"Elara…"
The voice was soft, almost sweet. Familiar.
Elara's heart stopped. Her name echoed from the upper tier of the archive like a breath slipping through stone. But it wasn't her voice.
It was a perfect imitation.
She raised her blade higher, the silence around her stretching like a thread drawn taut. Corven moved beside her, quietly unsheathing his dagger, eyes scanning the staircases that coiled into the shadows.
The torches flickered.
Footsteps padded lightly from above. Graceful. Controlled. The kind of walk Elara had trained into her body for years too polished to be coincidence.
"She's mocking me," Elara whispered.
Corven's jaw tensed. "She's hunting you."
"No," Elara corrected coldly. "She's performing."
A figure emerged at the top of the stairs.
The girl wore a cloak of dusk-blue velvet. Her hood shadowed her face, but the moonlight from the dome above glinted off something more terrifying than any weapon - familiarity.
Elara stared up at her own form. Same height. Same poise. Same cascade of obsidian-black hair.
But the smile on that face wasn't hers.
It was too calm. Too clean. Unbothered by memories of burning, betrayal, or pain.
That face had never screamed inside a pyre.
"You found the archive faster than I expected," the reflection said. "I assumed you'd waste more time playing spy."
Her voice was perfectly Elara's until you heard the hollowness beneath. Like an echo wearing a mask.
"What are you?" Elara demanded, blade steady.
"I'm what you were meant to become," the other said. "What you could've been if you'd chosen power over pride."
Corven stepped forward, but the other Elara raised one hand and the air shimmered with force magic. He slammed into an invisible wall and dropped to one knee, gasping.
"She's using court sigils," he grunted. "High-level."
Elara didn't move. "How did you get into the palace?"
The reflection cocked her head. "You opened the door, darling. When you returned, you left a tear. And I walked through."
"That doesn't explain why."
The echo stepped down one stair at a time. Her movements were eerily identical but her eyes glowed faintly red beneath the hood, like the embers of the fire that once devoured Elara.
"I'm not here to kill you," she said. "Not yet."
"Then what do you want?"
The smile returned. "To remind you that this isn't your story anymore. You wasted your first life clinging to emotion. To love. To justice. And look where it got you dead."
"I'm alive now."
The reflection's expression darkened. "You were never meant to come back."
Another step closer.
"I took your place, Elara. Your mother remembers me. The nobles trust me. Even Kaelith can't tell the difference not yet. But if you keep interfering…"
She reached into her sleeve and pulled something out a broken, scorched pendant on a golden chain.
Elara's breath hitched.
Her locket.
The one Kaelith had given her after their first war victory. The one she was wearing when she died.
"I dug it from the ashes myself," the echo said softly. "The fire was divine, you know. But even gods make mistakes."
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the pendant. It landed at Elara's feet.
"I don't need to kill you, Elara," the reflection added. "Because you'll destroy yourself."
And then she vanished.
The shadows swallowed her like smoke, melting into the darkness as if she had never been there.
Elara stood frozen, heart pounding, staring at the tiny chain glinting in the torchlight.
Corven groaned behind her, rubbing his ribs. "She's real," he rasped. "She's powerful."
"She's worse than that," Elara whispered.
"She's me but without a soul."
They fled the archives before the palace guards could arrive. The echo hadn't triggered any alarms and that terrified Elara more than anything. She belonged in the palace.
Somewhere between the magic, the ritual, and her own death, a version of her had been carved like a statue, dressed in her face and given her role.
But this version hadn't just taken her name.
She had taken her life.
Later that night, Elara sat with Seryth in the old greenhouse above the east wing the one that had been closed for renovation since the war. No one ever came here.
"I saw her," Elara said. "I faced her."
Seryth gripped her arm. "Did she attack?"
"No. She warned me."
"Why would she do that?"
Elara stared at her reflection in the cracked glass.
"Because she wants me to suffer. She doesn't want me dead yet. She wants me broken. Forgotten. Like I never returned."
Seryth's expression hardened. "So we kill her first."
Elara turned slowly.
"No," she said. "We don't kill her."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because she has the one thing I don't."
Seryth narrowed her eyes. "What?"
"Access."
Elara stood, her cloak swirling behind her.
"She's been in rooms I haven't. She's heard secrets I lost when I died. If I destroy her now, I lose my best chance to uncover the truth behind the prophecy. The priestess's death. The tribunal. Everything."
Seryth's voice was quiet. "So what do we do?"
Elara's eyes glittered like shards of obsidian.
"We play her game. Pretend to be weaker. Slower. While we tear down everything she's built."
She turned toward the greenhouse exit.
"I didn't come back for revenge, Seryth."
She paused in the doorway.
"I came back to win."
Just as they reached the corridor, a page came sprinting from the opposite wing.
"Elara I mean Thalia!" he gasped.
Elara's heart jumped. "What?"
"The Queen Regent… she's awake," the page blurted. "She's asking for you."
Elara blinked. "The Queen Regent? She's been in a coma for a year."
"I know," the page said, breathless. "But she woke up tonight. And she keeps repeating one name."
Elara swallowed hard.
"What name?"
The page's face went pale.
"Yours."