penelope didn't break stride. "She'll see us. Tell her Penelope is here, with the company of the Lotus-Bearer, on my father's direct order."
There was a pause. One guard slipped inside the hut. A moment later, he emerged and gave a sharp nod, pulling the rough-hewn door wider. "Enter."
The interior of the hut was not what Delvin expected. It was not a cramped office, but a single, spacious room that felt like the bridge of a great, land-bound ship. The far wall was one enormous, crystal-clear pane, looking out over the dizzying drop to the Sea of Glass far below. Charts and maps were pinned not to walls, but floated in the air, held by glimmering fields of energy. And in the center, standing with her back to them as she studied a particularly complex nautical diagram, was Neri.
She was tall for an Aquamarian, willowy where most were stocky. Her hair was not the colour of sea foam, but of deep, sun-dappled kelp, streaked with silver and tied in a severe, functional braid. She wore practical leathers over a scale-mail shirt, and when she turned, her eyes were the colour of a storm-churned sea—grey, green, and unsettlingly sharp.
"Princess," Neri said, her voice a low, raspy thing that spoke of years shouting into the wind. Her gaze swept over the group, lingering a beat too long on Delvin's sword and Abigail's pale face. "So. You're the ones destined to cross the Glass. The Keystone and the Vessel." She said it not with reverence, but with the blunt assessment of a sailor evaluating a risky tide. "I've prepared the Sky-Skimmer. She's the only hull that can ride the solid reflections without shattering her keel. But I don't freight cargo. I need to know my passengers won't freeze or panic when the world turns to mirror and the reflections start… watching back."
She crossed her arms, a clear challenge in her stormy eyes. "The Sea of Glass doesn't care about prophecies. It only cares if you're strong enough to bear your own reflection. Are you?"
" I heard you can guard us through the Sea of Glass." Persie said.
" You heard right and you've come to the right place. Neri." Reaching out her hand.
" Persie." He responded shaking her.
" Follow me." Neri said, looking at the group.
" Will we need anything? " Penelope asked.
" No, Neri has gotten all covered." She replied, moving closer to Penelope. She held her shoulder, with a light but heavy voice she said,
" huh.....You haven't changed. Still the old caring friend I used to know."
Penelope's stern expression softened for a fraction of a second at Neri's words, a ghost of a smile touching her lips before her professional mask snapped back into place. "Some things shouldn't change," she said quietly.
Neri gave a grunt that might have been agreement, then turned on her heel. "The ship's at the private slip. This way."
She led them not back into the thronging main dock, but through a side door in the hut that opened onto a narrow, railed walkway cantilevered over the abyss. The wind here was stronger, carrying a sharp, mineral scent. Below them, the Sea of Glass lived up to its name. It wasn't water, but a vast, smooth plane of translucent, smoky substance, reflecting the cloud-streaked sky with such perfect clarity it was impossible to tell where the world ended and its echo began. Distant, jagged spires of what looked like frozen, mirrored waves broke the surface.
And tied to the walkway was the Sky-Skimmer.
It was less a ship and more a work of art shaped for a nightmare. Its hull was forged from a dark, non-reflective metal, like smoked obsidian, absorbing the light rather than casting it back. The sails were not cloth, but taut membranes of a silvery-grey, leathery material that seemed to hum faintly. The most striking feature was its keel—not a single blade, but three finely articulated fins, like the wings of a deep-sea ray, currently folded up against the hull.
"She doesn't sail," Neri said, a note of pride cutting through her rasp. "She skims. The fins read the solidity of the Glass beneath her. Too hard, they flex to glide. Too soft—or too treacherous—they bite and push us away. The sails catch the wind of the realm, not the air. Trust them."
"It's… beautiful," Emerald breathed, her stormy eyes wide.
"It's necessary," Neri corrected. "Everyone aboard. We leave on the next calm pulse. The Glass has moods. Right now, it's sleeping. In an hour, it might be… dreaming. And you don't want to be out there when it dreams."
The boarding was swift. The interior of the ship was spartan—secure benches, harnesses, and a small, shielded cockpit where Neri took her position at a crystalline control sphere. Persie guided Abigail to a seat, his hand lingering on hers for a moment. Delvin chose a spot near the prow, Justice across his knees, his eyes fixed on the impossible sea ahead.
With a series of thumps and a low, resonant hum, the Sky-Skimmer detached from the walkway. The folded fins extended with a smooth, hydraulic hiss. For a moment, they hovered at the edge of the void.
"Brace," Neri called back, her voice calm.
The ship tipped forward and dropped.
But it was not a fall. It was a descent, then a sudden, graceful transition as the central fin made contact with the Glass. There was no splash, only a whispering shush of frictionless motion. The world transformed. The sky was now above and below, mirrored in the perfect, unsettling surface. The only sounds were the hum of the ship and the low whistle of the realm-wind in their strange sails.
They were sailing on a double sky, unmoored from reality. Delvin looked down at his feet and saw the reflection of the ship, and his own face looking back up, pale and determined.
Bear your own reflection, Neri had said.
The journey across the Sea of Glass had begun.
The sky -skimmer sailed smoothly as the journey begun on what seemed like a perfect scenic, mirrored sea.
Then, the perfect mirror-surface ahead of them suddenly fractured like ice, not breaking, but creating a labyrinth of mirrored canyons. Neri had to navigate, and the reflections in the walls started..... moving.
The Sky-Skimmer slowed, its fins making minute, whispering adjustments as Neri guided it into the mouth of the nearest mirrored canyon. The walls soared on either side, sheer and perfect, reflecting the ship and its occupants infinitely in a dizzying, recursive tunnel of selves.
At first, the reflections were just echoes. Delvin saw himself looking back, over and over, each copy holding Justice. Then, the Delvin in the wall five layers deep… blinked out of sync.
A collective intake of breath hissed through the cabin.
In the wall to the left, the reflection of Cid wasn't grinning. It was scowling, its eyes dark with a resentment the real Cid had never shown. On the right, Abigail's countless reflections began to weep silver tears that traced down the glass but did not fall.
"Don't stare," Neri commanded, her voice tight as she focused on the narrow path ahead. "The Glass doesn't just show your face. It shows your… echoes. Possibilities. Fears. Doubts. They gain strength from your attention."
But it was impossible not to look. In one wall, Persie's reflection stood alone, his lotus tattoo dark and lifeless, his eyes empty of their guiding light. In another, Penelope's image was not in armour, but in royal silks, sitting on a throne of coral, her face etched with lonely isolation.
Then the reflections began to speak.
Not with sound, but the words formed in the mind, in their own voices, a psychic susurrus that filled the canyon.
From Delvin's wall: "You are not Micha-el. You are a boy with a stolen sword. The Keystone will crack."
From Abigail's: "What sleeps inside you is not a savior. It is a void that will consume you and all you love."
From Cid's: "They will outgrow you. The jester has no place in a war of gods."
"They're lies!" Tristan shouted, lightning crackling at his fingertips as if to shatter the mocking glass.
"No," Emerald said, her voice trembling with a storm-senser's certainty. "Not lies… they're truths. But truths afraid of being true. The Glass shows you what you fear you might become."
The canyon ahead forked. In the left passage, Delvin's reflection stood triumphant atop a mountain of shadows, Justice blazing, but his eyes were cold and cruel. In the right, his reflection lay broken, the sword shattered, his hand reaching uselessly toward a fading light.
Neri muttered a curse. "The Glass is asking a question. It wants a choice. Which path is your fear? Which is your… temptation? Choose wrong, and the canyon seals behind us forever."
The ship hovered, the hum of its fins the only real sound in a world of whispering illusions. Every eye turned to Delvin. The Keystone. The foundation.
He looked at his two possible ends reflected in the glass: the tyrant or the failure. His heart hammered against his ribs. He looked back at Abigail, her face pale, her green eyes wide with a terror that mirrored his own.
Bear your own reflection.
He did not choose left or right. He stepped to the very prow of the ship, facing the fork, and spoke not to Neri, but to the Glass itself.
"I am neither," he said, his voice rough but clear, echoing in the psychic space. "I am the one who walks between."
He raised Justice. The sword did not blaze with light, but its red edges flared, pulsing once, twice—a steady, defiant heartbeat in the face of the infinite mirror.
The two false reflections shattered simultaneously. The labyrinth of canyons ahead shimmered, and the walls… parted. A single, straight path melted into existence, leading toward a distant, fiery glow on the horizon.
The psychic pressure lifted. The reflections stilled, returning to mere silent mimicry.
Neri let out a long, slow breath. "Well," she rasped, a new note of respect in her voice. "You didn't freeze." She pushed the control sphere forward, and the Sky-Skimmer shot down the newly opened path. "But the dreaming is just beginning. The Glass has tasted your fears. Next, it will try to make you believe them."
The fiery glow ahead grew—the shores of Ignis. But between them and salvation, the Sea of Glass now rippled with awakened intent. The reflections in the walls, though still once more, no longer felt like glass.
They felt like eyes. And they were watching.The straight path was a reprieve, but the air remained thick with the residue of confronted fears. The psychic echo of the canyon's whispers clung to them like a chill mist. Abigail hadn't spoken since the fractured reflections showed her weeping. She sat rigid, her gaze locked on her own hands as if they might transform into something alien. Persie remained beside her, a silent, steadying presence, but his usual aura of serene guidance was tempered by a sharp watchfulness. He had seen his own light extinguished in the glass, and the vision had left a shadow in his golden-lotus eyes.
Delvin stayed at the prow, Justice a comforting, heavy line against his leg. The sword's pulse had faded, but the memory of its defiant heartbeat against the Glass's illusions was a warmth in his chest. I am the one who walks between. The words had felt true when he'd said them, a rejection of the Glass's cruel either/or. But in the quiet that followed, doubt crept in. Was walking between just another way of being neither? Of being nothing?
"The shore approaches," Neri announced, her rasp pulling him from his thoughts. "Ignis. Land of eternal flame and tempered steel. They are a proud, volatile people. They respect strength and despise deception. Remember, you go to them seeking fire to awaken a memory. Do not speak of the Sea's whispers. Show only your resolve."
The fiery glow resolved into a coastline. It was not a beach of sand, but of fused, black obsidian, gleaming like a dragon's scale. Beyond it, the land rose in jagged peaks, many crowned with plumes of smoke or gouts of flame that painted the perpetual twilight sky in washes of orange and crimson. The air grew warmer, carrying the scent of brimstone and forge-fire.
The Sky-Skimmer approached a lone, massive dock carved from the same black stone, where the Sea of Glass met the shore in a seamless, impossible transition from solid mirror to solid rock. A figure waited there, silhouetted against the infernal glow.
As the ship's fins retracted and they glided to a silent halt, the figure stepped forward. He was tall and broad-shouldered, clad in armour of interlocking, flame-blackened plates. His hair was the colour of cooled embers, and his eyes, when they caught the light, held a flickering, internal fire. He carried no obvious weapon, but his very stance spoke of contained violence.
"Neri," the man said, his voice a low rumble like distant earthworks. "You bring strangers to our gate. And one of them carries a weapon that sings of a sky I have not seen in an age."
His gaze fixed on Justice, then swept over the group, pausing on Persie and lingering longest on Abigail. His expression was unreadable, a mask of stone, but the fire in his eyes intensified.
"I am Kael, Warden of the Ignis Gate," he said. "You seek audience with the Pyre Lord. State your purpose, Sea-Runner, and vouch for your cargo."
Neri disembarked, landing lightly on the obsidian dock. "I vouch for their need, Kael. Not their character. That's for your Lord to discern. They come under the seal of King Fritz of Aquamaria, bearing a prophecy spoken by the Heartstone. They seek the fire that remembers."
At the mention of the Heartstone, Kael's stony mask cracked slightly—a flicker of surprise, swiftly banked. "The water speaks of fire? A curious tune." He stepped closer, his heat palpable. He looked directly at Abigail. "And you are the one the water-song concerns?"
Abigail flinched but forced herself to meet his burning gaze. "I… I don't know what I am," she said, her voice gaining a thread of strength. "But something sleeps in me. They say the fire here can wake it."
Kael studied her for a long, silent moment. The air crackled. "The fire wakes many things," he said finally. "Desire. Power. Truth. And ash. Follow me. The Pyre Lord will decide if your spark is worth kindling."
He turned and began marching up a steep, switchback path carved into the cliff face. The group followed, leaving Neri with her ship. The Aquamarian gave Penelope a final, sharp nod before turning back to her controls, a lone figure between the mirror and the flame.
The climb was arduous, the heat growing more intense with every step. The city of Ignis was not built; it was forged. Towers were not raised but seemed to have been drawn molten from the mountain itself and left to cool into spiraling, glassy spires. Bridges of black iron and crystal spanned chasms that glowed with rivers of actual lava below. The people they passed were as hardened as their environment, their skin traced with intricate, glowing tattoos that pulsed in time with the ambient heat. They watched the strangers with open, assessing curiosity, but no fear.
At the city's zenith stood the Pyre, not a palace but a colossal, open-sided forge built around the mouth of the largest volcano. The air here shimmered with heat haze, and the constant, deep-throated roar of the mountain was the city's heartbeat.
Within, on a throne of raw adamantine, sat the Pyre Lord. He was ancient, his skin like cracked leather, his beard and hair wild cascades of white streaked with soot and glowing embers. His eyes were not just fiery; they were pits of incandescent light, seeing everything and revealing nothing.
Kael stopped at the base of the dais and bowed. "Lord Ignar. Travelers from Aquamaria. They bear the word of the Heartstone."
Lord Ignar's gaze fell upon them, and the temperature in the vast chamber seemed to spike. "The Heartstone," he boomed, his voice the sound of a mountain clearing its throat. "A cautious oracle. It speaks in riddles of balance and tools. So. Which of you is the Tool? And which the Threat?"
He leaned forward, his fiery eyes pinning Abigail. "The water claims you carry the saviour of worlds. A heavy burden for one so… unburnished. Let us see what metal you are made of."
He raised a hand, and from a nearby brazier, a stream of pure, white-hot flame coiled out like a serpent, slithering across the floor toward Abigail. It was not an attack, but a test—a probing, seeking fire.
Persie moved to intercept, but Ignar's other hand flicked, and a wall of heat forced him back. "Let the fire seek its own," the Pyre Lord commanded.
The flame reached Abigail's feet. She gasped, not from pain, but from a sudden, overwhelming surge of… recognition. The fire coiled around her ankles, warm, almost gentle. In her mind, a door long sealed shuddered.
Images, fractured and bright, burst behind her eyes.
A woman with Abigail's own green eyes, but hair of living flame, placing a hand on a younger Abigail's brow. A whisper: "...when the worlds tilt, remember the core…"
A landscape of impossible beauty, twin suns setting over a crystalline forest, then shattering into chaos and screams.
A voice, ancient and kind, echoing: "The seed is planted in the vessel of water and earth. It must be awakened by the flame of truth…"
The white flame flared, and from its heart, a single, shimmering ember, no larger than a teardrop, floated up and pressed itself against Abigail's sternum. It did not burn. It sank into her, and a soft, golden light bloomed beneath her tunic.
The probing fire retreated. The chamber was silent save for the volcano's rumble.
Lord Ignar sat back, his fiery eyes wide. The light in them had dimmed to something resembling awe. "The Ember of Recall," he breathed. "It has not answered a summoning in ten generations. The prophecy is true. You are the Vessel."
He stood, his immense form dwarfing them. "The memory is not yours, child. It is a legacy, implanted for safekeeping. The fire has awakened the seed. Now, you must journey to the place where the memory was made—the Echoing Caves at World's Spine. There, the seed will bloom into knowledge. And you will know your purpose, and the nature of what you carry."
He looked at Delvin, at Justice. "And you, Keystone. Your path is bound to hers. You must hold firm while her world unravels and re-weaves itself. A harder task than any sword fight." His gaze swept the group. "Ignis will grant you passage to the World's Spine. But the Caves… they answer only to the call of the one who holds the memory. You will go alone, Vessel and Keystone. The rest will wait."
Protests erupted from Cid, Penelope, but Persie raised a hand, silencing them. His face was grave. "It is the way. The memory is for her, and the balance is for him. We can only guard the path."
Abigail touched the spot where the ember had entered her. It was warm, and a strange, clear certainty had settled in her gut, cutting through the fog of confusion. She looked at Delvin, her green eyes now holding a spark of that internal golden light.
"I remember… the way," she said, her voice no longer a whisper.
Delvin met her gaze and nodded, hefting Justice. The path was clear, and infinitely more terrifying. They were no longer just seeking a prophecy. They were walking directly into its heart.
The fire had spoken. The true journey was just beginning.