The Speculum of Forfeited Paths didn’t wait for Ren Vale to draw it from his pocket.
The eight-sided frame tore through the frayed lining of his tunic, hovering between his chest and the rusted iron winch. The silver glass was blinding—not with starlight, but with the angry, blazing bright glare of molten iron. The hairline fracture running across the gold-silver metal frame pulsed like an open artery, weeping thick ribbons of grey time ash that coiled around Ren’s wrists like living vines.
Across the surface of the mirror, the two futures crystal-hardened with terrifying careful clarity.
In the left half of the glass, Ren saw himself at twenty-eight.
He was standing on the sun-bleached limestone porch of an estate in the Western Archipelago, overlooking the azure waves of the Sapphire Sea. A warm breeze ruffled his linen tunic—not rough wool patched with twine, but fine sea-silk dyed indigo. His hands were smooth, whole, and fully free of purple ink-rot. His lungs drew deep, untroubled breaths of salt air without a single rasp.
On a cedar bench ten paces behind him sat Mira, twenty-four years old, wearing a pale lavender gown. Her right arm was wrapped in delicate, articulating golden sleeves that allowed her quartz fingers to turn the pages of a lit up botany codex. She was laughing, looking up as a servant placed a silver dish of roasted almonds and sweet figs on the stone table.
