The invitation came in silence.
No messenger. No courier hawk. No royal summons bearing wax and crest.
Just a slip of silver parchment—shimmering, folded into a fractal shape that seemed to shift as one stared at it too long—placed on Ael's bedside table, where no one should have been able to reach.
He opened it.
There were no words.
Only a reflection.
Not his current self.
Not even his past.
But a version of him cloaked in shadow and glass, standing in a palace of fractured light.
The mirror-message whispered inside his skull:
"Come. Before the cracks reach the core."
Ael clenched the parchment in his hand.
It disintegrated into mist.
—
They called it the Kingdom of Velmir, the "realm behind the glass."
A myth even by ancient standards. A civilization so steeped in illusion and time magic that it disappeared from history, said to exist only through reflection—within polished surfaces, between split seconds.
Arienne frowned as they crossed the boundary between Varn's innermost sanctum and the forgotten ruin of the Hall of Echoes.
"You're sure you want to follow a note written in reflections?"
Ael nodded. "They knew me. Knew who I used to be. That shouldn't be possible."
Queen Altheira stepped forward. "I've read one reference to Velmir. They were the ones who made the Mirror of Veylun. A relic capable of splitting fate itself."
Elric rubbed his temples. "So… if they're calling you now…"
"They might know why I was reborn without emotions," Ael finished.
"And maybe how to stop the Choir's next move."
—
The entrance wasn't a door.
It was a moment.
A shimmer in the ruined hall's cracked mirror, a blink too long in one's own reflection. Ael reached toward it—and vanished.
The others followed.
One by one, consumed by light.
—
They stepped into a world that felt like walking through the inside of a crystal.
The Kingdom of Velmir shimmered with impossible geometry.
Towers floated in midair, endlessly reflected in transparent layers. Bridges twisted like glass serpents. Light here didn't travel in straight lines—it bent, echoed, and sang.
"Gods…" Lyra whispered.
"No," a voice replied, calm and crisp. "Just Velmirians."
A figure stood before them. Masked. Robes like flowing ink trapped in crystal.
"Welcome, Hollow King."
Ael didn't recognize the man—but something deeper did.
"You've met me before," he said.
The figure bowed slightly. "In your first life, yes. I am Orn Vehrin, Keeper of the Glass Archive."
"You called me here."
"We guided your steps, but you chose the path. As you always do."
Orn turned and began walking across a bridge suspended in midair.
"Come. You must understand what was taken from you."
—
The Glass Archive wasn't a library.
It was a memory engine.
Thousands of crystalline monoliths floated in the air, each holding captured echoes of the past—moments etched into mirrored time.
"You were not meant to reincarnate as an empty vessel," Orn explained as he led them through the chamber. "Your soul is ancient, yes, but intact."
"What changed it?" Ael asked.
Orn stopped before one shard.
He touched it.
It pulsed.
A scene unfolded—Ael's death as the Heartless King.
Not the battlefield. Not the throne.
But a hidden chamber, moments before the end.
A circle of robed Choir members.
A ritual.
One spoke in a dead tongue.
"The King Who Feels Nothing Shall Return."
"We steal what he buried."
"We seal what he fears."
Ael watched his old self fall, body limp, eyes still open.
And then—
A severance.
An emotionless rebirth. Not natural. Engineered.
"They took your core," Orn whispered. "Your empathy. Your ability to feel. Sealed it in a fragment of existence no longer attached to the normal stream of time."
Elric's voice cracked. "They hollowed him?"
"Yes."
"And yet," Orn continued, turning toward Ael, "you are reclaiming yourself piece by piece. The swords. The Guardian. The child. They are triggering echoes in your soul."
Ael clenched his fists. "Then I'll reclaim all of it. Where is the sealed fragment?"
Orn hesitated.
"Velmir is built across many realities. But the Choir didn't hide your core here. They gave it to their founder."
The name dropped like a knife.
"The Prophet of Shattered Truths."
—
Ael's voice dropped. "He's alive?"
Orn nodded. "And you will face him. But first…"
He turned and gestured toward a mirror larger than a house.
"…you must reclaim the first shard."
Ael stepped toward it.
Inside the reflection, he saw himself—a younger version, crown of black steel on his head, blood-soaked cape behind him… smiling.
A rare, genuine smile.
Not cruel.
But soft.
Hopeful.
It flickered.
Gone.
Replaced by the Hollow King.
He reached for it.
The mirror cracked.
And so did something inside him.