The path beyond the clearing twisted sharply, narrowing as thorn-covered vines arched overhead, forming a tunnel that seemed carved from sorrow itself. Syra pressed forward, her fingers still curled tightly around her daughter's pendant. Each step she took pulled her deeper into a place that existed beyond time, where memories manifested like mist and grief lingered like fog.

The tunnel opened into a vast, circular chamber lined with reflective black stone. There were no torches, yet the room glowed with a dull, unnatural light that emanated from the very walls. Etched into the floor was a great spiral of ash, curling inward toward a low, obsidian altar that pulsed with a heartbeat Syra could feel in her bones.

She approached, trembling. Every instinct in her body screamed at her to flee, but a force stronger than fear compelled her forward. When she reached the altar, the whispering returned - not from the air this time, but from the altar itself. Voices bled from its surface, murmuring in tones of anguish and pleading.

"Speak your name," a voice commanded from the spiral.

Syra hesitated, heart thudding. "Syra Hale," she said, her voice echoing through the chamber like a funeral bell.

The spiral burst into flame.

Not a consuming fire, but one that revealed. Images flickered in the flames - moments she'd buried. Her daughter, Emelyn, was laughing on the swing. The night of the fire. Her husband leaving in the aftermath, blaming her. And then herself, broken, refusing to feel anything but the numbness of survival.

"Why did you abandon me?" her daughter's voice asked again, softer now, less accusing.

"I didn't want to feel it," Syra whispered, collapsing to her knees. "I thought... if I buried it deep enough, it would go away. But it never did."

The spiral flame twisted and surged. The altar cracked.

"Then accept it," the whisper said, "and you may yet be reborn."

The mirror's power surged around her, and Syra screamed as a white-hot flash tore through her mind