My dreams that night were not my own.
I stood in a hallway of endless doors, each marked with a rune glowing gold. Behind every one, a voice whispered.
Some begged.
Some laughed.
Some wept.
But only one door called my name.
"Seraphina…"
It was the same voice from the mirror. Soft. Familiar.
I reached for the handle
But before I could open it, a second voice, colder and far more real, snapped me awake.
"Rise."
Before Dawn Master Nocten stood at the edge of the stone arena, cloak sweeping behind him like smoke.
He didn't greet me. Just tossed a blade to the ground at my feet.
"No runes. No spells. Just instinct."
I blinked. "You're training a Spellweaver to fight without magic?"
"Magic is fragile. Instinct keeps you alive."
I picked up the dagger.
We sparred in silence steel on stone, breath sharp in the chill. He struck like lightning, and every time I blocked him, he pushed harder.
Finally, I slipped blade knocked from my hand, his boot against my wrist.
"You hesitate," he said. "You calculate too much. Out there, you'll die thinking."
I glared up at him. "I survived death once already."
He paused. Just a flicker. Then stepped back and offered his hand.
I didn't take it.
Instead, I stood on my own.
He said nothing but I caught the faintest tilt of his mask. Approval, maybe.
Or amusement.
That Afternoon The Third Division students weren't allowed in the lower levels of the Academy.
Naturally, that made me want to go.
I waited until nightfall. Dressed in black. Carried a rune-invisible lantern stolen from the alchemy labs.
A locked gate guarded the spiral stairs beneath the western wing. But I traced a bypass sigil from memory one I'd seen in my mother's reflection and the lock gave with a sigh.
The stone steps wound downward… and downward… until the air thickened, and the magic in my blood shivered.
At the bottom lay a hallway of blackened stone. No guards. Just a single iron door. And an old plaque:
>
The Whispering Vault.
Enter not the name bound. Leave not with the soul chained.
Cryptic. Chilling.
Naturally, I opened it.
It was colder than any dungeon I'd ever stepped into. Runes lit the walls in faint red pulses containment glyphs. Not to trap people.
To trap magic.
Chained to a high-backed stone chair in the center was a man in tattered robes. His hair was black, shot with silver. A blindfold covered his eyes. His wrists were etched with glowing restraints that fed into the floor itself.
His voice echoed before I could speak.
"Ah. The girl with the dead mother's blood."
I froze.
"You've come early," he continued. "That was… unexpected."
I stepped forward. "Who are you?"
He smiled. "A prisoner. A prophet. A liar. Depends who's asking."
"Then I'm all three."
He tilted his head. "Very good. You have her fire."
"My mother?"
He nodded slowly. "Seraphina Dorne. A Spellweaver of the Second Circle. Hero to some. Curse to others."
"That's not her name—"
"It was. Before she married into your father's house. Before they erased her."
I felt the floor tilt beneath me. Everything I believed… was fractured glass.
"What happened to her?"
"She broke a rule. A sacred one. She tried to change her fate and the Church burned her memory for it."
I clenched my fists. "I saw her in the mirror."
His lips twitched. "Then the mirror remembers."
"You knew her."
"I loved her."
The words struck me like thunder. "What?"
He smiled sadly. "Not the way you think, child. I trained her. As I will train you if you dare."
He raised his bound hands. "But the first lesson is this: Power without memory is just a weapon. Find the mirror that remembers. Find the gate that bleeds. Or you'll die again."
My blood ran cold.
"How do you know I've died?"
He laughed, soft and broken. "Because only the reborn bleed gold when they're afraid."
I looked down.
My rune was glowing.
And so were my hands.
I returned before curfew, heart still pounding, mind spiraling.
The name: Seraphina Dorne.
The prophecy.
The gate that bleeds.
The Whispering Vault hadn't just held a prisoner.
It held the truth.
Someone who knew me better than I did.