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
Elara’s POV~I gasped when I saw what she was staring at. Vira’s eyes—those burning, awful red eyes—were gazing at us from the mirror over Jasmine. Not a vision. Not a memory. But here. Present. Watching. Jasmine didn’t seem surprised.“Don’t panic,” she whispered. Her voice was low. As though she were afraid her own emotion might break her.“Jasmine…” I stepped forward, my hand already pulsing with the energy of the shards. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.“I don’t know,” she said in a small voice. “But in here, I don’t feel alone.”The mirror didn’t flicker. The reflection didn’t match Jasmine’s expression — it grinned when she didn’t. Moved when she didn’t.“It’s not just Vira,” Lyra murmured into my back, her voice tight. “It’s part of her, but it’s also been warped. Anchored somewhere else.”We heard Caspian enter the room, his sword coming halfway out. “Get her away from it. Now.”“Don’t!” Jasmine held up a hand. “If you touch me right now, I think she’ll get more.”More?
Elara's POV~I smelled the burn before I saw it. The mark on my palm, which had been gold, then silver, was red, and it burned like fire beneath my skin. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip, which I tasted blood on, and looked across the circle at Jasmine. She wasn’t moving. Not yet.But her rune was. I spotted it writhing beneath her skin, responding to the girl—no, the Matron’s successor—standing on the other side of the basin. Jasmine hadn’t moved but she seemed so distant, as if she wasn’t with us at all anymore. “Stay back,” I warned her.“I’m not,” she said quietly. But her voice trembled. The girl at the basin smiled. Now her hair was filled with cords. She’s the head of the wolves. They stood behind her, erect, unnaturally still–too still to be alive, but two present to be dead.“I told you the blood remembers,” she said under her breath. “She’s not who you think she is.”“Neither are you,” I snapped. The girl tilted her head. “And neither are you, flame bearer.”I felt Damien