Chapter 142: Why?

Rin’s breath caught.

The mirror darkened before he could read more.

"Eryndor, look at this!"

Eryndor was standing before the pedestal.

He had not touched the stone, but the black mark on his hand had begun to glow again.

"What is it?" Rin asked.

Eryndor did not answer.

He was staring at a mirror directly behind the pedestal.

Rin approached him.

The reflection showed a scene neither of them had witnessed before.

Aelion stood in the white chamber, facing the Gods. His expression was no longer frightened. It was cold, determined, and heartbreakingly young.

"I have paid what you demanded," he said. "Now release him."

The woman who had spoken in the earlier memory stepped forward.

Her face was obscured by a veil of light.

"The bargain is fulfilled."

"Then remove the mark."

"We cannot remove what has become part of his soul."

Aelion looked toward Eryndor, who stood behind the Gods, unconscious and bound by threads of light.

"Then remove the curse."

"The curse is the covenant."

"Break it!"

"If we break the covenant, the price will be returned."

Aelion went silent.

The woman continued.

"You may save his life, Aelion. You may surrender your future. But you cannot demand that the world remain unchanged."

Aelion’s hands trembled.

"What will happen to him?"

"He will live."

"Will he remember me?"

The woman did not answer.

Aelion took one step forward.

"Will he remember me?"

The mirror shuddered.

At last, the woman spoke.

"He will remember what the World allows him to remember."

Aelion closed his eyes.

For a moment, he looked as though he might refuse everything. He might tear the bargain apart, even if it meant losing the one person he had tried to save.

Instead, he turned toward Eryndor.

"I am sorry," he whispered.

The threads of light tightened around Eryndor.

The black mark spread across his hand.

And Aelion forgot.

Not everything. Not his name, nor his home, nor the face of the boy he had loved.

He forgot the reason he had made the bargain.

He forgot the moment when the Gods had told him the true price.

He forgot the promise that had made him accept it.

The mirror went dark.

Rin stood motionless.

Eryndor’s face had lost all color.

"What did they do to him?" he whispered.

Rin couldn’t answer.

He had watched Aelion surrender his future, believing the bargain would protect Eryndor. Now he understood that the Gods had done more than take away a possibility. They had removed the knowledge that might have allowed Aelion to fight the bargain afterward.

They had made him forget why he had sacrificed everything.

Aelion’s voice stirred inside Rin’s mind.

I knew there was something missing.

Rin swallowed.

You remember now?

Not all of it.

The voice was faint.

But I remember asking whether he would remember me.

Rin glanced at Eryndor.

Eryndor was staring at the dark mirror, his hands clenched at his sides.

What happened after that? Rin asked silently.

Aelion did not respond immediately.

I don’t know.

Rin felt a painful knot form in his chest.

The answer was worse than any explanation.

For centuries—or whatever measure of time existed in this strange place—Aelion had carried the consequences of a bargain without remembering its true terms. And Eryndor had lived beneath a mark that neither of them had understood.

The Gods had preserved the result and erased the choice.

Rin turned toward the pedestal.

"Why show us this?" he demanded.

The question echoed through the chamber.

The black stone above the pedestal began to rotate.

A thin line of golden light appeared at its center.

A voice answered from every mirror at once.

"Because the bargain was never completed."

Rin’s blood ran cold.

"You said it was fulfilled."

"The Gods fulfilled the words they agreed to. They did not fulfill the promise Aelion believed he had made."

Eryndor stepped toward the pedestal.

"What promise?"

The mirrors brightened.

In every reflection, Aelion appeared again, standing alone in the white chamber.

His voice rose from the glass.

I wanted him to live.

The black stone cracked.

I wanted him to have a life that belonged to him.

A second crack spread across its surface.

I wanted him to choose his own future.

The stone split in two.

A burst of light filled the room.

Rin threw an arm across his eyes. When the brightness faded, the pedestal was empty.

In its place lay a narrow strip of white cloth, marked with the same symbol that had appeared on Rin’s hand.

Eryndor bent to pick it up.

"Don’t touch it!" Rin shouted.

But Eryndor had already reached for the cloth.

The mark on his palm flared.

The chamber vanished.

For one instant, Rin saw a vast landscape beneath a blood-red sky. Aelion stood at the edge of a ruined city, his white robes torn and his golden eyes filled with despair.

Across from him stood Eryndor.

Not the Eryndor beside Rin.

This version was older, his face drawn with exhaustion, the black mark extending up his arm like a spreading shadow.

Between them stood a third figure, concealed beneath a white veil.

Aelion reached for Eryndor.

Eryndor stepped back.

"You promised me," he said.

Aelion stopped.

"I know."

"You promised you wouldn’t decide my life for me."

"I was trying to save you."

"You were trying to save me from a future I never got to choose!"

The words struck Aelion like a physical blow.

Behind him, the sky split open.

The white-veiled figure lifted one hand, and golden threads descended from the heavens, wrapping around Aelion’s wrists.

Eryndor reached toward him.

For a moment, their fingers nearly touched.

Then the vision shattered.

Rin found himself on his knees in the mirror chamber.

Eryndor was beside him, breathing hard, the strip of white cloth clenched in his fist.

"What did we just see?" Eryndor asked.

Rin looked at him.

The vision had shown a future—or perhaps a memory of a future that had been erased. It had shown a version of Eryndor who knew about Aelion’s bargain and resented him for making it.

But it had also shown something else.

Aelion had tried to save Eryndor.

And in doing so, he might have taken away the very freedom he wanted Eryndor to have.

Rin slowly rose.

"I think we saw what the Gods were trying to prevent."

Eryndor looked down at the cloth.

"Then we need to find out why."

The mirrors began to crack.

One by one, their surfaces shattered without making a sound. Behind them lay no walls, only endless darkness.

At the far end of the chamber, a white doorway appeared.

A figure stood inside it.

The faceless stranger.

Its pale eyes settled on Rin, then moved to Eryndor.

"You have seen the price," it said. "Now you must discover who demanded it."

Rin stepped forward.

"You know who."

"I know what the records preserve."

"Then tell us!"

The stranger remained silent.

Eryndor raised the strip of cloth.

"Is this connected to the covenant?"

The figure’s gaze sharpened.

For the first time, its expressionless presence seemed to waver.

"Where did you find that?"

"On the pedestal."

The stranger took one step backward.

The movement was small, but Rin noticed it.

"You recognize it," Rin said.

The figure’s pale eyes returned to him.

"That cloth belonged to the first person who attempted to change Aelion’s fate."

Rin remembered the white-clothed stranger who had stopped them outside the sanctuary, the one who had said he had tried to change his own fate and failed.

"Is it the same person who spoke to us before?"

"No."

"Then who is it?"

The mirrors finished collapsing.

The chamber shook.

The stranger looked toward the darkness behind them.

"The one who made the first sacrifice."

Eryndor’s grip tightened around the cloth.

"Who was sacrificed?"

The figure did not answer.

Instead, the white doorway began to close.

Rin rushed forward.

"Wait!"

The stranger’s final words reached them as the light disappeared.

"Ask the city what happened to the first bearer. Then ask why the World was so afraid of letting Aelion remember."

The doorway vanished.

Silence settled over the chamber.

Rin stood beside Eryndor, staring at the place where the figure had been.

They had entered the mirror chamber searching for the truth behind Aelion’s bargain.

They had found the memory of a future surrendered, the proof that the Gods had deliberately erased the reason for Aelion’s sacrifice, and a glimpse of a future in which Eryndor might have turned away from him.

But the most important question remained unanswered.

Who had made the first sacrifice?

And why had the World erased the truth?

Inside Rin’s mind, Aelion finally spoke.

Rin.

Rin stiffened.

It was the first time the voice had sounded so clear since they entered the chamber.

The first bearer wasn’t chosen by the Gods.

Rin stared into the darkness.

Then who chose them?

Aelion’s answer came slowly.

I did.

Before Rin could ask another question, a distant bell rang beneath the city.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The floor opened, revealing a staircase descending into a darkness that seemed older than the sanctuary itself.

At its entrance, ancient writing appeared across the stone.

THE FIRST COVENANT: THE MEMORY OF ERASURE.

Eryndor looked at the words.

"Whatever waits down there," he said, "we face it together."

Rin nodded.

Together, they descended.

And far above them, beyond the forgotten city and the boundaries of the known world, something that had been asleep since the first sacrifice opened its eyes.