"When power is stolen, it corrupts.
When it is mirrored… it consumes."
—The First Spellweaver
The crimson streak across the mirror hadn't faded.
It pulsed like a heartbeat, slow and steady, as if waiting for me to press my hand against it again. The rune on my collarbone hummed louder each second I hesitated, like a second heartbeat under my skin.
"Seraphina," Kael said behind me. "We don't know what's behind there. You said someone already went through."
"I don't have a choice anymore."
"You always have a choice."
I looked at him and saw it. The fear he couldn't say aloud.
If I went through, I might not come back.
And if I did… I might not be me anymore.
But I stepped forward anyway. I placed my bleeding palm against the mirror.
It hissed.
And then it opened.
I fell through light.
It wasn't sky or shadow it was memory. Emotion. Time.
Hundreds of reflections flickered past me. In each, I was someone different:
A queen with a crown of ash
A girl with no magic, crying in the rain
A shadow standing over a battlefield of fire
"This is what could have been," a voice whispered.
"This is what was stolen."
I landed hard, knees slamming against stone.
When I stood, I was no longer in the palace. Or the Academy. Or even the Empire.
I was in a version of the capital twisted by dream its towers cracked, its skies silver, its rivers flowing with blood and starlight.
And standing in the middle of it all… was me.
She wore the same face, the same hair. But her eyes
They were wrong.
Too wide. Too sharp. Like mirrors turned inward.
"I was wondering when you'd come," she said, brushing dust from her cloak. "Did the real world bore you?"
I stepped forward cautiously. "Who are you?"
She smiled.
"I'm you… if you'd chosen differently."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't fight the Empire. I didn't reject the Phoenix. I took the throne. I let them bind me, and in doing so, I broke them all."
"You're a version of me that obeyed."
She laughed. "No, darling. I'm the version that won."
She raised her hand, and golden fire swirled into a spear.
It didn't flicker like mine. It didn't hesitate.
It commanded.
I summoned my own flame but it danced, still wild, still uncertain.
"I don't want to fight you," I said.
"But I have to fight you," she replied. "There can't be two of us. Only one Seraphina can return. That's the Gate's rule."
"Then I'll rewrite the Gate."
I charged.
We clashed fire on fire, rune against rune.
She was faster. Smarter. Every move I made, she anticipated.
Because she knew me. She was me.
But I remembered what the rebellion leader had said.
"You would lead by choosing."
She didn't choose.
She obeyed.
And that made her vulnerable.
As we fought, our flames collided until suddenly, my rune pulsed blue.
Not gold.
Blue.
And the memory of my mother's voice rang through my mind:
"The blood is yours. But the will… is yours alone."
I dropped my spell. Opened my hands.
The False Seraphina struck, expecting to win.
But I didn't block.
I absorbed.
Her flame struck my chest then bent inward, twisting, until it wrapped around my own will.
The Gate screamed.
So did she.
And then
She cracked.
Like glass under pressure, her form splintered and fell into the wind, her last words echoing through the realm:
"You'll become me anyway… in the end."
I woke back in my chambers. Sweat drenched. Hands glowing.
Kael was at my side, eyes wide. "You vanished for two days."
"I was gone for two minutes."
His face darkened. "You're bleeding."
I looked down.
The mark across my collarbone had changed.
No longer a single rune.
It had split in two.
One side gold. One side blue.
Two destinies.
One body.