The Academy had secrets
But none whispered louder than the chapel.
Nestled beside the western tower, the Chapel of Saint Ithrael was a quiet place, always lit with floating candles, its ceiling painted with divine victories and holy flames. The perfect distraction.
Perfect for hiding sins beneath scripture.
I knew what I was looking for now.
A door that bled.
A gate that remembered.
And somewhere below the chapel, it waited.
Kael stood watch outside while I slipped into the nave after dusk. No guards. No students. Just silence and the faint echo of a hymn being practiced on the upper organ.
The altar was ordinary… unless you had Spellweaver blood.
I pressed my palm to the side of the marble base and whispered a resonance rune.
A soft click answered.
The stone shifted revealing a narrow spiral stairwell leading down.
I lit my invisible lantern and descended.
The air turned thick with old magic and dust. Walls of gray rock closed in around me, etched with worn sigils.
And then I saw it.
It wasn't just a door.
It was alive.
Veins of glowing crimson stone pulsed faintly around its blackened arch, like blood flowing through old wounds. At its center was a single inscription in a language older than any spellbook:
To open the Gate, spill what was taken.
To pass through, offer what was lost.
To survive… bleed willingly.
The rune on my collarbone flared.
This was it.
I reached into my satchel and pulled the crystal vial the one Kael gave me. My mother's blood.
One drop remained.
But I wasn't here to spill hers.
I pressed my own hand to the gate.
The stone drank the blood the moment it fell like water to dry soil. My vision blurred.
And then the door… opened.
Inside was a round stone room carved like a forgotten tomb. At the center floated a black mirror, cracked at its edges, yet glowing faintly with magic.
Not a reflection glass.
Not quite memory.
It was a Remnant an object infused with time's fracture. Dangerous. Illegal.
But priceless.
I stepped forward. The mirror pulsed once and then flickered to life.
Suddenly, I was there.
Not standing in the chamber but walking through a memory that wasn't mine.
A younger woman, cloaked in gold, stood at the altar of the same chapel. Her face was my face but older. Wiser. Angrier.
She spoke to a man hidden in shadows.
"If they find her," she said, "they'll burn her before she learns to choose."
"Then you must bury the rune," he replied. "Seal it inside her. Let the Gate recognize her when she returns."
"And if I don't survive?"
"Then she'll open it in your place."
The woman paused. "Tell her I tried."
Then the vision ended
And I collapsed.
Kael caught me before I hit the stairs.
He looked terrified.
"You're bleeding," he said, cupping my cheek. "What happened?"
I couldn't answer not yet. My heart was pounding, my hand still slick with blood.
But I saw it clearly now.
The truth was hidden in that mirror.
My mother sealed her knowledge in me.
Her rune. Her power. Her fate.
The Empire hadn't just erased her.
They'd used me to finish what she started.