The days following her return from the Wyrm Queen's lair were filled with silence.
Not peace.
Not rest.
But a terrible stillness as if the world itself held its breath, waiting for Seraphira to choose.
Choose her path.
Choose her alliances.
Choose who she would become.
She hadn't spoken of the second prophecy.
Not to Elena.
Not even to Theryn.
But it haunted her like shadow clinging to the edge of flame.
And when the silence grew too loud, she went to the only place she might find truth:
The Forsaken Mirror.
It lay hidden beneath the ruins of Draz Vhal, the old city swallowed by the earth during the Great Collapse.
Legend said it had once been a temple of seers.
A place where reflections were not just cast but revealed.
Where the mirror showed not your face…
…but your fate.
Seraphira descended into its depths alone.
No torches lit the way. No flame dared burn too long.
The air was thick, metallic, like blood turned to vapor.
At the end of a long, spiral corridor, she found it.
The Mirror.
Ten feet tall.
Framed in blackened bone.
The surface rippled not silver, not glass, but liquid obsidian.
And it waited.
She stepped toward it.
The flames beneath her skin pulsed once… twice…
And then, the Mirror awoke.
At first, it showed nothing but mist.
Then a battlefield.
Fire and shadow colliding across a blood-stained plain.
Kings bowed.
Witches wept.
Demons roared.
And at the center stood her....
But not as she was now.
This Seraphira wore a crown of ash and flame.
Her eyes glowed like Kaelreth's.
Her hands dripped with both blood and power.
And behind her lay ruin.
Not just of enemies.
But of everything.
Seraphira gasped and stepped back....
But the Mirror shifted again.
This time it showed a throne empty.
A world fractured.
The kingdoms warring endlessly without her.
The Underworld unleashed.
The skies blackened.
The Spiral undone.
And she?
She was gone.
Forgotten.
Buried.
The Mirror whispered, its voice like a dozen of her own speaking at once:
"The world burns if you rule."
"The world breaks if you do not."
"Which flame will you become, Queen of Ash?"
Seraphira stared into the mirror… and saw herself once more.
Not a goddess.
Not a destroyer.
Just… a girl with fire in her blood and the weight of worlds on her back.
And finally, she whispered:
"I will become neither."
"I will become something new."
And with those words, the Mirror shattered...
Not from magic.
Not from fear.
But because it could no longer contain what she was about to become.
🌑 In the Underworld…
Kaelreth stood in the Hall of Reflections.
The mirror in its twin chamber cracked the same moment.
He closed his eyes.
She has seen it.
Malkor's voice trembled. Will she choose you?
Kaelreth did not answer.
He only whispered:
She may choose to surpass us all.