The whisper echoed long after the fountain stilled.
"Choose."
Lysia stood beside Zyren, shoulders taut, eyes locked on the water's surface. Their reflections hadn't returned. The fountain shimmered in silence, illusion lights glinting like distant stars—but the glassy water remained black and empty.
"I don't like this," Lysia said, barely above a whisper.
"I don't think we're supposed to," Zyren replied, his voice equally tight.
He reached for the moonstone pendant. It was warm now—not burning, not pulsing—just alive. A quiet hum beneath his fingers, like the breath of something waiting to be awakened.
Then the water rippled.
Just once.
Not from wind.
Not from motion.
But from beneath.
Lysia stepped back. "This is a trap."
Zyren nodded slowly. "Probably."
And then—without planning, without speaking—he reached forward and touched the water.
It didn't feel like water.
It felt like glass softened by dream. His fingers sank through the surface like it was silk—cool, silent, impossible.
The moonstone flared.
Lysia cried out his name, but before she could stop him, the fountain swallowed him whole.
---
It didn't feel like drowning.
It felt like falling into memory.
Zyren tumbled through silver light and smoke. He wasn't wet. He wasn't cold. He wasn't even sure he had a body.
All around him were shards—floating mirrors, fractured images. Some showed moments from his life: Selene's tear-streaked confession. Alaric's hand reaching into the darkness. His mother's last words—words he'd tried to forget.
And then—something else. A reflection he didn't recognize.
Himself—older. Paler. With eyes like cut glass and a voice that didn't belong to him.
"You're not ready," the reflection whispered. "But you will be."
A mirror cracked as he passed. In the shattering, he heard a voice:
"You let us in."
He twisted—reached for his pendant. The moonstone was gone.
So was his reflection.
There was only the mirrors now.
And something behind them.
Watching.
Choosing.
---
In the waking world, Lysia didn't hesitate.
She drew her wand, etched a quick protection rune into the stone with chalk, and plunged her hand into the water.
The barrier resisted her—she wasn't chosen. It snarled with invisible teeth, clawing at her palm.
But she forced it, whispering a spell older than what the Academy taught—an incantation her grandmother had warned never to speak aloud.
For a moment, the surface fought back.
Then it let her in.
She wasn't falling.
She was standing.
In a room of mirrors.
But they didn't show her reflection.
They showed her fears.
Zyren, hollow-eyed, consumed by the void.
Her father, eyes turned to shadow, blaming her for what happened at the gate.
A voice whispered behind her. "You're too late."
"No," she growled, "I decide when I'm too late."
She raised her wand and walked forward.
And the fountain was silent again.
---
Elsewhere. Elsewhen.
Zyren landed hard on a cold marble floor.
The sky above was not sky—it was glass, layered with stars that blinked and flickered like candle flames caught in wind. He stood slowly, surrounded by ancient ruins, the kind built not by hands but by intention.
Floating above a broken dais was a mirror.
Fractured. Incomplete. A web of cracks spread across its face—but at its center, something pulsed.
Him.
His face, mouth open in silent scream.
Then another face emerged. The silver-haired girl from the dreams. Older now, and standing beside him—within the mirror. She turned and saw him.
"Zyren," she whispered. "You're here."
"Who are you?" he asked.
She looked tired. Scared. But resolute.
"I'm your shadow," she said. "Or I was. Before they took me."
Zyren stepped closer. "You said I'm marked."
She nodded. "To open the door. To become the anchor."
He frowned. "Anchor to what?"
Then the mirror shivered.
And something moved behind her.
She turned—but it was too late.
Hands of black glass reached through, wrapping around her form like smoke with fingers. Her eyes widened—not with fear, but with grief.
"No," she said. "Not again."
Then she looked straight at Zyren.
"Break the mirror."
And she was pulled screaming into shadow.
---
Lysia arrived a breath too late.
She found Zyren standing before the mirror, hands shaking.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
"I don't know," he said. "But I think I've been here before."
Lysia stepped beside him, drawing her wand. "That thing—it took her."
"She said to break it."
Lysia hesitated. "We don't know what happens if we do."
"We don't know what happens if we don't."
He took a breath.
The moonstone flared in his palm, suddenly back, suddenly burning with silver light.
He raised it. The reflection in the mirror screamed in defiance—his face, but twisted.
Then the mirror cracked.
With a thunderous pulse, light surged out. The sky shattered. Glass rained upward.
And the world collapsed.
---
They landed in the Academy gardens, coughing, gasping.
The fountain's water had gone still again. The illusion lights buzzed faintly above.
Lysia sat up first. "You're bleeding."
Zyren touched his nose. "Dream blood. I think."
"Don't joke."
"I'm not."
They didn't speak for a long time.
Lysia leaned back against the garden wall, wand still gripped tight in her hand. Her hair was damp with mist, her pulse slow to settle.
The scent of crushed ivy and moonflowers filled the air, sharp and grounding.
Zyren sat across from her, elbows on knees, head bowed. The moonstone lay on the grass between them, cold and dull now. Just a stone.
"You saw her," Lysia finally said. Not a question.
Zyren nodded. "She knew me."
"She called herself your shadow."
"I think she meant it literally." He looked up, eyes unfocused. "Like... part of me, split off. Taken."
Lysia traced a line in the dirt with her fingertip. "What does it mean to be the anchor?"
He hesitated. "I don't know. But she looked at me like... like I was the reason she couldn't leave."
Silence stretched between them again.
Then Lysia leaned forward, voice low. "Do you feel it? That pull?"
Zyren glanced at her.
"The world's back," she continued, "but not quite. Like the mirror's still there. Just behind the sky."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I feel it."
She swallowed. "Do you think we broke it?"
"I think we broke something." His voice was quiet. "But I don't think that was the mirror's first crack."
A breeze rustled the garden hedges. The fountain hummed softly, illusion lights reflecting like constellations on its surface.
Then—
Ripples.
Small. Almost imperceptible.
They both froze.
No one touched it.
Zyren slowly reached for the moonstone again.
It didn't hum.
Didn't glow.
But it was warm.
And in the water's reflection—not between them this time, but far behind—a corridor of mirrors.
Just for a blink.
Then the stillness returned.
Lysia stood slowly. "We're not done, are we?"
Zyren rose beside her, clutching the stone. "No. We just opened the door."
---
They both backed away from the fountain—but not fast enough.
With a flash of moonlit light, the water erupted.
A humanoid figure emerged—liquid silver coalescing into a vaguely familiar form. Not Zyren. Not Lysia. But both.
The Mirrorbound.
Its face was featureless but held pieces of them—his eyes, her mouth, stitched with wrongness.
Zyren's pendant flared. He reached for it just as the creature lunged.
Lysia moved first—casting a ward shield that shattered on contact. The Mirrorbound crashed into a pillar, hissing. Its voice echoed with too many syllables, too many truths.
"Your world is fraying."
Zyren held out the pendant. "Then I'll be the thread that mends it."
The moonstone pulsed.
A beam of cold light shot forth, striking the creature dead center.
It screamed—and imploded into shards of silver light.
Lysia caught him as he staggered.
"That," she whispered, "wasn't the last of them."
"No," Zyren said. "It was the beginning."
They looked up.
The fountain's surface reflected them again.
But between their reflections—only for a second—a third one stood. Not Zyren. Not Lysia.
Just silver eyes, staring through the stillness.
Then it was gone.
---
**End of Chapter Seventeen**