The narrow corridor they led her through seemed to throb with secrets.
Torchlight danced off the damp, uneven stone walls, revealing faded etchings symbols Elara didn't recognize but instinctively knew were ancient. Her fingertips brushed one: an eye inside a seven-pointed star. Her stomach flipped, a cold thread of memory slithering just out of reach.
"They're warding glyphs," said Maevan behind her, reading her curiosity. "Lyra carved them herself. To keep out what hunts the blood-bound."
Elara turned slowly. "What does hunt me?"
Cael grunted. "You don't want to know. And if you did, it would already be too late."
Before she could respond, Rhys placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You'll be safe here. The wards haven't failed. Yet."
That word yet sliced deeper than any blade.
At the end of the corridor, an arched doorway opened into a vast domed chamber unlike anything Elara had imagined.
Rows upon rows of ancient books towered overhead on wooden scaffolds, stitched together with vines glowing faintly with residual magic. Crystal orbs floated midair, emitting soft pulses of light, and at the heart of the chamber was an enormous map etched into the stone floor, its veins glowing silver and violet like they were alive.
"This…" she whispered, eyes wide. "This is…"
"Lyra's Sanctum," Maevan finished. "She built it, protected it, filled it. No one else knew the full extent of what she kept here. Not even us."
Elara's footsteps slowed as she stepped onto the map. At its center pulsed a mirror-shaped sigil split in half with a crack that glowed faintly. The same image she'd seen on the book. The same image she couldn't get out of her mind.
"The Mirror of Aram," she murmured.
The others froze.
Rhys tilted his head. "How did you know that?"
"I " She shook her head, rubbing her temples. "I don't. I just… remembered."
"You remembered something Lyra never told anyone," Maevan said softly, studying her.
"I didn't mean to."
"It means the merge is accelerating," Maevan said gravely. "More of her is bleeding into you."
"No." Elara stepped back. "I'm not her. I'm me. I didn't choose this."
Cael crossed his arms. "That's the thing about magic this old. It doesn't care what you chose."
She clenched her fists. She had to hold on. To stay grounded. But something about the chamber made her skin prickle. It was like stepping into someone else's mind—and finding it full of locked doors and ticking clocks.
They brought her to a stone table scattered with yellowing notes and sketches. Drawings of the mirror appeared again and again. One page showed a figure standing inside the mirror, hand outstretched.
Elara stared at it, her breath catching.
The figure wore her face.
Rhys noticed. "That was drawn weeks before Lyra died."
Maevan opened an aged leather book. "We think she foresaw something. Maybe even you."
"That's not possible."
"Neither is soul fusion between realms," Maevan said without looking up. "And yet, here we are."
A deep boom echoed through the Sanctum. Elara staggered slightly. Her heartbeat was too loud, too fast.
And then,
The vision struck like lightning.
.....
Fire roared through a tower of glass and books.
Lyra no, she was running through a corridor. Behind her, figures cloaked in red armor pursued, chanting in a language her ears didn't know but her mind understood. A word kept repeating.
"Marastrin."
She skidded into a chamber. The mirror loomed massive, fractured, humming like a god about to wake. She raised her hand, chanting, bleeding. The glyphs in her skin glowed.
One figure caught up slashed
And darkness.
.....
She snapped back into her body with a scream.
Rhys caught her before she hit the floor. "Elara! What did you see?"
She couldn't breathe. "The mirror. They were trying to stop her me I don't know. They used the word… Marastrin."
Cael went rigid. "That's a forbidden incantation. Old Magic. Pre-Epoch."
Maevan whispered something and turned pages in the tome. Her eyes narrowed. "It wasn't a spell. It was a name."
Rhys looked at Elara. "You didn't just cross worlds. You crossed into a prophecy."
Elara pushed away from him, rising to her feet, her voice trembling. "No. I am not a chosen one. I am nobody. I write code. I hate cold pizza. I can't even drive a car!"
She slammed her hand on the table and every crystal in the room pulsed once.
Then died.
Total blackness swallowed the Sanctum.
Silence.
Then…
Whispers…
Not from any of them. From the walls. The shadows.
"Lyra… the Echo returns…"
Maevan hissed a ward. The crystals flickered back to life.
Elara looked around in horror. "What was that?"
Cael answered grimly. "Something that noticed you."
She clutched the table edge. Her heart thundered. She was unraveling—inside and out.
Maevan approached slowly. "You said Lyra died."
"Yes," Elara whispered.
"How?"
"I don't know. She was stabbed."
"By whom?"
Elara looked up. "By me."
...…
They didn't sleep that night.
Maevan brewed a tea laced with rootbane and dreamleaf to dampen further soul resonance. It dulled the edges of Elara's panic, but it didn't silence the voice in her head.
Not Lyra's voice her own. Asking the questions she didn't want to answer.
What had Lyra done?
Why did she call Elara here?
And most importantly…
How much longer could Elara stay herself?
As her eyelids fluttered shut, she felt it again.
That lurking sensation in the back of her mind.
Not like a ghost or memory. But a presence.
Waiting…