The mirror had never lied to her. But it hadn't told her the truth either.
Aethra sat in the center of her room—if one could call a hexagonal chamber of violet crystal and starlit glass a room—and stared at her reflection. Her pale skin shimmered faintly under the runes inscribed across the dome above. Her long midnight-black hair coiled around her shoulders like silk shadows. And her eyes... one was moonstone silver, the other obsidian black, shifting like a whirlpool.
They hadn't always been that way.
She once thought the split was a curse. Now she wasn't sure if it was a gift, or a warning.
> "Rizz… Isaac…"
The names haunted her.
They shouldn't have. She had never met them—not truly. But when the world had cracked open during her Awakening, and the mirrored gate inside her soul burst into light, she had seen both boys. Not in memory. Not in vision.
But in truth.
> "Two pillars. One fire. One mirror. And me… the shadow between them."
Her Awakening had been different from the others at her academy. The Headmaster had called in three Grand Elders to contain the reaction. The skies had turned violet for seven seconds across the continent. Portals had opened and closed in an instant around her body, whispering in ancient tongues.
And when it was over, her soul-path crystal didn't just glow.
It shattered.
Not from failure—but from excess.
There was no name for her element. The record books said it had never existed.
"Voidlight," one elder had muttered. "No… that's wrong. This is Soul Vein Mirrorcraft. A path once walked by angels of the Final Era. Before the fall."
And with that, they sealed her identity.
She was locked away. Not as a prisoner, but as a "protected talent."
Yet Aethra knew what she was. She was a problem. A variable. A prophecy, perhaps.
Her mentor, Master Reil, had said gently, "Power that walks both heavens and hell is never born without consequence."
Now, as she sat alone, she felt that power again. Pulsing inside her ribcage like a second heartbeat. The echo of Rizz's divine flame. The chill of Isaac's distorted soul.
They were getting closer.
Not in distance—but in fate.
> "I was born after the Mirror Broke," she whispered, tracing the crescent mark under her collarbone. "They say no one remembers what shattered it. But I do. I saw it in the void between my dreams."
The Mirror wasn't a thing. It was a barrier. A veil. A reflection that had kept the world of Atlan in balance, hiding the truth of the twin realms beneath it—Elarion and Noctis. One of light. One of shadow. Once whole. Now torn.
Aethra's powers didn't come from either realm. They came from the breach between them.
And someone was beginning to tear it open again.
Her eyes snapped upward as a ripple shook her chamber. Magical wards dimmed. The violet lights flickered. Then silence.
Until she heard a voice—not spoken aloud, but etched directly into her mind.
> "You're not alone anymore."
She stood. Bare feet on the crystal floor. Breath shallow. Pulse steady.
> "Isaac?" she whispered.
No answer. But the mirror before her shimmered.
It showed not her own face… but his.
Eyes silver and black. Not identical to hers—but complementary.
> "We're awakening together," she whispered, a mixture of fear and wonder blooming inside her. "But… who will I be when we all meet?"
She walked forward, and as she placed her palm on the mirror's surface, a soft light emerged beneath her skin—lines of glowing script, ancient and beautiful, wrapping from her palm to her shoulder.
A language lost to both gods and demons.
Soul-script.
Then, a second image shimmered behind Isaac's—Rizz.
Wings of light and darkness folded behind his back, his forest-blue eyes staring not at her, but through her. Not cold. Not cruel. But aware.
> "You… knew I would come," Aethra breathed.
And behind them both, she saw the third shadow forming.
Something older. Greater.
> "A force is gathering them," she said. "Us."
As if in answer, the mirror cracked.
A single fracture. But enough.
Aethra stepped back.
> "I need to leave."
The walls of her chamber lit up with red sigils. Alarms. Detainment codes. Her guardians would come in seconds.
But she didn't wait.
Aethra raised her hand and called upon the mirror-light within her soul. Her shadow unraveled. Her form flickered. The crystal dome groaned.
Then—boom.
A flash of silver and black tore the ceiling apart.
And when the dust settled, she was gone.
Only the mirror remained, cracked… and glowing.
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