The silver eye blinked.
Once.
Then vanished.
Zyren stood frozen in the pale light of dawn, breath shallow, every instinct screaming at him to run. But his feet refused. The jagged mirror held him like a spell—its cracked surface pulsing faintly, a heartbeat too slow to be natural.
He reached out—hesitating inches from the fractured surface—then yanked his hand back.
The crack pulsed faintly, a heartbeat too slow to be natural.
He didn't sleep again that night.
---
By morning, the mirror was whole.
No cracks. No eye. Just his own reflection, dull-eyed and exhausted.
He didn't mention it. Not at breakfast, not in class, not even when Corwin asked why he looked like he'd wrestled an anxiety demon in his dreams and lost.
What could he say?
Hey, I think my reflection is alive and maybe trying to eat reality from the inside out.
He wasn't sure if he was losing his mind—or simply catching up to the truth.
But the weight of silence pressed heavier than usual that day—like walking through a world where everything was pretending just a little too well.
---
Whispers followed him through the halls.
Students were murmuring about the recent arcane surges in the West Tower. A fourth-year enchanter had gone missing after venturing into a forgotten archive chamber. All they'd found was her satchel—and her reflection, still trapped in the mirror she'd been working beside.
Professor Lynvale had dismissed the rumors as "transplanar nonsense."
But Zyren had seen the same wrongness in his own reflection. He wondered if the girl's eyes had turned silver too, before she disappeared.
---
As the midday bell rang through the Academy's western tower, Zyren was pulled aside—not by a Professor, but by the Academy's head warden, a towering man named Ser Rikhar, whose presence felt like forged iron.
"You," Rikhar said simply. "Follow me. Now."
Zyren exchanged a look with Alaric, who instinctively stood to come, but Rikhar raised a hand. "Just him."
They descended into parts of the Academy Zyren had never seen. Past the restricted archives. Past even the torch-lit catacombs known only in whispers. Cold stone. No windows. Air thick with magic that had gone stale.
They stopped before a sealed steel door. Rikhar pressed his palm to a carved glyph, and it groaned open.
Inside was a circular chamber—walls lined with mirror frames—dozens of them. Some ornate, some plain. All empty.
Not glass.
Just frames.
In the center stood Professor Raleen, pale and tight-lipped. Her usual calm replaced by something nearer dread.
"Close the door," she told Rikhar. "He needs to see."
As the door shut, she turned to Zyren. "You saw the eye, didn't you?"
Zyren nodded slowly. "I didn't tell anyone. Not yet."
"Good," she said. "Because it's already begun."
She gestured to an empty frame.
"They've started leaving their prisons. The Mirrorbound are no longer content with shadows. One of them—one of you—has already crossed."
Zyren felt his mouth go dry. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Raleen said, "there's now a version of you moving through this world. One that doesn't belong here. And it may not be the only one."
---
Later that day, Zyren and Alaric were summoned again—this time to Raleen's tower.
As always, her workspace smelled of parchment, candlewax, and secrets. Runes drifted across the ceiling like lazy constellations, shifting with the wind of unseen knowledge.
Alaric nudged Zyren as they climbed the spiral staircase. "Did you know she doesn't eat? Or sleep?"
"Maybe she's part of the furniture," Zyren murmured.
"Or a reflection," Alaric said with a smirk. Then added more quietly, "I heard about the mirror."
Zyren stopped. "From who?"
"I listen. And people talk. You're not the only one seeing cracks."
They reached the top.
"Come in," Raleen called, before they knocked.
Zyren stepped into the tower study. The walls shimmered faintly, like the whole room was one layered illusion, pulsing in and out like breathing. Books floated midair, pages turning themselves. The whole space felt like it was listening.
"Have you ever heard of the Ninefold Concord?" Raleen asked, pouring tea with hands that never trembled.
Zyren straightened. "Only fragments. Mentions in old scrolls. Forbidden orders. Lost magic."
Alaric added, "And no one talks about them without someone disappearing."
Raleen smiled faintly. "Good. Then we'll speak carefully."
She passed them each a sealed parchment, waxed with a sigil Zyren didn't recognize. Nine loops bound in a spiral.
"You are not the first to be hunted by shadows wearing your own face," Raleen said. "There is a war older than any kingdom—and reality is the battlefield."
Zyren's heart pounded. "The Mirrorbound?"
Raleen's nodded. "Reflections that learned how not to reflect. Entities born of echo and memory. They wait in the seams between worlds—mimicking us until they become us. The Ninefold Concord kept them bound. But that prison is weakening."
She paused, eyes narrowing.
"There's a story," she added, almost absently. "A tale I was told when I first joined the Concord. Of a king who saw his reflection smile before he did. The next day, he walked into the sea. But for weeks after, his people claimed to see him still… walking the halls. Issuing decrees. One version ruled. The other drowned."
Zyren swallowed. "And the one who ruled?"
"Brought a century of silence," she said. "The mirrors cracked all at once."
She stepped closer, her voice barely above a whisper. "If your moonstone burns in their presence, it means you're marked."
Zyren swallowed hard. "Marked for what?"
"To open the door," Raleen said. "Or to close it."
---
They left the tower in silence, the weight of the parchment heavier than iron.
"This is bigger than anything we signed up for," Alaric said as they sat on the library steps. "You okay?"
"No," Zyren admitted. "But I don't think that matters anymore."
Alaric offered a tired smile. "Well. At least we know what's hunting us now."
Zyren looked down at the moonstone, which no longer pulsed but sat heavy against his chest.
It simply waited.
"We don't," he said softly. "Not really."
---
That evening, Corwin barged into their shared dorm, holding a thick leather-bound book.
"I found something," he said, face pale. "In Magica Obscura, where the page was torn out? I checked another edition in the East Wing. It talks about the Mirrorbound's anchor points."
"Anchor points?" Zyren repeated.
Corwin flipped open the book. "Mirrors. Still water. Highly reflective surfaces in magical places. They aren't just peering through anymore—they're walking."
Alaric leaned over his shoulder. "If they can walk through reflections… there must be a way to trap them."
Corwin nodded. "There is. But the spell needs a conduit."
They all looked at Zyren's pendant.
He groaned. "Of course it does".
---
The Academy felt strange that night.
Clouds blanketed the sky, casting the halls in a grey stillness. No moonlight. The shadows stretched longer than they should—curling under doorframes like waiting fingers.
Zyren walked past an empty classroom, he paused—because in the window's reflection, he saw three silhouettes.
He was alone.
He didn't look back.
---
Later, he found Lysia waiting in the gardens.
The same frost-laced roses bloomed under illusion-light. She sat on the same stone bench—no longer angry. Just quiet.
"I heard about the cracked mirror," she said without looking at him.
Zyren sat beside her. "How?"
"I checked your dorm," she said. "I don't trust silence. Not anymore."
He sat beside her. "You were right. I've been hiding."
She nodded. "I know."
He hesitated, then offered her the torn note he'd been carrying. "This was left for me."
She read it once. Then again.
Finally, she looked at him—eyes hard. "Then we stop running."
Zyren blinked. "What?"
"We stop hiding, stop waiting. If something wants you, then we make sure it gets more than it bargained for."
He gave a weak laugh. "You make it sound so simple."
"It's not," she said. "But we're still here."
They sat in silence for a moment more.
Then, from across the courtyard, the shadows thickened—just slightly. Too slow to be noticed by anyone who hadn't been watching them all their lives.
Zyren and Lysia both turned.
And in the center of the Academy's great fountain, their reflections were gone.
Not warped.
Not wrong.
Gone.
Just water. Just glass. Just the void.
And then, a whisper—not from behind them, but from beneath the surface:
"Choose."
Zyren stood.
Lysia followed.
"Now what?" she asked.
Zyren closed his eyes. The pendant burned cold again.
"We find out what they want. Before they stop pretending to be us."
---
**End of Chapter Sixteen**