The Mirror Inside
Rain lashed the crystal windows of the Elaran observatory, drumming like war drums in the dark. Rico sat beside the hearth, the mirror box open on the table between him and Lyra. Neither spoke. Not at first.
The silence was thicker than the storm.
Lyra's knuckles were white around the hilt of her dagger. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I didn't know," Rico replied. "Until the mirror showed us both."
Lyra's voice cracked. "You think I'm... him? Vorr?"
"No," Rico said quickly. "I think you were used—like me. I think you carry something you didn't choose."
"I don't feel like myself anymore." She pushed the mirror away. "What if I'm just a ticking weapon?"
"Then we'll disarm it. Together."
The logs cracked in the fireplace, as if punctuating the vow.
But deep down, Rico knew what this meant.
If Vorr embedded a part of his soul into Lyra—if she was the seventh vessel—then their bond wasn't just a coincidence. It was a calculated design.
And Zhara knew it.
---
Somewhere beneath Elaran, in the tunnels that once served as Vorr's escape routes, Zhara Vayne knelt beside a pool of black ether. Shadows danced around her as the voice in her comm-stone returned.
"Has she awakened yet?" the voice asked.
"Not fully," Zhara said. "But soon. The mirror accelerated it."
"Then it's time."
Zhara dipped her fingers into the ether, chanting softly. "I call forth the Sentinel. Break the pact. Awaken the soul inside the vessel."
The pool shimmered—then exploded in a burst of black flame.
Zhara stood back as a creature rose from the void. Ten feet tall, draped in armor forged of regret, its face a mask of shifting memories. The Sentinel.
Its presence warped the air.
"She must be tested," Zhara said.
The Sentinel nodded once—and vanished into the shadows.
---
Back in the observatory, Rico and Lyra were preparing to leave for a hidden sanctuary Kethron had mapped for them—an old Alchemist bastion buried beneath the ice valleys of Iretal.
"You sure this place exists?" Lyra asked, strapping a pack to her shoulder.
"If it doesn't, we're screwed," Rico replied.
Before they could exit, the ground trembled.
Then the door shattered.
The Sentinel entered.
Lyra instinctively reached for her daggers. Rico drew a glyph-saber from his belt.
The creature didn't speak. It only pointed at Lyra—and the room around them began to bend.
Walls melted into memories. The fire turned to blood. The stars through the window became eyes.
Rico shouted, "Mental plane projection! He's dragging us into her head!"
---
Suddenly, they were no longer in the observatory.
They were in a twisted version of the orphanage where Lyra once grew up.
Except… it was on fire.
Children screamed in frozen stasis. The matron lay dead at the foot of the stairs. And standing in the center of it all was a younger version of Lyra—wearing Vorr's robes, hands covered in blood.
"No," Lyra whispered. "This didn't happen."
The Sentinel stepped out of the shadows behind the young Lyra. "Memory or premonition. You decide."
Rico growled. "Leave her out of this."
"She is the seventh," the Sentinel replied. "She must embrace or extinguish the soul within. If she doesn't choose, the soul will choose for her."
The scene shifted again—this time, to the lab where Rico once created flame-dust.
His greatest sin.
His hands moved automatically in the vision, reliving it. The explosion. The child's scream. The silence afterward.
Lyra grabbed his shoulder. "That's not who you are anymore."
Rico turned to her. "Then don't be who you were made to be, either."
---
The world shattered.
They woke back in the observatory, gasping.
The Sentinel was gone.
But in his place stood Zhara, arms crossed.
"You survived the test," she said. "Impressive."
"Was that you?" Lyra asked.
Zhara ignored the question. "You're not ready yet. But you're getting close."
Rico pulled a frost-bomb from his belt. "I'm done playing your games."
"You shouldn't be," Zhara said, stepping forward. "Because the more you dig into Vorr's past, the more you'll see that this was never just about being renounced."
"What does that mean?" Rico asked.
Zhara tossed him a scroll. "It means someone else is moving the pieces now."
She disappeared into smoke.
---
They opened the scroll that night.
It wasn't written in ink—but blood magic. Rico could only read parts of it using a translation glyph.
It was a prophecy. A code.
> When the seventh vessel awakens and the alchemist weeps for his sins, the Eye of Vorr shall open again—and the earth shall kneel.
Lyra closed the scroll. "He meant for us to do this. Everything. Even your renouncement."
Rico sat down hard. "This entire path… might be his final experiment."
"But if we know that," Lyra said, "maybe we can change the outcome."
"Or fall exactly into his hands."
Silence.
Then Lyra reached for his hand. "We choose what we become. Not Vorr. Not fate."
Rico nodded slowly. "Then we have one option left."
"What?"
"We go to the Bastion."
---
The next day, they rode windsleds through the stormy peaks of Iretal. Snow blasted their faces, and the sun was a pale blur through the mist.
At the edge of a cliff, the runes Kethron provided lit up.
Beneath the snow, a giant steel door hissed open.
Inside was the Bastion.
A lost sanctuary of Alchemists, buried for decades after the Purge. Within its frozen halls were labs, libraries, and weapons forged in forgotten tongues.
Here, they could finally plan.
Here, they could fight back.
---
They explored for hours.
One room held a vault sealed with six rings—each marked with the name of an artifact.
Except the seventh wasn't named.
It simply said:
"The Living One."
Rico looked at Lyra.
She didn't flinch. "We need to open it."
"You sure?"
She walked up to the vault and placed her hand on it.
The rings began to turn.
One by one.
The vault hissed open.
Inside was a sarcophagus. Glass. Filled with stasis liquid.
And inside... was a second Lyra.
Rico staggered back. "What the hell?"
Lyra's voice was cold. "She's the original vessel."
"You're a clone?" he asked.
"No. I'm the fragment that escaped."
The sarcophagus started to crack.
Lyra screamed and clutched her head.
Rico moved toward her, but she pushed him back. "She's waking up. Vorr... hid his true soul in her. I'm just a shadow."
"What do we do?"
"We kill her before she becomes him."
"But—"
"DO IT!"
The clone's eyes snapped open—bright red.
She smiled.
"Hello, Rico."
---