Elara’s POV~I hadn’t known I was bleeding until I looked down and saw the smear across my palm. The edge of the wall rune had cut me as we’d fallen. But I didn’t feel it. I felt nothing but Caspian’s yell.“Get him back!” Jasmine called out, pushing against the spinning children. “He’s not one of them!”But they weren’t listening. The boy who pinned Caspian to the ground held a sharp object, a rune blade, black with lines of burnt runes on either side. She wasn’t older than ten. But her eyes were calm. Still. As if Vira had sucked the terror out of her and replaced it with submission. Lyra jerked herself forward, but the floor twisted — tiles bending themselves into shapes, ancient arrows flaring to life. Her magic sizzled harmlessly at the child.“She’s under manipulation,” Lyra snarled. “The stones are talking to her now.”“Then we tear them up,” Damien spat out. He pulled his sword, splitting the runes, thus loosening the grip of the trap. I groaned wearily, having barely regained
Jasmine’s POV~The countdown was there on the wall, glowing. Seventy-two hours. Now sixty-seven. Then sixty-one. Time folded back on itself with each breath, and I couldn’t stop watching it, as if keeping my eyes on it would slow it down. But numbers never listened. Not to be blood. Not to fear. Not even to regret.She would do it, I told myself, standing alone outside the Archive on its cold stone balcony. “She is going to take everything that we buried, and one way or another, she is going to crown it.” The stone doors groaned open behind me. I didn’t need to see who it was.Caspian smelled like moody pine. “You haven't slept,” he said kindly.“I’ve been talking to myself. That usually comes first.” He didn’t laugh. He joined me, propping his elbows on the balcony rail. “We’ll stop her.”“How?” I turned to him. “You saw what she is now. She’s not just me anymore. She is made of everything I hated — my rage, my confusion, my abandonment — and she’s turned that into her power. I gave
Elara's POV~The door was stone. Plain with no runes. No glamour. No protection circle. And that was why it was so terrifying. The Warden pushed the door open, himself, like some unspoken order, and beckoned me through his hand—the aemself’s black-veined hand.“She’s in there?” I asked.“What’s left,” he replied, his voice like falling snow, light but laden with quiet underneath. I took one breath and then walked through. The room wasn’t a room. It was a mirror. Not glass—reflected memory. The walls pulsed with images, twinkling as if frames of a filmstrip laced with pain.Immediately, as I entered, the shard in my chest started burning again. And then I saw her. Jasmine. Bound to a chair of bone and light, her head hanging. Runes danced along her skin. Some glowed. Some flickered. Some were cracked.“Jasmine,” I breathed. She didn’t move but one of the mirrors rippled next to me. It showed an image of her, standing in a field, young, smiling, holding Caspian’s hand. Another flash.
Elara's POV~The door was stone. Plain with no runes. No glamour. No protection circle. And that was why it was so terrifying. The Warden pushed the door open, himself, like some unspoken order, and beckoned me through his hand—the aemself’s black-veined hand.“She’s in there?” I asked.“What’s left,” he replied, his voice like falling snow, light but laden with quiet underneath. I took one breath and then walked through. The room wasn’t a room. It was a mirror. Not glass—reflected memory. The walls pulsed with images, twinkling as if frames of a filmstrip laced with pain.Immediately, as I entered, the shard in my chest started burning again. And then I saw her. Jasmine. Bound to a chair of bone and light, her head hanging. Runes danced along her skin. Some glowed. Some flickered. Some were cracked.“Jasmine,” I breathed. She didn’t move but one of the mirrors rippled next to me. It showed an image of her, standing in a field, young, smiling, holding Caspian’s hand. Another flash.
Elara's POV~The second she disappeared, I ran. The cage didn’t shatter. It just blinked, and the next thing I knew, Jasmine was gone. I brought my palm down onto the floor where she had been. There, the rune was fading fast, like breath on a mirror.“No, no, no—” I jerked, the power surging me towards it, until Damien caught me by the wrist and stopped me inches from burning clear through to the wrist with shard-light, “Wait. “If you strike out blindly now, you will cut the path completely.”“She’s getting further away!” I shouted, my voice raw. “She was right there! We could’ve—”“She was never here,” Lyra said hollowly. “That cage… it was an echo. Like a memory looping. The real Jasmine is still falling.”Winifred was crouched down near the rune already. “It didn’t just transport her. It recalibrated the space itself. The spiral—look.”I turned and saw it. The downward spiral had become an upward one. Not left. Not right. Inward. The blood-light lineaments flickered over the rock.
Elara’s POV~I continued to gaze at the spot where Jasmine had disappeared, hand trembling over the shattered remnants of the mirror. Her rune. Her voice. Her body—gone.“She walked into her,” I said in a whisper. “She walked into her, Damien.”He didn’t answer. Just got down on one knee and touched the floor as if it could still retain warmth. “There was no ritual. No seal. She just… let her in.”“It wasn’t possession,” Lyra said, her voice hoarse. “It was merging.”Winifred’s lips were bloodless. “That’s why there’s no bright line. No exorcism. If she’s dead… if Jasmine’s spirit has been buried beneath Vira’s Pet.”“She didn’t,” I snapped. “She didn’t drown.”But I didn’t believe it. Not really. Not with the fact that my shard had gone completely silent in my hand, neither throbbing nor warm. Silent. Afraid.“I wish I had grabbed her away,” I murmured.“You couldn’t,” Damien said.I looked up at him. “But I should’ve tried.” He tried to take hold of my arm, but I turned away.“I saw