The silence wasn't empty. It throbbed.
Mae pressed a palm to her chest, trying to still the flutter in her ribcage. The night air outside her window was thick—humid, strange—as if something unseen had taken up residence in the darkness. It had been weeks since the dreams began. Every night, the same voice called to her from beyond a veil of fire and fog, whispering words in a language she didn't recognize but somehow understood.
She jolted upright in bed, breath ragged, sweat cooling on her skin. On the floor beside her, her Sphinx cat, Tinkles, lifted his wrinkled head and blinked once, slowly, knowingly. He'd been acting differently, too—more watchful. Less playful.
Mae swung her legs off the bed. Her fingertips tingled. For days now, her skin had felt charged, like lightning trapped beneath the surface. She padded to the mirror and stared at her reflection. Same heart-shaped face, same storm-gray eyes, same unruly waves of midnight hair. But tonight, her pupils were flecked with gold.
"Tinkles," she whispered, glancing at the cat as he leapt to the windowsill. "Something's happening again."
He meowed, short and sharp, then turned his gaze toward the woods.
The pull started in her feet—like roots reaching out for something hidden deep in the earth. It wasn't the first time. Ever since her thirteenth birthday, there had been moments like this. Moments when she wasn't sure if she was losing her mind or waking up from a long sleep.
She changed into jeans and boots, grabbed her jacket, and slipped quietly into the night.
The forest at the edge of town was dense, but Mae moved through it with ease, as if it welcomed her. Tinkles padded alongside her, surprisingly quiet for a cat. Moonlight filtered through the trees, painting silver onto the path ahead.
She didn't know where she was going. She never did. But her feet did.
As the trees thinned, she came upon the old chapel ruin—long forgotten by most in town. The roof had collapsed decades ago, and vines now clung to the stone walls like veins. The place pulsed with something ancient.
She hesitated, but Tinkles trotted forward and leapt through a gap in the wall.
Mae followed.
Inside, moss and moonlight draped the remains of pews and shattered stained glass. At the far end of the space, half-buried in earth and vine, stood a mirror unlike any she'd ever seen. Its frame was carved from dark wood, inlaid with symbols that hummed faintly with gold light. She stepped closer.
Her reflection stared back—but it wasn't quite her. The woman in the glass had her face, her eyes, her hair. But she stood taller, straighter, power humming through every line of her form. She wore black ceremonial robes stitched with silver threads, and behind her loomed a towering city of crystal and fire.
Mae reached out.
The moment her fingertips grazed the glass, everything shifted.
Heat. Light. Memory.
Images flooded her mind—flashes of battlefields soaked in twilight, wings unfurling in shadows, blood-red moons, and a man with obsidian eyes and a golden dragon coiled around his shoulders.
She gasped, stumbling back. Her hand was glowing. A sigil, etched in fire, burned on her palm. Not painfully—but as though awakening something old beneath the surface of her skin.
"Who are you?" she whispered to the mirror.
The reflection didn't answer. But she felt it. Felt her.
Inside her.
A whisper curled into her ear. Not from outside—from within.
"You are more than their story."
Mae turned, heart pounding. Someone was there.
From the far edge of the ruin, a figure stepped into the moonlight. A man—tall, lean, dressed in black with silver embroidery. His dark hair fell just past his jaw, and his eyes… they were familiar. Not because she'd seen them before, but because some part of her had always known they existed.
Lucien.
She didn't know how she knew his name. But it rang true.
"You weren't supposed to find this place yet," he said softly.
Mae's voice was dry. "Yet?"
Lucien walked forward, stopping just a few feet away. "The mirror is a gate. A relic from before the Veil fell. Only those with the Flame can activate it."
"The Flame?" Mae echoed.
Lucien's gaze dropped to her hand. "And it looks like you've already been marked."
Tinkles growled low, stepping between them.
Lucien's lips twitched into the faintest smile. "He remembers me."
"You know my cat?" Mae asked, incredulous.
"I know you," he said. "And I know what you are."
Mae crossed her arms. "That's funny, because I don't."
Lucien looked at her with something like sadness. "You're not just human. You were born of an old bond. Part human. Part wolf. Part night."
Mae blinked. "You mean…"
"Yes," Lucien said. "Hybrid."
Her knees nearly gave out.
All the strange things—her strength, her speed, her instincts—it all made a terrible, wonderful kind of sense.
"And you?" she asked.
Lucien touched the pendant at his neck. It shimmered briefly, shifting into the form of a coiled dragon before returning to its necklace shape.
"I'm older than you think," he said simply.
Mae couldn't speak. The air between them buzzed.
"Come with me," Lucien said. "There's more I need to show you. And not much time."
Mae looked back at the mirror. The reflection was gone. Only herself remained now, trembling, changed.
She nodded once.
Tinkles jumped to her shoulder, and together, they followed Lucien into the forest, into the unknown.
Behind them, the mirror pulsed once more—then went still.