In the heart of the mirrored chamber, Isaac stood at the edge of a portal he couldn't see—only feel.
It was like standing before an ocean made of thought. The world around him shimmered like heat rising from stone. The walls of his containment had vanished after Safa had left with a cryptic message:
> "You've drawn attention. Now, they'll come for you."
He didn't know who they were.
But he knew the pressure that came next—pressure like a storm breathing down the back of his neck. The very air twisted with subtle timelines, futures folding into one another. His right eye—the silver one—had stopped blinking entirely. It watched everything.
Through that eye, he saw pieces.
A girl, blood on her wrist, standing in front of a crumbling cathedral.
A boy with wings, surrounded by both angels and enemies.
Himself… in a room full of broken mirrors, holding a blade of light in one hand and shadow in the other.
He backed away from the invisible line where the visions began, heart pounding.
"Don't look too long into the mirror," a voice whispered.
He turned.
Aethra stood there.
Not a dream. Not a vision. She was real.
She wore a black coat that clung to her thin frame, her dark hair tied loosely behind her. Her left arm shimmered strangely, wrapped in what looked like threads of starlight. Her wrist still bore the faded scar where her seal had once burned open.
"Aethra…" Isaac breathed.
"I felt the pull," she said, stepping toward him, her boots silent on the crystalline floor. "When I woke up… I knew there was someone else like me."
Isaac's lips twitched. "Like us, you mean."
They stood across from each other now, uncertain. Drawn together not by logic—but by something deeper. Something imprinted into their souls.
Aethra looked up at him, her eyes unblinking. "Your seal. It's unstable."
"I know."
"And your eye… it's not just silver. It's reflective. You're seeing time echoes."
He nodded slowly. "And you… what did you see during your awakening?"
Aethra hesitated. "I saw a war."
She turned, raising her glowing arm. The chamber responded to her presence, glowing brighter.
"I saw angels burning. Cities shattered. Outworlders crawling from cracks in the sky. And above it all, three figures—one made of light, one of shadow, and one with both."
She faced him again. "I don't know which one I was."
Isaac's hand trembled at his side. "We're all part of something bigger. Safa told me I resonated with someone. A boy named Rizz. She said he was coming."
"I know," Aethra said quietly. "I felt him too."
Their gazes met, firm now. For the first time since either of them had awakened, the confusion seemed to fall away. There was fear still—of themselves, of what they might become—but beneath it…
Purpose.
A swirl of magic surged between them. Isaac's eye glowed; Aethra's arm burned.
And between them, the mirrored space began to crack.
Not physically, but metaphysically—a symbolic rupture as the divide between soulpaths narrowed.
A portal pulsed open.
Golden wings shimmered in the distance.
Rizz Almaus had arrived.
But it wasn't just Rizz stepping through the divine rift. Behind him came something else. A pressure that made Aethra recoil instinctively and Isaac brace himself.
The void stirred.
The divine pushed back.
And in the middle of it, Rizz stood still.
His wings spread wide—one luminous, one shadowed—his expression unreadable, but his seal burning fiercely against his chest.
He looked at Isaac.
He looked at Aethra.
And then… he smiled.
"I found you," he said.
Aethra narrowed her eyes. "So you're the mirror?"
"I'm what's on the other side," Rizz replied.
Isaac stepped forward slowly, the tension thickening in the chamber. "Why now?"
"Because the Shard of Veritas has awakened," Rizz said. "And we're bound to it."
A sudden tremor rocked the space. The portal behind Rizz flickered.
"Others are coming," Rizz warned. "Cultists. Outworlders. They felt the resonance."
Isaac clenched his fists. "Then let's not wait."
Aethra raised her hand, and her seal pulsed like a dark star.
For the first time, the three of them stood side by side—each unique, each flawed, each chosen.
They didn't know what lay ahead.
But they knew this much:
The mirror had cracked.
And now…
The war would begin.
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