Echoes in the Hollow Vale
The rain of glass had not stopped when Mira departed.
Ridgefall's high towers still rang with the hiss of shards slicing stone and soil, and the crimson sky bled light like an open wound. But Alaric had not tried to stop her. Not this time. He knew she wasn't just following a trail—she was following a pull. A whisper in the marrow.
The Vale of Hollow Stars lay north beyond the Shattered Teeth mountains. Once, it was a place of reflection, where pilgrims studied the movement of celestial lights to divine purpose. Now, it was silent—blacked skies and pale, starless nights, haunted by the faint echoes of something lost long ago.
Mira rode alone on a dustrunner—one of the Vigil's swiftest beasts, horned and bred for the dead paths. She carried no torch. She did not need one. The dreammark on her neck glowed softly, guiding her not through roads, but possibilities—as if the land remembered what it once was, and longed to be understood.
On the third night, she saw them.
Figures in silver veils, kneeling beneath shattered monoliths. Their faces were wrong—too smooth, as if drawn in sleep. They murmured lullabies in reverse, eyes fixed on something Mira could not see.
She did not approach them.
They weren't real.
Or worse—they were, but only on the other side of the veil.
She dreamwalked that night under the roots of a gnarled sky-ash tree. The dreams came quick and violent—visions of children weeping in empty classrooms, wolves made of iron biting through fire, and a spiral carved into a throne made of bone.
But in the heart of the dream, she saw it:
The Second Gate.
It stood like a lighthouse in the void, made of obsidian ribs and moonlight, suspended above a cracked lake that reflected stars which did not exist. The gate did not open. It breathed. With every inhale, Mira felt her own memories shift, tugged backward.
She stepped forward.
And something waited.
Not a guardian this time.
A mirror.
It wore her face. But older. Scarred. Eyes hollowed with grief.
"You were never meant to carry it this long," the mirror said. "The mark is a chain. A leash. The First did not give it—they left it."
"For a reason," Mira whispered.
"To control."
"To remember."
"To use."
They clashed—not with blades, but with truths. Every lie Mira had told herself cracked beneath the weight of dreamfire. Every fear she had buried clawed upward—her failure to save the twins in High Spire, her jealousy of Alaric's clarity, the echo of her mother's voice telling her she'd never be strong enough to lead.
The mirror struck, and Mira bled memory.
But she did not fall.
Instead, she embraced it.
"I am not First," she said. "I am not dream. I am choice."
The gate pulsed. The mirror screamed—its form twisting, unraveling like smoke.
And Mira awoke.
The sky above her now held stars once hidden. And in her hand was a shard of the gate—black, humming softly.
A key.
She returned to Ridgefall at dawn. Her eyes no longer glowed. But something far deeper now burned behind them.
Alaric met her at the southern wall.
She pressed the shard into his palm.
"It's not a gate anymore," she said. "It's a beacon."
He nodded grimly. "Then they know we're ready."
Mira looked northward, where the next storm gathered in silence.
"No," she whispered. "They know we remember."