The silence in the archive chamber was so complete, it pressed against Liora's skin like frost. Dust motes shimmered in shafts of pale light filtering through the high stained glass windows, casting distorted sigils across the stone floor.
Riven stood beside a tall iron pedestal, fingers tracing the edge of an ancient, sealed grimoire. Behind him, carved into the wall, loomed a massive mirror—oval, dark as obsidian, framed in a silver arch twisted with unfamiliar runes.
"This place is warded," Liora said, her voice low. "No student should be able to enter."
Riven didn't turn to face her. "Then maybe I'm not just a student."
She frowned. "What does that mean?"
He finally looked over his shoulder, something unreadable in his expression. "It means we both have secrets."
Liora folded her arms. "You keep implying you know mine."
"I don't know it," he admitted. "But I've seen enough to guess. And this mirror—" He gestured toward it. "—might have answers neither of us wants."
Liora glanced at the mirror. It didn't reflect her, or anything at all. Instead, the glass was a void—black, shifting like ink in water. Something pulsed behind it. A heartbeat, or the echo of one.
"What is it?" she asked.
"The Mirror Vault," Riven replied. "Created by the Founders. It's not just a vault—it's a door."
"To what?"
"To memory. Bloodlines. Truth."
Her breath caught. "And you came here alone to look into it?"
"I didn't come alone," he said, voice pointed. "You followed me, remember?"
Liora stepped closer, examining the runes around the frame. "These are older than the academy. Some of them… aren't even from this continent."
Riven gave her a glance of surprise. "You can read them?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she pressed two fingers to one of the symbols, whispering a word in the old tongue.
The mirror shimmered.
The runes flared to life, glowing with a silvery-blue light that danced across the surface like lightning. The glass rippled.
"Liora," Riven said warily. "What did you do?"
Before she could answer, the mirror pulsed.
A shockwave exploded from the frame, hurling them both backward.
---
When Liora opened her eyes, the room was gone.
She stood in a dark forest beneath a sky she didn't recognize. The moon was too large. The stars too bright.
Beside her, Riven stood, sword half-drawn, his eyes narrowed.
"We're not really here," he said, scanning the trees. "This is the mirror's domain. A memory space."
"But whose memory?" Liora whispered.
That was when they saw the girl.
She stood at the edge of a clearing—no more than twelve years old, with dark hair and golden eyes. She wore the sigil of Wyrmere around her throat.
And in her hands, she held a sphere of blue fire.
Liora inhaled sharply.
"That's me."
Riven's gaze flicked to her. "This is your memory?"
"No," Liora murmured, stepping forward. "It's my mother's."
The scene unfolded before them like a dream. The girl—Liora's mother—was speaking to a cloaked figure.
"I know what the prophecy says," she said. "But the others won't listen. They think the bloodline must end."
The figure replied in a voice that was all shadows. "Then hide it. Seal the flame. Let it sleep until the time is right."
The girl clenched her fists. "And if it wakes too soon?"
"Then pray the one who carries it finds the strength to resist."
The forest around them blurred—shifting again.
Now, a tower. Fire. Screams.
The girl—older now—was running through crumbling halls, carrying a wrapped bundle. A baby.
Liora's chest tightened. She knew this moment. She'd seen flashes of it in nightmares.
The fall of Wyrmere.
A blade slashed through the memory—dark steel with the Warborn crest.
A betrayal.
Riven flinched.
"This is the past the Council buried," he said.
The memory fractured again.
Now the mirror showed the council chamber. A younger Kael. Other masters. A man with Riven's eyes standing at the head of the table.
"We cannot allow the Vale heir to live," he was saying. "The prophecy must be severed."
Liora's knees buckled.
Riven reached for her without thinking, steadying her arm. "That's my father."
She looked up at him, stricken. "He ordered my bloodline's extinction."
Riven's face was stone. "I didn't know."
"Didn't you?"
"I swear it."
---
The memory faded. The real archive bled back into view.
The mirror was cracked—hairline fractures spreading across its surface like veins.
"I didn't come here to hurt you," Riven said quietly. "But I needed to know the truth."
Liora stepped away from him. "And now that you do?"
Riven hesitated. "Now I need to decide what I'll do with it."
She narrowed her eyes. "That's not comforting."
"No," he agreed. "It's not."
---
That night, sleep didn't come for either of them.
Riven sat in the old dueling hall, watching shadows dance on stone walls, Kael's voice from the mirror echoing in his head.
We cannot allow the Vale heir to live.
But Liora wasn't just the heir.
She was the key.
And someone—maybe more than one—still wanted her dead.
---
In her room, Liora stared out the window, her hands trembling.
The flame was waking. The mirror had shown her that.
And the more it awakened, the more the truth would hunt her.
She closed her eyes, whispering an old Wyrmere prayer.
Not for safety.
But for strength.
Because she could no longer run.
---
Deep in the restricted levels of the academy, the cracked mirror flickered once more. A shape moved behind the glass—something ancient, faceless, bound in chains of light.
Watching.
Waiting.
And then—
Smiling.
Dear readers,I may not be able to release loads of chapters soon but I will make sure to add more once I return,thank you