":
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The old mirror in the grandmother's room gleamed despite the darkness of the
place. It did not reflect Adam's features, but something else. Something
mysterious, frightening, and familiar at the same time.
"Finally, I have seen you, you who were chosen before being born..."
The voice came from behind him, not from the mirror.
Adam turned quickly, and in the corner near the grandmother's wardrobe stood a
man wearing an ash-colored cloak, his eyes covered by a dark bandage, as if the
light refused to touch him.
He said quietly:
"My name is Nevar. I was one of the Guardians of the Rift... before the laws
broke."
Adam did not answer. His tone was free of arrogance, but carried a strange kind
of sadness and calm. Zira, who entered the room behind Adam, froze in place, her
eyes widening:
"No... impossible... you are an exile!"
Nevar smiled: "Exile is just a title... when worlds are sick, exiles return as
doctors."
He slowly approached the mirror and placed his hand on it without trembling. The
glass surface began to ripple like a suddenly awakened lake.
"Adam, there is no time for easy questions. What you carry is not just a
pendant, it is a key. And the door only opens when truth approaches the wound."
Adam pressed the pendant wrapped around his neck. Its heat pulsed as if it were
a living heart.
He asked:
"A key to what?"
Nevar answered in a low voice, but as if it echoed in every corner of the room:
"For the birth of Nimora... and for its end."
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At night, while Zira was cleaning a small wound on Adam's hand, he looked at her
and asked quietly:
"Why did you look afraid when you saw Nevar?"
She did not answer immediately. She remained silent at first, then said after a
long sigh:
"Because he knows me. Or at least... he knows who I was."
Adam stared at her:
"Who were you?"
She raised her eyes to him. For a moment, fatigue appeared on her face as if she
carried a hundred lives inside her:
"I was not always Zira. In one of the worlds... I was the daughter of a witch
from the Fourth Council. I was one of the watchers sent to plant balance between
Nimora and the human world. But I... failed."
"You failed?"
"I fell in love with one we were trying to neutralize. And I betrayed the
council."
She paused for a moment, then looked at him with a completely different gaze:
"Now, I fear it will happen again."
"That you fall in love?" he asked quietly.
She did not answer. She only placed her hand over his, their fingers intertwined
for a moment longer than necessary, then whispered:
"Rather, that I betray the balance again."
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In the morning, Nevar came to them with a map not made of paper, but of light.
It floated between his hands like a living creature.
"This is the map of the three worlds. There is a point of disappearance called
the 'Seed of the Rift'. If you reach it with the pendant, you will know where
everything began... but you will not be the same after that."
Adam felt an invisible weight on his chest. Everything was changing.
Then Nevar asked him:
"Do you trust her?"
"Whom?" Adam asked.
"Zira."
Adam looked at Zira, who stood apart, but her features screamed something that
could not be silenced: longing, regret, and plea.
He answered:
"I trust... but I fear the truth is not yet complete."
Nevar smiled.
"Then you are ready to be the heir of the ancient war."
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Before they left for the Seed of the Rift, Zira rested her head on Adam's
shoulder in the dark.
She said quietly:
"I don't want to lose you, even if you are the son of a world I do not
understand."
Adam whispered to her:
"And I don't understand myself yet... but I will not allow to lose you either."
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Motivational quote at the end of the part:
> "Sometimes, we don't know who we love until we are about to lose them... and
> we don't know who we are until we run away from ourselves."