The Council's archives were deeper than anyone had suspected.
Seraph led them down corridors that Liriel hadn't known existed, passages carved beneath the already-ancient foundations of the Sect. The air grew colder with each level they descended.
A vault stood at the end of the final corridor, sealed with locks that weren't simple.
The first lock demanded raw power. Seraph approached it with confidence and met it with a wave of her Resonance. The lock responded, glowing with acknowledgment.
The second lock demanded finesse and precision. Seraph studied it for a long moment, then moved her hands in a complex pattern that mirrored the lock's inherent geometry. It opened with a soft click.
The third lock demanded acceptance. Seraph closed her eyes and stopped fighting it, let the lock's power flow through her. When she opened her eyes, the lock had transformed into light and dissipated.
The fourth lock demanded love.
Seraph placed her hand on it, and Liriel could see tears running down her face.
"I love them," Seraph said softly. "I love Kael. I love Liriel. I love this new world we're trying to build."
The lock blazed with blue light and opened.
Inside the vault lay documents that the Council had kept hidden from everyone except the highest levels. Ancient scrolls bound with silk. Books with covers made of leather so old it had become almost crystallized. And among them all, a single scroll that glowed with an eerie luminescence.
"This," Seraph said, laying the scroll on a reading table made of ancient stone, "changes everything."
Kael leaned closer, studying the archaic script. His eyes moved over the characters slowly, carefully, translating the Old Cultivator language.
"'When the Void rises from its slumber,'" he read aloud, "'two shall walk the path of stars. One shall choose balance and mercy. One shall choose power and dominion. And when they meet at the crossing of worlds, the fate of all shall be determined.'"
The words seemed to hang in the air, vibrating at a frequency that made everyone's teeth ache.
"There are two," Liriel said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Seraph said. She was already turning to another section of the scroll. "And there's more. Much more that explains everything."
She began to read: "'The Dark Mirror walks in shadow, his heart set toward transcendence. He carries the same power as his counterpart, but walks the lonely path, refusing the gifts of connection. And in his refusal, he shall become more than human, and less. A god of chaos walking among mortals, beautiful and terrible, loved and feared by all who meet him.'"
"Kessian," Liriel said. The name felt heavy on her tongue, weighted with destiny and warning.
Seraph carefully turned to the final section. Her eyes scanned the text, and when she looked up, there was something like fear in her expression.
"'And know this,'" Seraph read, her voice barely above a whisper, "'that they are not enemies, but mirrors. That which one refuses, the other chooses. That which one embraces, the other denies. And in their meeting, the prophecy shall be fulfilled—either in harmony, or in cataclysm. For they are the Void's two faces. One looking inward toward the self. One looking outward toward infinity.'"
The words hung in the air like a sentence of doom.
Seraph lowered the scroll carefully. "There's one more thing," she said. She pulled out a second document, bound in leather and marked with Yun's personal seal. "A letter, dated ten years ago. Addressed to someone named Kessian."
She opened it and read:
"'My young friend, I know you have chosen the path I could not walk. I cannot stop you. You are as free as the girl will be, when she is born. But I want you to know the reason I'm doing this. I am sending this letter to be opened when the girl reaches her full potential. At that moment, you will understand that you have a choice: to stand against her, or to stand beside her. And I hope—though I know it is unlikely—that you will choose the latter. Because if you don't, then everything I have done will have been for nothing. And I will have failed not one protégé, but two.'"
Seraph lowered the letter. The vault seemed smaller suddenly, the air heavier.
"Yun wasn't just manipulating you," Seraph said quietly. "He was manipulating both of you. He was trying to set up a situation where the two Void Bearers would meet and have to choose their relationship to each other."
"Why would he do that?" Kael asked.
"Because," Liriel said, "the prophecy doesn't say we have to be enemies. It just says we're mirrors. But if I chose mercy, and Kessian chose power... maybe Yun thought that if we met, we could balance each other out. That together, we could be something more than either of us could be alone."
"That's a big assumption," Seraph said.
"It is," Liriel agreed. She stood and began to pace. "But it explains why Yun was willing to die. He was trying to create circumstances for transformation. He was trying to save two broken people from loneliness by showing them that connection was possible."
She stopped and looked at both of them. "We need to find him. We need to understand what he's become. We need to offer him what Yun offered me: the choice to be something other than what fear tells him he has to be."
"And if he refuses?" Kael asked quietly.
"Then we fight," Liriel said. "And we pray that mercy wins over power."