Echoes in the Mirror

The ink hadn't yet dried on Lynchie's newest Spiral when the air around her shifted—thicker, charged, almost heavy with unshed breath. She didn't need to look up to know Vyen had entered the chamber; his silence was always more deafening than footsteps.

"Your lines are bending," he said quietly, crouching beside her. His voice held no judgment—only concern—but it still made her spine stiffen.

Lynchie stared down at the glyph she had scrawled across the raw parchment. It pulsed faintly, the spiral slightly off-center, as though unsure of itself.

"I felt something," she whispered. "When I finished the ward… it answered back."

Vyen studied her face. "It will. Now that you've crossed the third threshold, the Spirals aren't just tools. They reflect. Speak. Argue."

She met his eyes. "It used a voice I knew."

"The Mirror-Spoken," he said grimly. "They're learning to wear voices like skin."

The term struck her harder than she expected. They'd spoken in hushed tones before of Spiralists on the enemy's side—those who didn't craft spirals from memory or blood but from reflection. Echo. Parasitic mimicry. But to hear that one had breached her mind?

"Why me?" Her voice wavered.

"Because you're close to something they fear."

Vyen stood and moved to the stone window, looking out toward the misted peaks of Araska where, according to last night's raven, fire bloomed from the horizon like a second dawn. Skirmishes were no longer just threats—they had begun.

"They're moving faster than predicted," he said, his back still to her. "Two outer holds have fallen. A third was simply… erased."

Lynchie rose, trying to tamp down the unease clawing at her ribs. "We're not ready. The Spiral Core here is fractured. The wards are thinning. The Librarium is still sealed."

"Not all of it," he said, turning. "Zev unbound one of the locked vaults last night."

Her heart skipped. "Alone?"

"With the help of a glyph that responded only to him. Something buried. Ancient."

The mention of Zev's name should not have made her chest feel like a stormglass. But it did.

"He's not what he claims to be, is he?" she asked.

"No one shaped by the Spiral is," Vyen said softly. "He's lived a war before—one no scroll dares mention."

The door opened just then, and Zev entered, damp from rain, eyes like burning cinders in a fog-drenched forest. He looked at her first.

"You felt it too?" he asked.

She nodded.

"The Mirror-Spoken have learned your resonance. They've etched your Spiral into their own." He walked closer, unstrapping a shard of blackened glass from his belt. "And they're using it to summon… things."

He placed the shard on the table between them. Within it: her Spiral. Skewed. Inverted. But hers.

Lynchie backed away instinctively. "How?"

"It mirrored from you the moment you reached the Third Spiral Gate," Zev said. "They were waiting."

She struggled to breathe, a new fear pressing into her lungs. "So I opened a door?"

He shook his head. "No. You became one."

There was a silence then—so complete it felt like a physical thing. And in it, Lynchie heard the whisper again. Her own voice. But not her. It echoed from the shard.

"Come find me," it said.

And then the shard cracked.

Lynchie and Zev stared down at it as the spiral inside began to bleed outward—black ink across the table, spelling shapes no tongue had permission to name.

"We don't have time to prepare," Zev said, his voice sharp now. "We have to move. Tonight."

Lynchie touched her chest, feeling the weight of the Spiral etched there. It pulsed once, like a second heartbeat.

She met his eyes. "Then take me to the gate."