The Mirrored One

Veilrend 13— A Thousand Eyes, One Reflection Part 1 They called him The Mirrored One. A title forged in worship, in fear. But he had no name. Not anymore. He had two. Thar’Zul: the elder god, the Shattered Architect, returned to flesh through Seris, the once-mortal hero who had breached the veil and become something more—and something less. --- The body burned from the inside. Ceremonial glass cracked in spirals. Reality wept in angles. The cult below the ruined city chanted, writhing in ecstasy. Their words were nothing. Their faith meaningless. They had summoned what they could not comprehend. Thar’Zul surged forward. > “You dare summon me?” He did not speak. His words were reflections vibrating off bone. Each syllable peeled a mind away. Dozens of cultists exploded in waves of inverted light—skin turned inside out, screams pulled backward. Those who remained collapsed in joy and agony. But beneath it all, somewhere buried in the vessel, Seris screamed. > No. Not them. Not again. --- The inner war was endless. Seris was still tethered to memory: to Kaelen’s blade, to the grief he carried across death, to the final moment before he fell to the void. But Thar’Zul was older than regret. Older than death. He had waited behind the veil for eons, and now, he walked. Rhen stared from behind a fractured pillar, the spiral of Ith’rael on his palm glowing like a silent protest. Vael stood in the open, blade raised, defiant, breathing hard, lips trembling not from fear but from recognition. > “Seris,” she whispered. The Mirrored One paused. The name echoed like a crack across polished ice. And for a moment—just a moment—Thar’Zul faltered. Seris rose within, like a man swimming through glass. > “Stop.” > “This is not vengeance. This is extinction.” A pulse of resistance flared from his soul. The spirals of Thar’Zul’s power trembled, then fractured. Light bled from the vessel’s core.