MasukNobody moved.The pale hand remained curled around the edge of the silver doorway, its fingers motionless against the glowing surface. Beyond it, the passage was filled with a darkness that seemed different from the darkness they had encountered before. It did not twist or whisper. It did not reach toward them or attempt to frighten them.It simply waited.Elias felt the mark on his palm grow warm.The three white lines slowly turned toward the doorway, as though recognizing someone on the other side.Maerwynn stepped backward.“No,” she whispered. “It cannot be her.”Seraphine caught her arm. “Mother, who is she?”Maerwynn did not answer.Her gaze remained fixed on the pale hand.The First King moved closer to the doorway, his expression hardening. “Show yourself.”A soft laugh came from the other side.“You still give orders as though the world belongs to you.”The First King’s face changed.Lucian noticed immediately. “You know that voice.”“I know what it sounds like,” the First K
Elias heard the voice long after the mirror had shattered.It followed him into the silence, slipping between his thoughts until he could no longer tell whether the words were coming from somewhere beyond the boundary or from a place deep inside his own mind.Now, my little keeper, you will learn what happens when the lock is gone.He stared at his palm.The black circle remained, but the three white lines had disappeared. In their place was a single silver crack that ran through the center of the mark, pulsing with every beat of his heart.Something was wrong.He could feel it.The mark had always felt like a connection, a narrow passage through which he could hear the boundary without being consumed by it. Even when its power overwhelmed him, there had always been a distinction between his own thoughts and the voices on the other side.Now that distinction was disappearing.A woman was crying somewhere inside his head.A child was calling for his mother.An old man was repeating a n
Elias could not move.The boy standing before him had Cael’s face, Cael’s silver-brown eyes, and the same small scar above his left eyebrow that Elias remembered from the day his son had fallen while running through the palace garden. He even had the same habit of pressing his lips together when he was upset, as though he believed he could hide every hurt simply by refusing to speak.Everything was right.And that was what frightened Elias most.He had spent centuries learning that the most dangerous things in the boundary were not those that looked monstrous. They were the things that knew exactly what a person wanted to see.Cael tilted his head.“Why are you looking at me like that, Daddy?”Elias swallowed the ache in his throat.“Because I have missed you.”The boy’s expression softened immediately.“Then come here.”He opened his arms again.Elias took one step forward before forcing himself to stop.He could remember the weight of Cael in his arms. He could remember carrying him
The first scream came from the mirror.The second came from the doorway.By the third, every person in the chamber was on their knees.Elias felt the sound tear through his skull, passing through his ears and straight into the deepest part of his mind. It was not simply noise. Each voice carried a memory, a moment of terror, a final breath, and a name that had been forgotten by everyone who had ever spoken it.He heard children calling for their mothers. He heard soldiers begging their brothers not to leave them behind. He heard women whispering the names of husbands who had died before they could say goodbye.Then he heard his own voice.Not the voice he used now, but the voice of the little boy who had knelt beside Dorian’s dying body and begged him to wake up.“Please,” the child cried. “Don’t leave me.”Elias clutched his head.“Stop!”The black circle on his palm flared, and the three white lines surrounding it began to rotate. Silver light spread beneath his skin, racing up his
“Your brother has been dead for centuries.”The words followed Elias into the silence.He stared at the two figures standing on opposite sides of the silver doorway. One was Dorian, his brother, whose face had been marked by centuries of suffering. The other wore the same face, the same eyes, and the same familiar features, but there was something profoundly wrong about him.The second Dorian smiled as though he had just revealed a secret Elias should have known all along.“Let him go,” Elias demanded.The imitation tilted its head. “Which one?”Elias tightened his grip on the real Dorian’s wrist.“I’m not playing your game.”“Of course you are. You have been playing it since the moment you broke the lock.”The imitation’s black eyes shifted toward Dorian.“Tell him.”Dorian shook his head violently. “Don’t listen to it.”“Tell him what you remember.”“Elias, get away from the door!”The imitation chuckled.“You see? Even now, he is trying to protect you from the truth.”The silver do
The blade descended.“ROWAN, MOVE!”Elias threw himself forward, but the figure wearing his face was faster. The silver blade cut through the air, leaving a trail of black smoke behind it. Rowan stumbled backward, and Elias barely managed to pull him out of the weapon’s path before it struck the stone floor.The impact shattered the chamber.Silver fragments exploded in every direction. Evelyn screamed as Alexander pulled her behind him, shielding her with his body. Lily grabbed Adrian’s arm, dragging him away from the collapsing wall, while Lucian threw up a barrier of light around the First King.But Elias barely noticed the destruction.He was staring at the man standing across from him.The stranger wore his face perfectly. The same dark hair, the same sharp jaw, the same eyes that had once looked back at him from a mirror. Yet there was something deeply wrong about the resemblance. The stranger’s expression was too calm, his movements too precise, and his eyes held a coldness Eli







