For a heartbeat, no one breathed.
Chief Halai's words rippled through the chieftains' tent like a crack of thunder. "There are two in you."
The guards tensed. Shira stiffened beside me. Arven's hand hovered near his sword.
I stood frozen, my pulse thudding loud in my ears.
Two. In. You.
She had seen us.
Not just Lyara. Not just me.
Both.
Halai stepped back slowly, her eyes never leaving my face. "Do not be afraid. The old blood sees what lies beneath. The fire remembers its echoes."
I forced myself to speak. "You said 'old blood'… What does that mean?"
"It means the Mirror is waking," she said. "And you—whoever you are—stand on the edge of its shattering."
Shira spoke, her voice controlled. "Then tell us what must be done."
But Halai shook her head. "I can't tell you. Only the fire can."
She gestured to the large brazier at the center of the tent. The flames within it swirled unnaturally—curling not from wood, but from carved stones that pulsed with an inner heat.
Arven took a step forward. "What kind of fire is that?"
"Memory fire," Halai said. "Drawn from the ashes of our dead, kept burning by their truths."
My mouth went dry. "You want me to step into it?"
She nodded once. "If you wish to understand who you truly are… let the fire show you."
I hesitated.
Not out of fear for pain—I'd survived worse—but for what the fire might reveal. Some truths are not meant to be faced. Some mirrors, once cracked, should stay broken.
"I don't know if I want to understand," I said quietly.
Halai looked at me, not with pity—but with something older. Something like grief. "The Mirror doesn't wait for your comfort. It only waits for your courage."
Behind me, Shira whispered, "I'll be here. On the other side."
I nodded, stepping forward.
The other chieftains had drawn back, forming a silent circle. Eyes watched me like I was a sacrificial offering—or a prophecy uncoiling.
The brazier towered before me. The memory fire shifted, turning indigo, then silver. It hissed, but not with heat—with language. Words I didn't know, but somehow understood. A litany of the dead, calling me by names I'd never spoken.
And still, I stepped in.
—------
I stood before the flame.
It didn't burn hot like ordinary fire. It reached into me instead of onto me. Like a hand, gentle but inevitable, pressing through my skin and into my chest.
Then—
Flashes.
Not visions. Not dreams.
Memories.
—------
I saw Lyara—barefoot in a field of red flowers, laughing. She looked younger. Free.
Then, blood. A battlefield. She was running, dragging a wounded boy—Ronan—out of a collapsing trench. She screamed his name.
Another flash.
Myself—my true self—standing in Solmiran robes, facing a council of cloaked mages. Their voices were cold. I was crying. They said it was the only way. That my body had to die, so the spell could live.
One of the mages—an older woman with white braids and shaking hands—had wept as she carved the runes into the floor.
"I'm sorry," she had said. "You were our best hope."
I'd tried to scream, to run—but the spell had already begun. They encased my soul in light, sealed it inside the Mirror Core with the promise that Lyara—General's Daughter, Warborn—could carry it safely across time and ruin.
Except the Mirror cracked.
And I spilled through it.
Into her.
Into me.
I remembered the tearing. The moment I woke in her body. My heartbeat wrong. My hands unfamiliar. The sky above me—Solmiran, but not mine.
And the silence after.
Then—the seal. The circle. The burning.
And then darkness.
–-------
I gasped, stumbling out of the fire.
The tent was gone. I was outside. Alone. Rain poured from a cloudless sky. The ground beneath me shimmered with glass.
Someone stood across from me.
Not Lyara.
Not Ronan.
Me.
But not as I was now—as I had been. My own face. My own voice.
"I'm not ready," I whispered.
"You never will be," she replied.
"But I didn't choose this."
"You did," she said softly. "The moment you said yes to survival."
She stepped closer, hand outstretched.
"And now, you must choose again."
"What if I choose wrong again?" I asked.
The other me tilted her head, a soft shadow rippling beneath her bare feet.
"There are no wrong choices here," she said. "Only consequences. And echoes."
She stepped closer, her presence oddly weightless.
"You think this is about saving the world," she continued. "But it never was. It's about finishing what you began."
"I never meant to begin anything," I whispered.
She smiled—my smile, but distant. "And yet you did. You were the fracture. You were the firestarter."
She raised her hand, two fingers pressed against my brow.
Suddenly, I remembered something deeper than words—an ancient vow, sworn in the dark, when the kingdom still stood.
A promise not to win, but to survive long enough for someone to remember what was lost.
"You are the last ember," she said. "Don't let yourself go cold."
—------
I blinked.
The tent returned. So did the fire. The chieftains. Shira. Arven. My knees hit the floor as the last vision faded.
Chief Halai knelt beside me. "What did you see?"
"I saw myself," I said hoarsely. "And I hated her. And I pitied her. And… I remembered everything."
Shira gripped my arm. "Then it's true."
I nodded slowly. "I'm not just the Mirror."
"I'm the flame inside it."
—------
Outside, the sky cracked with thunder again.
But it wasn't the same storm.
It was something waking.
Something that had been waiting for us to remember.
When I opened my eyes, the others were staring at me like I had come back wrong. Shira had risen. Arven's hand still hovered near his blade—but he didn't draw.
Halai's face had changed. Her voice was softer now. "You carry it differently," she said.
"What?"
"The fire. It's inside your voice now. Inside your shadow."
I didn't know what that meant.
But I knew the storm outside wasn't just weather. It was memory. Magic. Me.
I stood slowly, brushing ash from my palms.
"It saw me," I whispered.
"And did you see it?" Shira asked.
I looked past them all, out the flap of the tent where the clouds coiled low. Where something dark paced just beyond the hills.
"I think I did," I said.
"And I don't think it's done with us yet."
"If you burn," Halai whispered, "you may set the world alight. But if you break… you might just save it."
—------