Year 5908.

Parliaments are gone, the constitutions, and the ideals of the old Republic. The nation once called the Philippines now stood shackled under a single name: the Monarchy of Xrydia.

Queen Xrydia ruled with the elegance of a goddess—and the cruelty of one too. With skin like polished obsidian and eyes cold as voidglass, she had risen from the ashes of a broken government with a single promise: peace through power, order through obedience, and purity through division. To the people, she offered salvation. To the men—chains.

Men were stripped of their surnames. Their voices, their choices, their rights—all dissolved like mist under sun. They were relegated to the role of Servitori, the lowest class of citizens, branded with iron cuffs on their wrists that buzzed when they disobeyed. Women rose as commanders, judges, rulers. In Queen Xrydia’s law, love between man and woman was treason. Connection was distraction. Emotion was weakness.

Seventeen-year-old Aeryn Castañeda knew this well.

She stood in the high tower of her home—a spiraling estate owned by her mother, Governor Talia Castañeda, one of the Queen’s trusted stewards. The city below her was awash with silver and black: vertical gardens clung to skyscrapers, neon banners blinked XRYDIA ETERNAL, and patrol drones zipped between buildings like mechanical dragonflies. The air smelled of ozone and control.

But above the modern view, Aeryn’s heart ached for something ancient.

She turned the page of her forbidden book, one of the relics she kept hidden beneath the floorboards. The paper was brittle, the ink fading, but the words were still alive.

 “To love another is to be vulnerable. To be vulnerable is to be human.”

Aeryn whispered the line aloud and shut the book as the door opened.

“Lady Aeryn,” said a gentle voice. “Your mother requests you at the balcony.”

She didn’t need to look up. She knew that voice better than her own.

Lior.

He was barely a year older than her, and once upon a time, they’d played together under the mango tree in the courtyard. But that was before the declaration. Before the wristband appeared on his skin and his name was erased from the family tree.

Now, he wore the grey robe of a Servitor, head bowed, hands clasped.

“Tell her I’ll be down in a moment,” Aeryn said, slipping the book beneath a false drawer.

“She won’t wait, milady.”

“I’m not afraid of her,” she replied, standing.

She lied.

As Aeryn descended the glass staircase, Lior followed behind her like a ghost—always silent, always near, never acknowledged in public. In the garden, guards in obsidian armor stood like statues. Aeryn caught one glance at Lior’s cuff blinking red. He had hesitated. She turned back slightly, her voice a whisper.

“Did you get hurt again?”

“No, milady,” he replied flatly.

She hated when he used that word.

The balcony overlooked Plaza Eterna, where citizens gathered daily to pledge their oaths to the Crown. The large holoscreen in the center flickered as the Queen’s image came into view.

“People of Xrydia,” said the monarch’s voice, smooth as smoke. “Let us purge the last rot of the old world. Let us rise pure and undistracted. For love breeds lies. For lies breed ruin. Today, we execute traitors who betrayed our order with a kiss.”

Below, two young rebels—a girl and a boy—stood with their hands bound. Both were bruised but unbowed. The girl shouted something muffled, and the boy looked at her with tear-filled eyes. Then the screen turned red.

Their execution was swift. Clean. Efficient.

The silence that followed felt louder than a scream.

Aeryn turned away before Lior could see her tears.

That night, she couldn’t sleep.

The events of the day replayed in her mind—the lovers, the Queen’s decree, Lior’s face when he watched the screen.

She wandered to the attic, a place no one entered anymore. Dust veiled the forgotten space like ash from a long-dead fire. The walls groaned. The moonlight poured through a broken skylight, casting silver on the objects covered in cloth.

Something pulsed beneath one of the drapes.

Aeryn pulled it away.

There, standing tall and elegant, was a mirror.

But it was no ordinary mirror. Its frame was carved from obsidian and silver vines. The glass shimmered with a light not of this world. Baybayin symbols glowed faintly across the surface—familiar yet unreadable.

When she looked into it, she didn’t see her reflection.

She saw another version of herself—smiling, barefoot on soft grass, holding hands with someone whose face was blurred by golden light.

She stumbled back, breath caught.

“Aeryn?” Lior’s voice came from behind her.

She turned, heart hammering. “What are you doing up here?”

“I followed you,” he said simply.

His eyes shifted to the mirror. He stepped forward. His cuff buzzed as if it sensed danger.

“Did you see it?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Who do you think that is?” she asked, pointing at the figure next to her reflection.

Lior hesitated. “It looks like… me.”

Aeryn’s chest tightened.

The air between them shifted. For a moment, it was like time forgot what year it was. Forgot the Queen. Forgot the laws. They stood, a girl and a boy, drawn together by an invisible thread older than crowns.

“You could be free,” Aeryn said, voice trembling.

“I’m not meant to be free,” he replied. “Not in this world.”

“Maybe not in this world,” she whispered, touching the mirror again, “but what if there’s another?”

The next morning, a fleet of hovercars arrived at the estate.

Aeryn was summoned to the Royal Academy in Nueva Intramuros. Her scores, her lineage, her obedience—they’d earned her a place among the Queen’s chosen daughters. It was an honor. A privilege. A trap.

As she packed, her mother stood beside her, sharp in a crimson uniform.

“You must forget childhood now,” Governor Talia said. “Love is for the weak. You are a daughter of the Crown.”

Aeryn nodded, dead-eyed.

Lior helped her carry her things. When no one watched, he slipped something into her palm.

It was a necklace—a pendant made from a cracked piece of mirror.

“I found it,” he said quietly. “It broke off last night. I thought… maybe you should keep it.”

She closed her hand around it tightly.

At the gates, she turned back. Guards were already flanking Lior, pushing him back into the estate like an object.

“Goodbye,” she said.

He didn’t reply. But in his eyes, she saw it.

Hope. Longing. Love.

The very thing that could destroy them both.

That night, alone in her new dorm at the Academy, Aeryn stared at the mirror shard.

Her reflection wavered. The Baybayin symbols flickered again.

A voice whispered from the shard—not aloud, but in her mind.

“The heart remembers what the mind forgets. Touch the mirror when you are ready.”

Aeryn stared into her own eyes.

“I am ready,” she whispered.

And with that, she pressed her hand to the shard.

The world shattered.

And the real journey began.

End of Chapter 1

She fell.

Not through space. Not through time.

Through the Mirror.

The moment Aeryn touched the mirror shard, the world crumbled like ash. The Royal Academy, the gray walls, even the weight of her body—vanished. Only light remained, rushing around her in soft streaks of blue and gold. Her heartbeat echoed like a war drum in a cathedral of silence.

And then—

Grass.

She landed softly on a hill, green and sun-warmed, beneath a sky of rose-pink clouds and twin suns that glowed like sleeping eyes. Birds chirped in a harmony she’d never heard before. The air carried the scent of mangoes and rain.

She stood, trembling.

She was still in her black and silver Filipiniana gown, but the cuff—Queen Xrydia’s monitor, always cold on her wrist—was gone.

Aeryn took a step forward and realized something else: freedom felt strange. Heavy, to be honest.

“Where am I?” she whispered.

“You’re in Araw-Diwa,” a voice replied behind her.

She spun around.

A boy stood there. He looked about her age, with windswept hair the color of sunlit mahogany and skin kissed by golden light. His clothes were simple—woven linen in pastel blue and cream—but his eyes were extraordinary. One was a soft brown, the other silver like moonlight.

“I’m Kael,” he said. “You’re from the other side, aren’t you?”

Aeryn stepped back. “How do you know that?”

“Because your heart’s glass is still cracking,” he said softly. “We can see it in your aura.”

“My what?”

Kael smiled gently. “It’s alright. The Mirror chooses only those strong enough to change everything.”

Before she could ask more, a shimmering archway appeared behind Kael—made of light, not stone. Beyond it, she saw a village with floating lanterns, women and men laughing together, and children running freely. There were no soldiers. No collars. No hate.

Tears welled in her eyes.

“Come,” Kael said. “The Elders have waited centuries for someone like you.”

They walked through Araw-Diwa together. The people looked at Aeryn with awe—not fear, not suspicion, just quiet hope. A woman with white tattoos bowed deeply. A man offered her a fruit. Kael explained that she had crossed from the realm of control into the Mirror World, where the spirit of the Philippines remained untouched by tyranny.

“There was a time,” Kael said, “when both worlds were one. Until hatred cracked the Mirror. Queen Xrydia was the one who broke it.”

“She was part of this world?” Aeryn asked, stunned.

“She was born here,” Kael nodded. “But she crossed over with vengeance in her heart. The Mirror twisted her pain into power.”

Aeryn’s mind reeled. “Why me? Why now?”

Kael looked at her for a long moment.

“Because you're still capable of love in a world that teaches you to fear it.”

They arrived at a circular temple made of woven vines and crystal branches. The inside pulsed with light, like a living heart. At its center stood three Elders—one man, one woman, and one who was neither. Their hair was silver, their eyes closed, yet they radiated wisdom.

“She is the Vessel,” said the male Elder.

“The one who holds both pain and promise,” said the female Elder.

“The one who dares to feel,” said the third.

They raised their hands, and a golden triangle appeared in the air. Inside it, three symbols formed in Baybayin: Alaala (memory), Pag-ibig (love), and Katotohanan (truth).

“You must gather these three fragments from your world,” the third Elder said. “Only then can the Mirror be healed.”

“And what happens if I fail?” Aeryn asked.

The Elders spoke in one voice.

“Then your world will forget what it means to love. Forever.”

That night, Aeryn sat under a glowing tree beside a river that shimmered like silver. Kael joined her, carrying two cups of warm tea that smelled like cinnamon and guava.

“You’re quiet,” he said, handing her one.

“I’m scared.”

“Good,” Kael replied. “Only fools enter war without fear.”

“This is war?” she asked.

“Not with swords,” he said. “But with hearts. And hearts are harder to heal than wounds.”

She sipped the tea and looked at the stars—so many, and none of them like home.

“I miss someone,” she confessed.

Kael tilted his head. “Someone from your world?”

“His name is Lior,” she said. “He’s... more than a Servitor. He’s my friend. My soul aches for him.”

“Then your heart is already stronger than most,” Kael said. “Keep it close. You’ll need him.”

“How do I return?”

Kael stood and reached into his pocket. He drew out a new shard of the mirror—this one clearer, colder.

“This will take you back,” he said. “But time moves differently between our worlds. What feels like a night here may only be moments there.”

Aeryn clutched the shard tightly.

“What if I don’t remember any of this when I go back?”

“You will,” Kael said. “Because the heart never forgets.”

She woke up in her dorm.

No lights. No sound. Just her breathing.

The mirror shard lay in her hand, still glowing faintly.

Had it all been a dream?

She pulled back the curtain and looked out over the Academy’s marble courtyard. Drones circled. Guards patrolled. But something in her had shifted.

She knew what freedom felt like now.

She knew what was possible.

A ping came through her room's speaker system.

“All first-year daughters report to the Hall of Virtue. Your loyalty exam begins now.”

The Hall of Virtue was more a throne room than a classroom. Rows of girls stood in formation, all dressed in identical gowns. Each had a silver band on their head to read thought patterns.

The test was simple: recite loyalty pledges and suppress emotional impulses. Fail, and you were reassigned to cleansing labor.

Aeryn stepped forward when her name was called.

“State your allegiance,” the instructor barked.

“I serve Queen Xrydia,” Aeryn said calmly.

“State your purpose.”

“To uphold purity. To eradicate emotional distraction. To preserve the monarchy.”

“State the law on love.”

Aeryn paused.

The room tensed.

The instructor narrowed her eyes.

“State the law, Castañeda.”

Aeryn’s fingers twitched around the shard in her sleeve.

She spoke evenly. “Love between man and woman is treason. It weakens the nation. It is forbidden.”

The instructor smiled. “Excellent.”

But Aeryn’s heart screamed.

Later that night, while the others celebrated passing, Aeryn slipped into the lower corridors—half-abandoned levels where old records were stored.

She searched until she found a sealed archive marked Cebu: Pre-Monarchy Ruins.

Using the shard as a key, the lock hissed open.

Inside were photos, blueprints, and virtual recordings of ancient buildings—churches, plazas, even handwritten love letters confiscated during the first purges.

Among the files was a marked location: The Chapel of St. Regina, the last known site where lovers married before the Queen’s rise.

Aeryn knew then: this was her first key. Her first fragment.

But she couldn’t go alone.

She needed someone who knew the streets.

She needed Lior.

The next morning, Aeryn put in a formal request to visit her mother.

She was granted a pass to return to the family estate.

Lior was there. Thinner. Quieter. His hands were bruised, his collar blinking yellow—one level below lethal shock.

“Lior,” she whispered when they were alone in the garden.

He looked up slowly. “You came back.”

“I saw something,” she said. “Another world. One where we’re... free.”

He didn’t speak. He just watched her.

“I need your help,” she said. “There’s a place. A chapel. I think it holds something that can fix all of this.”

“You’re still dreaming,” he said bitterly. “This world doesn’t change.”

“It can,” she replied, stepping closer. “If you come with me.”

His eyes flicked to her hand.

She was holding the mirror shard.

The same one he gave her.

His expression softened.

“For you,” he said finally, “I’ll try.”

End of Chapter 2

By dawn, they were running.

Aeryn and Lior moved like shadows through the crumbling alleyways of the lower districts, where the Queen’s light barely touched. Here, the neon glow faded. The air thickened with dust and forgotten stories. Graffiti covered the walls—messages left by rebels, lovers, and those who dared to hope. Most were painted over, but one still bled through in cracked red paint:

“Pag-ibig ang ating huling sandata.”

Love is our final weapon.

The phrase struck Aeryn like a chord in her chest.

They arrived at the train tunnel entrance just before the patrol cycles roared past. Lior grabbed her hand without thinking, pulling her into a crawlspace beneath a collapsed billboard.

They waited. Silent. Close.

She could feel his heartbeat—racing like hers.

When the hum of the engines faded, Lior exhaled. “They’re increasing patrols.”

“They know someone’s searching the archives,” Aeryn said.

“They probably think it’s just a rogue collector. Not the daughter of the Governor herself.”

Aeryn managed a smirk. “Let’s keep it that way.”

They boarded an underground freight train—unregistered, slow, and illegal. No tickets. No seats. Just crates, rust, and danger. It would take them halfway across the island, toward the forgotten town of San Regina in old Cebu, where the ruined chapel stood.

As the train rumbled forward, Lior leaned against the wall, his eyes half-closed.

“You look exhausted,” she said.

“I haven’t slept in three days,” he replied. “They’ve been running tests on us. Emotional resistance thresholds. Pain triggers. Loyalty inhibitors.”

Aeryn clenched her fists. “I’m going to destroy all of it.”

“You’re one girl,” he said softly.

“I’m not just one girl anymore.”

She reached into her satchel and held out the mirror shard. Its light flickered in the dimness, casting ghostly shapes on the metal walls.

“What is that thing?” Lior asked.

“It’s a piece of the other world,” she said. “A place where love still lives. I saw you there.”

He met her gaze. “Was I happy?”

She nodded.

His lips curved slightly. “Then maybe this war is worth it.”

The train stopped miles from San Regina. They walked the rest of the way, following a dirt path overgrown with vines and silence.

When they reached the outskirts of the town, Aeryn froze.

San Regina was now ghost town.

The buildings were collapsed, moss-covered. The windows shattered. Jungle vines swallowed stone and steel alike. Yet in the center of the ruin stood the chapel—weathered, blackened by fire, but still standing.

Aeryn’s feet moved on their own.

She stepped through the ruined archway.

Inside, sunlight poured through holes in the ceiling, illuminating cracked pews and a shattered altar. Ash coated everything. But beneath the dust, a faint red glow pulsed from the center of the altar.

Lior watched the door. “I’ll keep guard.”

Aeryn approached the altar slowly. Her fingers brushed aside the ash.

And there it was.

A fragment of a heart-shaped pendant, split in two. Embedded within was a glowing Baybayin character: Alaala — memory.

As soon as her skin touched it, a jolt of energy surged through her.

She saw a memory not her own.

A girl knelt in this same chapel, once pristine and full of lilies. She wore a wedding dress and clutched the hands of a boy with a scar along his jaw.

They laughed. Whispered. Kissed.

And then—the door burst open.

Soldiers stormed in. The Queen herself followed, younger, her eyes wild with betrayal. She raised her blade and struck.

The scene froze as the girl screamed.

And Aeryn saw Queen Xrydia weeping afterward, holding the broken pendant in her bloodied hands.

Aeryn gasped and fell back.

The pendant fragment glowed brightly now, absorbed into her shard.

The first key was hers.

She ran to Lior. “I have it! The first fragment.”

But before he could respond, a voice crackled through the chapel:

“TARGET CONFIRMED. FEMALE. PRIORITY CAPTURE.”

Drones.

Dozens.

Black, humming, armed.

Aeryn’s eyes widened. “They tracked us!”

Lior grabbed her arm. “Run!”

They bolted through the chapel’s side entrance, scrambling over roots and rubble as the drones opened fire. Red lasers burned the air around them.

Aeryn ducked behind a collapsed statue. “We’ll never outrun them!”

Lior pulled something from his jacket—a pulse grenade.

“Cover your ears.”

He tossed it high into the air.

BOOM.

A shockwave burst outward, disabling the drones in a scream of static.

The jungle went silent.

They ran until their lungs burned and their legs threatened to give way.

They collapsed beneath a cluster of bamboo, gasping.

Aeryn looked at Lior’s arm.

He was bleeding—badly.

“You’re hit,” she said, tearing part of her sleeve to wrap the wound.

“I’ve had worse,” he muttered, gritting his teeth.

She looked at the wound. Her fingers brushed the mirror shard.

Suddenly, light poured from the shard—warm, golden, gentle.

Lior’s cut began to close before her eyes.

He stared at her.

“You can heal now?”

“Not me,” Aeryn said softly. “The Mirror.”

He reached out, cupping her hand.

For a moment, the world stilled.

They were not fugitives. Not enemies. Just a boy and a girl beneath the stars.

“I don’t care if it’s illegal,” Lior whispered. “I love you.”

Aeryn’s breath caught.

And then—

The mirror shard burned red.

Not with warmth.

With warning.

Back at the capital, Queen Xrydia stood before her blackened throne. Her commanders kneeled before her, heads bowed.

One of them trembled. “Your Majesty... the girl retrieved the first key.”

Xrydia’s fingers curled around the hilt of her ceremonial blade.

“I felt it,” she whispered. “The pendant she touched... it was once mine.”

Another commander spoke. “Shall we deploy the Hollow Knights?”

“No,” she said, her voice like a whip. “Send someone she trusts. Someone from her past.”

“Who?”

A long pause.

Then, a cold smile.

“Kael.”

Back in the jungle, Aeryn and Lior reached an abandoned research outpost—a ruin from the old Republic days. They barricaded the doors and collapsed on makeshift beds made from broken stretchers.

Lior dozed off quickly, exhaustion claiming him.

Aeryn couldn’t sleep.

She stared at the glowing shard. The symbol for Alaala burned softly inside it.

She thought of the Queen’s memory—the chapel, the love, the betrayal.

And for the first time, she realized something: Xrydia hadn’t always hated love.

She had once fought for it.

Then she had lost it.

And now... she punished others for having what she could not.

Aeryn whispered to the shard. “What happened to you?”

The shard responded—not with words, but with visions.

Xrydia in a mirror-world gown, dancing with a man beneath a rain of petals.

The same man lying in blood.

A shattered mirror.

A crown forged from grief.

Just as Aeryn was about to drift off, the air shimmered beside her.

A figure stepped from the shadows.

Tall. Graceful. Familiar.

“Kael?” she breathed.

He smiled, stepping into the moonlight.

But something was wrong.

His eyes weren’t mismatched anymore.

Both were silver.

He reached out. “You found the first key. That’s wonderful.”

“How are you here?”

“I followed the connection. The Mirror responds to strong bonds.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You never told me you knew Queen Xrydia.”

His smile faltered.

“I only remembered recently,” he said. “We’re... connected. I was her guardian once. Before she fell.”

Aeryn stood. “Why are you here now?”

“To help you, of course.”

But her instincts screamed.

Something in Kael’s stance. His tone. Too perfect. Too calm.

And then she saw it.

The mark behind his ear—a royal command seal.

Her blood turned to ice.

“You’re not here to help,” she whispered. “You’re here to watch me.”

Kael’s expression darkened.

“I didn’t want it to be this way, Aeryn.”

He stepped forward.

She raised the shard.

Its light flared.

Kael hissed and staggered back, vanishing in a ripple of shadow.

Lior woke with a start. “What happened?”

Aeryn stood shaking, the shard glowing bright in her hand.

“The Queen knows,” she said. “And now she’s using him.”

End of Chapter 3