A page flipped by itself.
Ink bled across the blank book on the dais in tight, official strokes—like the academy was filing their panic into a form.
COUNCIL INCIDENT EXCERPT (ARCHIVED)SUBJECT: "FOUNDERS' ATLAS / MIRROR LIBRARY"STATUS: Myth. Do not engage.NOTE: If the book writes your name, do not answer.FAILURE RATE: ████%RECOMMENDATION: Containment, not heroism.
The letters dried.
Then the book wrote over the Council's warning like it was annoyed by it.
ORDER WITNESS TRIAL: INITIATED.
The Mirror Library exhaled. Every mirror along the walls tilted inward a fraction—hundreds of reflective throats turning to face them.
And Lina felt her VOID status tighten around her like a noose.
Kai's hand stayed locked around hers, anchor-pressure steady. "Don't speak to the book," he murmured.
"I didn't," Lina whispered.
The reflection with Lina's face—smiling wrong—stepped back onto the dais like a host welcoming guests. "You asked to be witnessed," it said sweetly. "So be witnessed."
The floor shivered.
Four crests ignited around the dais in a ring—Ember, Umbral, Prism, Echo—each one carving a door of light into the air, each door humming with a different kind of hunger.
Seren's eyes flared bright silver.
She grabbed her throat like something inside her was trying to speak first.
"I hear them," she whispered.
"Who?" Mira asked, voice thin.
Seren's voice layered—two tones at once now, hers and a chorus beneath it:
"The unwitnessed."
The word hit Lina like ice. The dead weren't dead down here. They were unheld—names without mouths to carry them.
The Echo door pulsed, and Seren's knees nearly buckled.
Kai tightened his grip on Lina. "Seren—"
Seren's eyes snapped open, glowing brighter than they ever had. "It's not Borrowing anymore," she whispered, shaking. "It's… everywhere. I can feel death traces in the glass. In the ink. In you."
Soul Echo.
Fully awake.
The book wrote again, fast:
WITNESS REQUIRES TRUTH.TRUTH REQUIRES COST.BEGIN WITH THE BELOVED.
Lina's stomach dropped.
Kai went very still.
The mirrors around them shimmered—and suddenly, every reflective surface showed the same scene:
Kai on his knees. A Founder's sigil burned into the floor. A Councilor's voice like iron:
"By Founder's law… swear obedience."
Kai's Oathbreaker mark flared under his glove so hard Lina felt the heat through their joined hands.
Kai's jaw clenched. "Don't."
But the Mirror Library didn't care.
It rewound the memory. Played it again. Forced it closer.
The reflection on the dais smiled. "Tell her," it coaxed. "Let her witness you properly."
Kai's breath came in ragged pulls. "My true name—" He swallowed like the words were barbed. "—is a leash."
Lina's chest tightened. "Kai…"
He flinched at the softness—like it hurt more than the mirror.
Kai stared at the floor, then at Lina, eyes dark with something he hated letting her see.
"I was bound," he said, voice low. "Not to a person. To a duty."
The mirrors shifted, showing the academy from above—runes like chains around its foundations, a massive seal-circle beneath the school like a lid over a mouth.
Kai's voice tightened. "Aetherion isn't a sanctuary. It's a cage."
Lina swallowed, heart hammering. "We knew."
"No," Kai said, and the word was sharp with bitter clarity. "You knew it was built over something. You didn't know it was built to feed it time."
The Echo door pulsed. Seren's eyes widened in horror as voices hissed through the glass:
"Warden.""Seal-holder.""Name-keeper."
Kai's shoulders shook once, like he'd swallowed a scream years ago and it was still lodged there.
"The Council made me swear to be the Warden's hand," Kai said. "They used my true name to bind the vow so I couldn't refuse."
The reflection leaned in, delighted. "And you broke it."
Kai's eyes snapped up, fury flaring. "I broke it because they were sacrificing students to keep the cage quiet."
Lina's breath stopped.
"They told me someone would die either way," Kai continued, voice cracking around rage. "They said it was necessary. They said the academy was the world's cost."
He looked at Lina like the truth was a wound he could finally stop hiding.
"I refused to be their knife."
The library hummed.
And the book wrote, almost approving:
OATHBREAKER: CONFIRMED.
Mira made a broken sound.
Reyon's hands clenched at his sides, and Lina saw it—his composure unraveling under the weight of too many mirrors. "So the Council—"
"Isn't the only enemy," Seren whispered, voice layered with dead echoes. "They're wardens. Brutal ones."
A laugh slid through the mirror-glass—soft and many-voiced.
Veilbound.
The reflection on the dais lifted its chin. "And wardens can be replaced."
The Prism door flared bright.
Reyon's breath hitched sharply—and the mirrors turned on him.
They showed him fear the way only Prism could: not a thought, not an image—something that reached out.
His sticky illusions jumped the gap.
A shadow-figure peeled out of the glass with Reyon's face and someone else's eyes.
It stepped onto the library floor.
Real enough to cast a shadow.
Reyon stumbled back, voice shaking. "That's— that's not— I didn't—"
"Your illusions are collapsing into reality," Seren whispered, terrified. "Prism is making residue solid."
The figure smiled with Reyon's mouth and raised a hand like it knew how to kill.
Kai pulled Lina behind him instinctively.
Lina's flame rose, controlled—gold edged black.
And the book wrote, cruelly calm:
PRISM TRIAL: FAILURE IMMINENT.
Reyon's eyes went wide—then narrowed with sudden, sharp resolve.
"No," he whispered. "Not like this."
He stepped forward—toward his own nightmare—and the Prism Mirror artifact (half-buried behind the dais like it had been waiting) pulsed once and snapped to his palm, binding like a cold kiss.
Reyon gasped.
For a heartbeat, he looked like he didn't know which reality he was in.
Then he forced his voice steady. "Okay," he said through clenched teeth. "If I'm infecting reality… I'll choose what I infect it with."
He turned the Prism Mirror toward the fear-figure.
It shattered into ink.
Gone.
But Reyon swayed, eyes unfocused, blinking like the library had stolen the line between real and not-real from him.
Seren caught him before he fell—Echo trembling through her hands.
And then the library's Umbral door pulsed, and a familiar voice broke through the hush:
"Kai!"
A boy stumbled into the Mirror Library like he'd been running for years.
Jax Enlor.
Kai's closest friend.
His face was pale, eyes bloodshot, a Council sigil burned faintly on his wrist like a brand.
Kai went rigid. "Jax…?"
Jax's gaze flicked to Lina—hesitated—like his brain had to search for her through VOID fog.
Then he swallowed hard and forced it. "Lina Veris," he said, voice shaking. "You're real."
The book paused.
The mirrors shimmered, hungry.
Lina's throat tightened. "Jax… what did you do?"
Jax flinched like he deserved the question. "I—" His voice broke. "I told them how to trigger the Founder's Vow. I gave them the phrase. I thought… I thought if Kai obeyed once, they'd stop hurting him."
Kai's jaw clenched, pain flashing. "They were hurting you too."
Jax's laugh came out strangled. "They had my family's contracts. My father's debt. They said I could trade it away."
Consent as horror.
Lina's chest tightened. "Jax—"
"I'm sorry," Jax whispered, eyes burning. "I'm so sorry."
He stepped toward Kai—toward Lina—then did something that made the Mirror Library go still.
Jax lifted his hand and pressed his palm to the Umbral crest.
"Witness oath," he whispered, voice shaking but fierce. "By Order law—by my name—I witness them."
The book wrote fast:
WITNESS: ACCEPTED.
A warmth surged through the air—brief, fragile—like the academy's ancient rules had been forced to acknowledge Lina again through a living vow.
Lina felt it like a thin thread catching her back from the void.
Then the Veilbound laughter returned, colder.
"Good," the reflection murmured. "Now the cage can open with witnesses intact."
Kai's eyes snapped up. "That's your goal."
The mirrors around them flashed the underwing ledger, the Quill symbol, the Runemap's clusters—Veilbound signatures converging on the Sigil Chase route map like veins leading to a heart.
Seren's Soul Echo flared so hard she cried out—voices screaming through her all at once:
"RUN.""THEY'RE RENAMING THE WARDEN.""SEVENTH FLAME IS THE KEY."
Lina's blood turned to ice.
"Renaming the Warden," Lina whispered.
The reflection smiled. "Erase. Replace. Rewrite. That's all names ever were."
The book wrote one final line—slow, ceremonial—like prophecy being stamped into law:
THE SEVENTH FLAME MUST CHOOSE:BURN THE CAGEOR BURN THE BELOVED.
Lina's breath stopped.
Kai's grip tightened—anchor, fear, devotion.
The floor beneath them thumped.
Once.
Like a giant heartbeat under the academy.
Then again—harder—rattling shelves, shaking dust from mirror frames.
The mirrors went dark for a heartbeat.
And in that darkness, something enormous opened its eyes beneath the school—felt rather than seen.
A voice rolled up through the foundation like a tide of ancient hunger.
It didn't say "Seventh Flame."
It didn't say "prophecy."
It said the one thing Lina couldn't afford the world to take from her now:
"Lina Veris."
Perfect pronunciation.
Like it had owned the letters for centuries.
Kai's voice broke, urgent. "Don't answer."
But Lina's flame surged in her ribs like it recognized the voice as home and threat at the same time.
The Mirror Library shuddered.
The blank book slammed shut by itself.
And every mirror in the room showed the same final image:
A seal-circle cracking beneath Aetherion…
and a single word writing itself in black ink across the fracture:
AWAKE.
To be Continued
© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.