"When a soul splits in the Gate, one half becomes wrath. The other? Remorse."
—Elarin the Seer, Echoes of the Rift
The air in the capital shifted long before the bells rang.
Whispers swept the cobblestone alleys and climbed the spires of the Empire's golden towers faster than any courier, louder than any decree.
Someone had arrived.
Someone with Seraphina Dorne's face.
And she wasn't hiding in shadows anymore.
"You're saying she walked through the outer gates like a noble?" I asked, gripping the edge of the map spread across the rebellion table.
Kael nodded grimly. "Not just like a noble. With a procession. White horses. Flame-crested banners. The city guard let her pass without question."
"Impossible. The Emperor would never—"
"He didn't invite her."
"What?"
Kael's gaze darkened. "This wasn't sanctioned. It was staged. She entered the city like a queen returning from conquest."
My stomach twisted.
"What does she call herself?"
Kael hesitated. "Seraphina of the Unburnt Flame."
Of course she did.
Because it wasn't enough to wear my face she wanted my legacy, too.
We heard the screams by midmorning.
A street merchant near the lower plaza had refused to bow when the "other" Seraphina passed with her retinue. A flame-marked knight stepped forward, demanded obedience.
When the man said, "You're not the real Flameborn," he was burned alive on the spot.
Publicly.
No trial. No question.
Just smoke and silence.
And worse? The crowd cheered.
They believed she was me.
Or worse
They didn't care if she wasn't.
I stood at the edge of the rebellion hideout's rooftop that evening, watching her parade cut through the heart of the capital like a silver dagger.
Her cloak was phoenix-red. Her hair braided in the traditional Spellweaver knots. Her rune
Identical to mine.
But her eyes?
I could see them even from across the distance.
And they were wrong.
Too perfect.
Too still.
Too… empty.
"I need to know what the Gate actually did," I said later that night.
Kael sat beside me, arms crossed, brow furrowed. "You're not still thinking she's just a projection?"
"No," I said quietly. "I think she's more than that."
We returned to the hidden chamber beneath the chapel where I first saw my mother in the memory mirror.
But this time, we weren't here to observe.
We were here to extract.
Spellweaving wasn't just casting anymore. I could now reshape magical echoes if I dared.
I summoned the mirror again, fed it a drop of my blood… and then a drop of the impostor's flame. I had snatched a spark from her during our Gate clash.
The mirror screamed.
A crack split down its center.
Then it flickered showing two versions of me:
One kneeling before a child Seraphina in chains
The other standing over a battlefield, crowned in flame and shadow
"One was made to suffer."
"One was made to rule."
"But both were made… by you."
I fell to my knees.
Kael caught me just as the mirror shattered entirely, leaving behind a single word burned into the wall behind it:
"Twinflame."
Later, the rebellion's archivist pulled an ancient scroll from the forbidden texts vault.
It was brittle, half-burned, and marked with banned runes. At the top was a title in phoenix-script:
"The Twinflame Prophecy."
"In the time of reckoning, when one Gate opens and blood returns, the soul will split. One shall walk in wrath, one in will.
If either dies, the Empire breaks. If both survive… the world burns anew."
I stared at the words until they blurred.
It wasn't just about power.
It was about balance.
She and I weren't just reflections or rivals.
We were two halves of a curse.
Three days later, the impostor stood in the throne plaza the very steps where the Phoenix Order had been publicly executed twenty years ago.
Flanked by her flameguard, she raised her hands before the people and declared:
"I am Seraphina of the Unburnt Flame. The one who conquered the Gate. The one born of fire and fate.
And I challenge the false claimant who hides in shadows to face me.
If she refuses she is no Flameborn at all."
The crowd roared.
She had turned the city into a theater. A trap.
But also… a mirror.
I watched it unfold from the palace's high tower, Kael by my side.
"She wants a fight," he said.
I nodded. "And she'll get one."
But not her fight.
Mine.
That night, I summoned the rebellion's core.
I laid out the map. Circled three points.
"She wants me to challenge her in public," I said. "We won't."
One of the lieutenants frowned. "But the people are listening to her now."
"Then let's make them listen harder."
I marked a trail of rebel attacks, not on the throne, but on the symbols she was using to fake her rise:
Her flameguard's armory
The merchant house funding her parades
And the cathedral hosting her blessing ceremony
"This isn't a war of swords," I said. "It's a war of faith. Of truth."
"And what of the prophecy?" someone asked. "If one of you dies…"
I met his eyes.
"Then the Empire dies with us."
The night before we made our move, I stood with Kael on the balcony above the capital. Fires flickered in the distance from riot sparks. Tension hung in the air like wet smoke.
"You still trust me?" I asked.
He nodded. "Always."
"Even if I become her?"
"You won't."
"How do you know?"
He touched the mark on my collarbone.
"Because hers is perfect. Yours? Yours bleeds. That's how I know you're still real."