The envelope's second word echoed through Seraphina's bones: Break. The sigil below it pulsed faintly, unlike any she had seen. It resembled a mirror fracturing from its center—a delicate spiderweb of lines, beautiful and dangerous.
The Vault had given her the word. But it was the map that frightened her.
By lanternlight, she and her companions traced its path. This time, the corridor curved underground beneath the old library, past forgotten classrooms and rusting gates marked in warning glyphs.
Elijah walked ahead, hand outstretched. Darian was uncharacteristically silent.
Sera's fingers traced the sigil burned onto the map. Something about it felt... personal.
"This way," Elijah said, stopping in front of an arched door carved with seven stars and a split sun. It hissed open before they touched it.
They stepped inside.
The room was silent, and massive—its ceiling lost in shadows. A hundred mirrors stood arranged in a circular pattern, each unique in shape and height. Some shimmered. Others pulsed softly, almost like breathing.
In the center, a pedestal. Upon it, a blade.
Sera stepped forward. The sigil from the envelope appeared above the blade in golden fire.
Trial of Fracture.
"What kind of trial is this?" Darian whispered. "This place gives me the creeps."
"It's not like the Trial of Flame," Elijah said, tense. "This one... it's about something deeper."
Sera approached the blade.
As her fingers brushed the hilt, the mirrors lit up one by one. Each now held a version of her. Hundreds of Seraphinas stared back, each with different eyes, different scars, different fates.
Some wore crowns. Others bled. Some knelt in chains. One screamed silently, locked behind glass.
The blade pulsed.
And then the room broke.
She stood alone.
The mirrors were gone. So were Elijah and Darian.
Sera stood on a bridge of crystal suspended over an endless void. Fragments of glass floated in the air around her, showing flickering images of the life she never lived.
In one, she was normal—no magic, no Vault, no powers. Just a girl in a summer dress laughing with parents she never remembered.
In another, she ruled the school with an iron will, Umbra magic coiling around her limbs like armor.
In another still, she lay in a cell, drained and forgotten.
"These are versions of me," she said aloud.
"Fragments," a voice replied.
She turned. Before her stood a woman cloaked in white, her face hidden by a veil of light.
"Who are you?"
"A mirror you haven't broken yet."
The woman raised her hand.
A mirror appeared between them, showing Sera as she was now. But then it cracked—veins of gold splitting through the glass, revealing flickers of something beneath. A darker core. A seed of rage. A hunger for answers.
"To move forward, you must shatter what remains," the voice said.
"I don't understand."
"You do. You cling to the version of yourself that still believes this can end without cost."
Sera stared at the mirror.
"Break it. Or it breaks you."
Back in the mirror chamber, Elijah blinked. One moment Seraphina had been there—the next, gone.
"Where is she?" he asked.
Darian had his blade drawn. "Something's wrong."
They searched the room, mirrors reflecting only their own panic.
"Look!" Elijah pointed. The blade on the pedestal was cracking.
A golden sigil bled into the stone beneath it. It pulsed once. Then again.
And then Seraphina screamed.
In the crystal void, she dropped to her knees.
Memories tore through her like lightning.
Not the ones she knew.
Memories from other Seraphinas—other timelines, other fates. She saw herself sacrificing Darian. Killing Vellum. Becoming a tyrant. Falling in love. Dying too soon. Never awakening her magic at all.
Each fragment of memory left a wound.
Each wound became a scar.
"Stop," she whispered. "I don't want this."
But the void gave no mercy.
The veiled woman returned.
"You think power is born from clarity. But it comes from fracture. From choosing which version of yourself survives."
Sera looked up. The mirror still stood, cracked, trembling.
She stood. Walked to it.
Saw herself. Tired. Angry. Afraid.
But also resilient.
She raised the blade.
And struck.
The mirror shattered.
Elijah caught her as she collapsed from the pedestal.
Her eyes were wide, unfocused.
"Sera? Seraphina, talk to me."
She blinked.
"I'm here," she whispered. "I... broke it."
The mirrors around them dimmed. One by one, they faded into darkness.
The blade was gone.
In its place, another envelope.
Darian picked it up, handing it to her.
One word:
Bend.
And another sigil, this one shaped like flowing water.
Far above, in the Headmaster's tower, Mistress Soren slammed her hand on the council table.
"She passed again. Two Trials. Two!"
Vellum's brow furrowed. "She shattered her own core and lived. That shouldn't be possible."
"It shouldn't," Thorn agreed. "But she's not just one girl anymore. She's carrying five legacies. Five Houses. Five keys."
"We have to stop her," Soren hissed. "Before she finishes the others."
"How?" Vellum snapped. "We can't reach the Trials. They're bound to her."
"Then unbind them," Soren growled. "Or find someone who can."
Thorn stared out the window.
In the distance, the Vault pulsed once.
A heartbeat of something waking.
Later that night, Seraphina stood on the balcony of the Upper Tower, the envelope in hand.
Elijah leaned against the stone beside her. "You okay?"
"No," she said honestly. "But I will be."
Darian sprawled on a bench nearby, tossing a glowing stone between his fingers. "Three more Trials. You ready for that?"
"No. But I don't think we get to choose anymore."
She opened the envelope.
The sigil flared. It showed a wave crashing over a mountain.
Elijah read it aloud. "Trial of Flow."
Sera whispered, "Then we follow the current."
Behind her, the Vault pulsed again.
And the wind carried whispers not meant for mortal ears.