Ael stepped into the mirror.
No ripples. No fanfare. Just silence.
He passed through the glass as though it were smoke—and emerged into a world not unlike his own, but… gentler.
The sky was gold, not blue. The air smelled of rain-soaked lavender. There was no city, no ruins, no blood. Just open plains and a single hill where a man sat quietly beneath a silver tree.
Ael approached.
The man stood.
He wore Ael's face.
Exactly.
Same hair. Same build. Same faint scar along the left cheek.
But his eyes…
His eyes were alive.
Full of grief and warmth. Storms and sunlight.
The man smiled faintly. "You finally came."
Ael didn't answer.
He couldn't.
For a long moment, they simply stood in silence, two versions of the same soul, divided by fate and stolen time.
Finally, the reflection spoke again. "I was waiting for you, Hollow King."
Ael narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
The reflection tilted his head. "I'm you. Or… who you were meant to become. Before they took it from you."
Ael's fingers twitched at his side. "Give it back."
The man chuckled softly. Not mocking—just… sad. "It's not a sword you can seize, Ael. You'll have to feel it."
"I am feeling it," Ael growled. "That's why I'm here."
"Are you?" the reflection asked, stepping closer. "You felt anger. Duty. Pain. Even pity. But not yet sorrow. Not truly."
Ael blinked.
And the world shifted.
They were no longer on the hill.
They stood in a burned village.
One Ael recognized.
From Chapter 1.
Where he had found the crying child in the flames.
Only now, he saw more.
The mother's charred hands reaching.
The child whispering a name.
Ael's name.
Not spoken, but felt.
It was always him.
The one who caused it.
The one who saved it.
The one who stood by without tears.
His knees buckled.
He fell.
Memories poured into him—not as thoughts, but as sensations.
The hollow weight of isolation. The steel of duty. The faces of men he executed without question. The nights he never slept. The warmth of Lyra's hand—how he never noticed it until it was gone.
The love he never returned.
The forgiveness he never sought.
He screamed.
Not aloud.
Inside.
And the sky above them cracked.
The mirror-world trembled.
The reflection knelt beside him.
"It's not your fault, Ael. But it's still your pain."
Ael choked on his breath.
"I don't know how to carry it."
"You don't carry it alone."
The reflection touched his chest.
And the world shattered.
—
He woke up gasping.
On the floor of the Glass Archive.
Elric and Lyra rushed to his side.
"Ael?" Lyra asked, voice trembling.
He looked at her.
And he felt.
Her worry.
Her care.
His own longing.
Ael embraced her—clumsy, sudden, but real.
Lyra froze.
Then wrapped her arms around him tightly.
He didn't speak.
He just wept.
The first true tears he had shed since awakening in the cave all those chapters ago.
—
Later, Orn stood before the mirror, now smooth and whole.
"The shard has returned," he murmured.
Queen Altheira watched Ael quietly from the corner of the Archive, arms crossed. "How much did that change him?"
Orn's voice was solemn. "It wasn't a change. It was a restoration. One piece of many."
Elric muttered, "And how many pieces are left?"
Orn turned to them.
His mask reflected nothing.
"Seven."