The river of gold ran north for what seemed an eternity before it reached the horizon, and there, beneath the cold embrace of a mountain range shaped like sleeping beasts, it disappeared underground. That was where the City waited.
Few believed in the City of Forgotten Faces anymore. It had been erased from maps and memory alike, a myth spoken only by dreamwalkers and mad poets who claimed to have seen its glimmer in their sleep. But as dawn broke over the northern peaks, the mist parted, and the City breathed again.
Its towers were carved from the bones of stars, silver and translucent, rising in perfect spirals that seemed to hum with the resonance of a long-lost language. Between them ran streets of mirrored stone where reflections moved independent of their owners. The City was alive—but not awake.
And at its heart, seated upon a dais of flowing glass, sat a woman woven of light and memory.
Her eyes were golden. Her hair moved as though stirred by an unseen current. The world knew her once as Liora.
Now, she was something far older.
She woke at sunset.
For the first time in what felt like centuries, the City responded. The towers shuddered, the mirrors rippled, and fragments of forgotten dreams stirred in their depths.
Liora rose, her movements graceful yet heavy, like one pulling free from an ocean of sleep. Her voice, when it came, was a whisper that carried through every corridor:
"Where is the Warden?"
No one answered. The City was full of echoes but empty of breath. She could feel his absence like a wound. Auren had succeeded—the river sang proof of it—but his light was far away, and something darker had taken root where the world's shadow met its reflection.
A new shape was forming.
She could feel it in the silence.
Far below the City, deep within the vaults of unmemory, the shadows stirred. They took form slowly, congealing from mist into outlines—faces without names, bodies without souls. They gathered in silence, watching, waiting.
One among them lifted its head. Its form was different from the rest, its outline sharper, its voice smooth as glass.
"Do you hear it?" it asked.
The others did not reply, for they had no mouths.
"The dream changed," the shadow said. "But the reflection remains. And in reflection, even light can rot."
It smiled—a soundless thing.
"Let her wake. Let her build. When the memory ripens, we will return."
Then it dissolved into smoke.
Liora descended the City's spiral tower, her feet making no sound on the mirrored floors. As she walked, the reflections around her began to follow—dozens of versions of herself, each slightly different. One with tears on her cheeks, one carrying a child, one with eyes like embers.
She ignored them.
When she reached the central plaza, she found the river's golden current flowing through the City's base, its light splitting into countless streams that wound between the towers like veins. It pulsed faintly, as though alive.
She knelt beside it, touching the surface. The warmth there made her eyes soften.
"Auren," she whispered. "You kept your promise."
But when she lifted her hand, the glow on her skin flickered. A thin crack ran across her palm, faint but cold. She frowned.
The Shape's residue.
Though Auren had remade the dream, the old wound still lingered. Every creation leaves its scar, and every memory leaves its echo.
And the City was full of echoes.
That night, the reflections began to move on their own.
At first, it was subtle—a flicker in the glass, a shadow turning its head when it shouldn't. But by midnight, the mirrors rippled violently, spilling light across the walls. Liora stood at the balcony of her tower and watched as one of the reflections stepped free from the glass.
It looked exactly like her—save for the eyes, which were black and hollow.
It bowed slightly. "You left us behind."
Liora's voice was calm. "You are what remains of what I lost. You are fragments, not forsaken."
The reflection smiled. "Fragments remember differently."
Then it raised a hand, and a thousand shards of light burst from every mirror in the City. The air filled with flickering copies—some of her, some of Corren, some of Auren, all twisted in strange, incomplete ways.
The City was remembering itself wrong.
Liora raised her arms. Golden light flared from her palms, knitting the fragments back toward the river. But each time she sealed one, three more broke free.
"Enough!" she cried, her voice shaking the glass towers.
The reflections froze mid-motion.
Then, from within their ranks, a shape emerged—not her, not anyone she had known. A tall figure of smoke and silver bones, its eyes molten red.
"Memory cannot be ordered," it said. "You cannot bind what was never yours to begin with."
Liora's breath caught. "You."
The figure tilted its head. "The First Shape left its root within every memory. You may have caged it in dream and song, but I am what remains between them—the unshaped echo of all you tried to forget."
Its hand extended. The mirrored floor beneath her feet began to crack, lines of black radiating outward.
Liora's golden eyes flared. "You won't take this world again."
"Not take," it said softly. "Remind."
Then the ground split.
The City screamed. Towers collapsed inward, light and shadow entwining in a storm of molten reflection. The river beneath the city roared, its gold light turning white-hot. Liora spread her arms, summoning the remnants of Auren's seal. Glyphs burned across her skin, ancient symbols of creation.
"By the dream that endures—be still!"
The shadow laughed. "Dreams never endure. They change hands."
It lunged.
Liora met it head-on, light and dark colliding in a burst that turned the night into daylight. The impact rippled through the valley, shattering every mirror for miles.
When the light faded, she stood alone again—kneeling amid ruins, her body trembling.
But the figure was gone.
She looked around, chest heaving, and saw the city's heart—the dais—cracked open. From within poured a black liquid that shimmered faintly, swallowing light.
The First Shape's seed had survived.
Liora rose unsteadily, clutching her side. "No… no, not again."
She reached into the flowing darkness, and it clung to her arm like oil. A voice whispered within it—not hostile, not kind.
You cannot destroy what birthed you.
Her breath caught. "Then I will change what you become."
And before the darkness could retreat, she plunged her hand deeper, letting it consume her arm to the shoulder. Pain tore through her nerves, light and shadow warring beneath her skin. Her reflection in the shattered glass screamed, twisting in agony.
The black liquid solidified.
When she withdrew her arm, the darkness had formed a mark—a swirling spiral, glowing faintly where flesh met light.
The corruption was sealed, but not cleansed.
She looked up at the broken City around her.
"This isn't the end," she whispered. "It's the beginning of another dream."
In the centuries that followed, no traveler found the City again. The mountains sealed themselves in mist, and the river of gold curved away from sight. But in rare nights when the moon turned red, some said they saw towers gleaming far in the distance, and a woman standing upon their highest point—watching the horizon with eyes of gold and a shadow at her back.
And deep beneath the City, where mirrors lay shattered and silent, something pulsed faintly. Not dark, not light—something new.
A seed of balance.
The world was dreaming again. But this time, the dream was aware of itself.