The Citadel rose like a scar from the earth, black stone twisted by age and magic. Once the royal mage academy, now just bones and secrets. Zaire had burned part of it the night they exiled him.
Funny how the ashes are still remembered.
"We shouldn't be here in daylight," Lirien whispered, crouched behind a collapsed pillar near the west wing.
"You burned half this place down. They'll recognize the smell of your blood."
"Good," Zaire muttered. "Let them come."
Kael adjusted the runes glowing along his cracked spectacles. "This place used to hum with spells. Now it just… murmurs."
They moved as a trio. Lirien ahead, Zaire in the center, Kael dragging his bad leg behind. Each of them broke in different ways. But for once, the fractures fit.
Zaire pressed a palm to the scorched stone wall of the central courtyard.
Beneath his skin, the old glyphs flickered faintly. Violet. Angry.
This place remembered him.
Suddenly, the glyphs shifted.
From welcoming…
To warn.
"We're not alone," he said.
Lirien vanished before the second word left his lips.
Kael pulled a vial of ash from his belt and whispered a binding chant.
The silence cracked.
From the far corridor, footsteps echoed, calm, deliberate. Not rushed.
Zaire turned, blade half-drawn.
And saw a child.
A girl no older than twelve, barefoot, wearing a bloodstained white cloak stitched with thorns. Her eyes were white. Not pale. White — like they had been scraped clean.
She carried a single scroll in her hand, sealed with black wax.
"He awaits you," the girl said softly, eyes never blinking.
"The Mirror Lord sends greetings… and a warning."
Lirien reappeared beside Zaire, two daggers drawn.
"What is this? A trap?"
The girl didn't flinch.
"He knows you've awakened. He knows you seek the girl. And he says to tell the Ghost Prince…"
She looked directly at Zaire, and her voice changed, became Eira's voice.
"…she's not who you left behind."
Zaire's knees nearly buckled.
Kael caught him by the shoulder.
"Memory mimicry," he hissed. "Advanced. Only high conjurers can do that."
"That voice," Zaire said, teeth clenched. "That laugh. That was hers."
The girl smiled and began bleeding from the eyes.
Her body convulsed. The scroll dropped to the ground, sizzling as it landed. Zaire rushed forward, catching her before she collapsed.
"Please," the girl whispered. "Kill me. I don't want to hear her scream anymore…"
Then she died.
Just like that.
No magic flash. No curse. Just silence.
Zaire stood frozen, her blood soaking into his coat.
Lirien knelt beside the body, shaking her head.
"They're using children as vessels now. That's not desperation, that's confidence."
Kael picked up the scroll carefully. He broke the seal and unrolled it. A single sentence burned into the parchment:
"Bring us the prince, or we'll bring back her soul… piece by piece."
Zaire turned away, fists clenched so hard his nails drew blood.
"They have her. They're using her memories to send messages. Torturing her mind to break mine."
"It's working," Kael said flatly. "You're unraveling."
"I'm adapting," Zaire growled. "I won't fall apart. Not again."
Lirien stood.
"Then let's hit back."
She walked to the far side of the ruined courtyard and opened a hidden panel in the floor, a door made of living obsidian. Blood runes pulsed around its edges.
"There's an old warlock who defected from the cult. Goes by the name Revyn. Third sidekick, if we're desperate enough. Mad as a bat and twice as violent."
"Sounds perfect," Zaire said.
Kael groaned. "We're actually doing this."
Zaire stepped into the obsidian stairwell, each step humming beneath his boots.
"If they want the prince," he said coldly, "then let's remind them what it cost to exile me."
"And what it'll cost to touch her again."