Chapter Three: The Mirror that Remembers

Elara woke with a scream lodged in her throat.

She sat up in the narrow bed, clutching the sheets like a lifeline. Her skin was clammy. Her breath, shallow and quick. The dream had been too vivid more memory than imagination. She saw herself not herself standing before a burning sky, a blade dripping with blood in one hand and a glowing shard in the other. People were screaming. Names she didn't recognize echoed in her skull. One stood out.

Lyra.

The name wasn't just a whisper anymore. It was a weight. A heartbeat in her bones.

"Elara?" a soft voice asked.

She turned to find Rhys standing at the door. His silhouette was framed by the flickering torchlight. Concern carved itself into the sharp lines of his face.

"Another dream?" he asked gently.

She nodded, wiping her brow. "More than that. I... saw someone. A version of me, I think. She looked… furious. Terrifying."

"That's her," Rhys said. "That's Lyra."

Elara swung her legs over the side of the bed. "You said she's dead."

"She is. But death doesn't erase power. Not hers."

....

By midmorning, Elara stood in a towering chamber carved from black stone and bonewood. At the far end loomed thirty obsidian mirrors, each standing ten feet tall. They gave off no reflection just a subtle pulsing shimmer, like they breathed in time with the world.

Maevan stood beside one of the mirrors, muttering something in a language that made the air hum. Cael watched from a distance, arms crossed, his expression unreadable.

"This is the Mirror Hall," Maevan said without looking at her. "Each of these mirrors holds an echo of someone who touched them during a resonance. Most show only fragments. But one Lyra's mirror responded the moment you arrived."

"Echoes?" Elara repeated, staring into the obsidian glass.

"Not reflections," Cael cut in. "They're soul shadows. Memories locked in light."

Rhys gestured toward the third mirror on the left. "That one shimmered when you first stepped foot in the Sanctum."

Elara approached it cautiously. As she drew near, the mirror rippled like water. She felt a tingle across her fingertips, then a strange gravity like the glass was pulling her in.

And then she saw her.

Or rather, someone who wore her face. But it wasn't Elara not entirely.

This woman stood tall and poised. Her violet eyes glowed like twin stars. Her cloak billowed as if caught in invisible wind, and her skin was marked with faint, silver runes pulsing in rhythm with her breath.

Elara's knees weakened. "That's Lyra."

The figure in the mirror stared back and then she moved.

She stepped forward, close to the glass, and spoke.

Her voice was layered Elara's voice, but deeper, echoing with something ancient.

"If you are watching this, then I am gone, and the fracture has begun."

"The Marastrin will rise again. They will come for the Echo that is, for you."

"You are my contingency, Elara. My gamble. The one soul strong enough to carry the shard of me that remains. But you must understand: this isn't just inheritance. It's fusion."

"Resist me, and you will burn. Embrace me, and you may lose yourself."

"Choose wisely. Because the traitor who gave me up still lives and they will try to finish what they started."

The image flickered then vanished.

The mirror turned black again.

.....

The silence afterward was suffocating.

Elara backed away, breath trembling.

"She knew this would happen," she whispered.

Rhys nodded. "She foresaw a future where her death wasn't the end. She built this message as a safeguard."

"Who is the traitor?" Elara asked. "Do you know?"

Cael stepped forward, scowling. "There were theories. Lyra had enemies—even among the Sanctum. When she refused to hand over the Mirror Keys to the High Order, she was branded a heretic."

Maevan's voice was low, almost reverent. "One of us gave up her location. Someone she trusted."

Elara clenched her fists. "Then we find them."

"It's not that simple," Maevan warned. "The traitor erased their trace from the archive. Even the mirrors won't reveal it… unless your resonance with Lyra deepens."

"You want me to merge with her more?" Elara asked. "What if she takes over?"

Rhys looked away. "That's the risk. Her essence is ancient and powerful. But it's incomplete. You're still... you."

"Then let's keep it that way," she muttered.

...….

That night, she couldn't sleep.

The mirror's message looped in her mind. Every word etched like fire behind her eyes. Finally, she slipped from bed and returned to the Mirror Hall. The Sanctum was quiet too quiet.

She found herself in front of the mirror again, drawn like a moth to flame.

This time, when she touched it, she was pulled in.

...….

Vision: Lyra's Last Memory

The world around her spun. Heat. Screams. Smoke curling from burning sky.

Elara or Lyra stood in the Sanctum Tower, blood on her fingertips, runes glowing beneath her skin.

She was dying. But she didn't care.

A figure stepped out of the smoke cloaked, hooded. Familiar. A face she once kissed. Trusted.

"You don't have to do this, Lyra," the figure said.

She laughed, broken and bitter. "You already made that choice for me. When you gave them the sigil. When you sold me to the Red Vows."

"They said you'd bring destruction. That your soul had split."

"I was trying to save us. I cracked the Mirror to stop the fracture."

"You became something else," he said softly. "Something monstrous."

Lyra raised her hand. A blade formed of moonlight and shadow. "Then pray I die here. Or I'll come back in a thousand lives. And I'll remember."

He lunged.

She fell.

But not before placing her bloodied hand on the mirror, whispering:

"Find me, in another life. One where the sky burns again. One where we finish what they started."

...….

Back in the Present

Elara gasped as she was yanked from the vision, falling hard onto the stone floor.

Rhys was there in seconds, helping her up. "You saw something."

"I saw her death. I saw who betrayed her."

Her voice cracked. "And I don't know what's worse that I recognized him… or that I think he's still in the Sanctum."