The city was waiting for them.
Aurelia knew it the moment she stepped through the broken archway.
There were no guards.
No voices.
No footsteps.
Yet somehow, the streets were full.
People stood behind windows. Figures walked through narrow alleys. A woman carried a basket across a distant bridge. A child chased something invisible between the houses.
Everything looked alive.
Everything looked wrong.
Veyne stopped beside Aurelia.
"Do you recognize it?"
Aurelia stared at the street ahead.
"No."
She said it too quickly.
Veyne noticed.
He always did.
The city looked old, but not ruined. Its towers were dark stone, its windows glowing faintly beneath a sky that seemed permanently trapped between night and dawn.
And yet there was something missing.
Aurelia looked down.
Veyne looked down as well.
Their shadows were there.
Then Aurelia looked toward the people.
None of them had shadows.
Her breathing slowed.
"Veyne…"
"I see it."
A man passed them.
His boots made no sound.
His body moved naturally.
But beneath him was nothing.
No shadow.
Aurelia watched him disappear around a corner.
"Maybe the light is wrong."
Veyne shook his head.
"There is no light."
She looked upward.
He was right.
There was no sun.
No moon.
No lantern bright enough to explain the pale illumination surrounding the city.
The light simply existed.
As though the world itself remembered what daylight was supposed to look like.
Aurelia stepped toward a nearby window.
Inside, a family sat around a table.
They were eating.
Laughing.
Talking.
But Aurelia couldn't hear a single word.
She touched the glass.
The room flickered.
For half a second, the family disappeared.
In their place stood three empty chairs.
A black table.
And a young woman sitting alone.
Aurelia pulled her hand away.
The image vanished.
Veyne noticed her expression.
"What did you see?"
"I don't know."
"That wasn't an answer."
She looked at him.
"It was me."
Silence.
The street suddenly felt colder.
Veyne moved closer to the window.
"What version?"
Aurelia swallowed.
"I don't know."
The boy with the silver eyes appeared at the end of the street.
He had been walking behind them without making a sound.
Aurelia turned.
"How long have you been there?"
The boy didn't answer.
He stared at the city.
Then he said:
"You've been here before."
Aurelia's stomach tightened.
"No."
"Yes."
"I would remember."
The boy looked at her with those impossible silver eyes.
"That is why you don't."
Veyne stepped between them.
"What is this place?"
The boy looked past him.
"A memory."
Aurelia frowned.
"Whose?"
The boy answered immediately.
"Yours."
The city trembled.
Every window went dark.
Every person stopped moving.
The entire city became still.
Then every head turned toward Aurelia.
Hundreds of faces.
All staring at her.
Aurelia stepped backward.
"They know me."
"No," the boy whispered.
"They remember you."
A bell rang somewhere in the distance.
Once.
The people began moving again.
But now Aurelia could see them properly.
The woman.
The child.
The old man.
The families.
They weren't people.
They were copies.
Fragments of moments that had once existed.
Aurelia walked through the crowd.
She saw herself everywhere.
A young Aurelia running through the marketplace.
Aurelia standing beneath a dead tree.
Aurelia crying beside a black river.
Aurelia wearing a crown.
Aurelia holding Veyne's hand.
Aurelia standing over him.
She stopped.
The last image disappeared before she could see what happened.
"What was that?" Veyne asked.
Aurelia couldn't answer.
The boy approached.
"The city isn't showing you what happened."
"Then what is it showing me?"
"What you refused to remember."
Aurelia looked at Veyne.
For the first time, she saw fear in his expression.
Not fear of the city.
Fear of what they were about to discover.
A door appeared at the end of the street.
It hadn't been there before.
Black wood.
Silver handle.
And carved into it was a single symbol.
A circle split by a vertical line.
Aurelia recognized it.
She had seen it before.
In dreams.
On ruins.
In the margins of books she couldn't remember reading.
"What is that?"
The boy answered quietly.
"The beginning."
Aurelia reached for the handle.
Veyne caught her wrist.
"Don't."
She looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because every time we've found the truth…"
His voice became quieter.
"…we've found another reason to hate ourselves."
Aurelia looked at the door.
Then back at him.
"We can't keep running from it."
She opened the door.
The city vanished.
And Aurelia remembered screaming.
Not because of pain.
Because of a face.
Her own face.
Standing in a mirror.
Waiting for her.