Far from the Council of Allies stood a dark building, more like a den than a fortress, steeped in years of mystery and forbidden magic. Within its depths, a chamber lay cold and silent.
The glass of the mirror had darkened over time, yet it still seemed alive, faintly echoing a heartbeat, as though something were trapped within the glass itself.
There was a figure wrapped in a hood that remained still.
It was as if they were listening to a sound that was beyond the stones and beyond the very fabric of this rusty world. They silently stood and thought for a while.
Behind them, the armour-clad one moved, gauntlets made a slight scratching sound as they touched the old floor.
"We raise the stakes too high," the armoured voice said. "You know what she is. If the Aesvaran fully awakens and if she manages to bind the Flame and the Veil, then she will basically be unstoppable."
The figure in the hood, the one that was whispered to be Kassimir, gave a slight smile, but it didn't reach the deep, dark face of theirs.
"Indeed," they said with the voice of a dagger wrapped in a velvet glove. "However, that will only happen if she awakens the right way."
They just waved their hand, and the mirror by that motion started to wave, exposing the sleeping power Esme tightly curled around her, a weakly flickering thread of light that is nearly contained.
Just above the surface of the mirror, Kassimir's fingers hovered.
"She is quite raw and unshaped. She is still afraid…with too many doubts as well," they said. "Though the Veil chose her, she hasn't chosen herself yet."
Veylor, the old blood and war-hardened armoured figure, gave a low growl in his throat.
"What if she does?" he said. "If she remembers the Aesvaran oath? The old fires? The seals that we can't break?"
Kassimir gave a slight nod.
"Well," he whispered, "we turn her into the weapon we need before she turns herself."
A thick silence fell over the room.
Dust got carried away by fading light and looked like it was burned matter.
Motions came from the other side, in the corner, something was broken, small, in grey cloth of mourning. Seryth, the Seer of the Void, spoke with a voice that sounded like a piece of dry paper:
"The rain is already falling. The Dreaming Waters are turning."
Then Kassimir gave another smile, this time it was slow, almost that of a kind person.
"Let them believe that they are winning," he said.
"Let them call their 'Council of Allies' and do their 'Man at War' thing. She, however, will be driven that much closer to the edge, where we can unfold her final fall."
Veylor made his fists tighter. "Personally, I do not trust that boy. The Castellan."
Something flickered for a moment on Kassimir's face that was a shadow, that was brief and unreadable.
"Neither do I," he said. "The Aetherbound will be a source of difficulties. He was and still is a sort of anomaly."
"So why don't we eliminate him now—" Veylor started.
Kassimir's hand was in the air at first, then snapped sharply like a blade. The whole room was at a standstill.
"No," softly but inevitably he said.
"Not yet. Not until the girl makes her choice. Light can only destroy itself in the absence of a reason."
They allowed the mirror to glow again, and it showed Zaire and Esme side by side under the starry sky, a bond made in blood and hope.
A delicate and lovely thing.
"We need to get at her from the inside," Kassimir went on. "Let her question the flame that she carries."
"Make her fear the Veil that brought her to life. Make her even doubt the boy who is ready to die for her."
It was not until then, when her heart was shattered, that the seventh and final Seal was broken, and the door to the other worlds was made, and the ancient power that they were truly after would be their possession.
Veylor stiffly bowed.
Seryth only showed that thin, corpse-like smile.
The light grew dimmer, leaving a deeper red stain on the cracked stones.
Kassimir at last dropped the hand and moved away from the mirror.
Outside, beyond the broken towers, beyond the Veil's thinning walls, the winds began to howl.
The War of Awakening had begun. And the girl, the Aesvaran, would be the spark that burned down the worlds.
She does not know yet what she is.
The Veil kissed her brow the day she was born, but it is a fickle thing, that ancient breath between worlds. It gifts its champions with power and with unbearable sorrow.
She thinks love will save her. She thinks hope is Armor enough. What a foolish child. Hope is a blade I can turn in her chest. Love is a chain I can snap when it pulls too tight. When she falls, and she will fall, it will not be by my hand, but by her own trembling faith breaking apart. And when she stands again, reborn in ash and ruin, she will not be Esme the Gentle, nor Niah the Lost.
She will be mine.
The first and brightest weapon to carve the end of the world.
* * *