Greyhaven no longer hummed with traffic.The city breathed differently now — slower, heavier, like it was relearning how to exist.Rick walked through the broken streets with Lira at his side. Morning light spilled across the glass-strewn pavement, catching on twisted steel and fragments of mirror still embedded in walls. Every reflection seemed to twitch when he passed, as if watching.“They’re still here,” Lira murmured.She meant the remnants — the shadows of the mirror world that hadn’t completely vanished when the Veil closed.Rick nodded. “Yeah. I can feel them.”He wasn’t exaggerating.Ever since the merge, something inside him pulsed in rhythm with the city — faint but constant. Sometimes it whispered. Sometimes it remembered things he didn’t.They turned a corner into what used to be the market square. Half the stalls were gone, replaced by strange spirals carved into the stone.Lira knelt, tracing one with her fingertip. “These symbols… they’re not from the mirror world. The

Rick woke to the sound of rain.He was lying on a cot inside what used to be a subway control room — one of the few safe places left beneath Greyhaven. Dim emergency lights flickered across concrete walls lined with old monitors.For a second, he thought he was alone. Then he heard Lira’s voice.“Don’t move too fast,” she said quietly. She sat near the door, cross-legged, sharpening her dagger — but her eyes were fixed on him.Rick sat up slowly, wincing. His entire left arm ached. The veins glowed faintly gold beneath his skin, tracing up his neck like lightning frozen under flesh.He swallowed hard. “How long was I out?”“Two days,” Lira said. “You wouldn’t wake up. I thought…” She stopped, her expression tightening. “Never mind.”Rick looked at her. “Say it.”She sighed. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t come back. That he would.”He flexed his hand. The light in his veins brightened. “The First King.”Lira nodded. “Since that thing touched you, it’s like… the air changes when you brea

The world on the other side of the Veil wasn’t supposed to have sound, yet Rick could hear his own heartbeat — slow, heavy, echoing in rhythm with the silver light that pulsed under his skin.He and Lira stood in a space that wasn’t quite a place — the Mirror Realm. Every direction shimmered with broken reflections of Greyhaven: streets that bent into the sky, rivers running backward, buildings made of light and shadow.Rick looked around, unsettled. “This feels wrong.”Lira’s voice came soft and steady. “It’s not supposed to feel right. The Mirror Realm is built from memory — ours, theirs, everyone’s.”Rick turned to her. “Ours?”She nodded. “Every regret, every lie, every secret you tried to bury — it lives here now.”Her words were barely finished when the ground beneath them rippled, and suddenly, the streets of the real Greyhaven appeared — but twisted. The people moved like ghosts, their faces blurred, their voices echoing backward.Rick froze as he saw himself — a mirrored vers

The rain in Greyhaven hadn’t stopped for three days.It came down in sheets, turning the alleys into rivers and the lights into smears of gold. The whole city felt submerged, like it was drowning under a secret it didn’t want to remember.Rick stood under a flickering streetlamp, his reflection swimming in the puddles.He wasn’t sure if the man staring back was still him.Lira approached quietly, her hood pulled low. “You haven’t slept.”Rick gave a short laugh. “Hard to sleep when your dreams talk back.”He meant it literally. Every time he closed his eyes, the voice was there — soft, calm, patient. The First King.> “You can’t fight yourself forever, Rick.”“Let go. Become what you were meant to be.”Rick pressed his palms against the cold metal of the lamppost, trying to steady his breathing. “He’s getting louder.”Lira glanced around — no one was near, but still she lowered her voice. “You’re holding more power than any human should. You’re bound to hear him.”He looked at her, hi

Greyhaven was dissolving.Not burning, not crumbling—just… forgetting itself.Rick stood at the edge of the central district, where skyscrapers once brushed the clouds. Now, they ended halfway, like half-drawn sketches. Street signs flickered between names. Cars appeared and vanished in seconds, leaving faint tire tracks that never led anywhere.The whole city was caught in a slow blink—between existence and nothingness.Rick pressed his hand against a lamppost. It was cold, solid… then gone. His fingers brushed only air.He stepped back, muttering, “If this keeps up, there’ll be nothing left to save.”And for once, the voice didn’t answer.No whisper. No King.Just silence.He moved through the city, searching for something—anything—that felt real. Then, near the old river bridge, he saw a flicker of light. Not white or golden, but blue.He followed it through the mist.At the end of the bridge stood a hooded figure, holding a lantern that glowed with shifting runes. The figure turne