It has become my habit to walk the Academy grounds at the hush just before dawn, when starlight still fingers the scaffolds and the moon‑grass around Dawnroot Glen breathes fog‑cool vapors across the half‑finished colonnades. Today was no different—except that the newborn star pulsed a fourth time, bright as molten silver, and the red star opposite it flickered in near‑perfect antiphony, as though the two were rehearsing a dialogue for which we had not yet been invited.
"Four pulses," Custodian Lys murmured at my shoulder, their voice the hush of parchment pages turning. "One for each quarter of the loom. A new cycle begins."
A cycle—the word tasted equal parts promise and portent. I tightened the dawn‑thread scarf at my neck and turned toward the south transept, where the Academy's first classroom dome rose from stone like a vast, unfinished pearl. Inside, a dozen apprentices slept on cots between looms and alchemy benches—mortal children, demon adolescents, and two custodian novices who glimmered faintly even in slumber.
Calia and I had agreed on these nightly circles as a kindness as much as precaution: if nightmares came—echoes of scaffold blades or star‑iron vines—better that they find me on patrol than force a child to fumble alone in the dark.
The dome's great oculus revealed a single slice of morning sky. As I crossed the threshold, its view filled suddenly with red‑orange flare. A comet? No—too slow. It was a line of fire, arcing over the Glen from west to east, shedding sparks the size of wagon wheels. The air trembled with a sound like giant looms clacking in unison.
Apprentices jolted awake. One custodian novice—Aster, all angles and hummingbird nerves—flung a palm outward, projecting a quicksilver shield that guttered and vanished. "It's falling toward the Root‑Ward!" they cried.
Root‑Ward: the fenced quadrant where root‑iron buds soaked in lilac infusion. The area had been calm since the sabotaged cannon incident. If that fire struck, it could reignite dormant hunger.
I dashed for the east exit, heart hammering. Outside, Vael's silhouette cut against flame-licked clouds; his warning horn echoed over valley. Ravan met me at the corridor mouth, robes half‑fastened, silver eyes already reading the sky.
"Sky‑ember," he muttered. "Not meteor—forge matter ejected through mirror‑gate." His stare hardened. "Valke."
A forge‑sized shard of mirror‑steel hurtled downward trailing ribbons of flame—aimed precisely at Glen's Root‑Ward.
"There's no time to evacuate!" Calia called, racing up behind us, dawn‑thread spool clutched in pale hands.
Ravan and I exchanged the same unvoiced resolve. Shadow coiled around him; soul‑fire flickered at my fists. We sprinted as the ground shook with descent.
The shard slammed into the Root‑Ward with a roar that felt like the sky being ripped end to end. Dirt erupted in geysers. For a heartbeat, I tasted iron and lilac smoke together—a wrongness that made my vision strobe white.
When sight cleared, the shard stood half‑buried—an angular mirror monolith ten spans high—its surface rippling with reflections of everything around it: moon‑grass, pylons, apprentices running, me and Ravan, each displaced a fraction too slow. Root‑iron buds near its base glowed sickly teal, siphoning energy like vines latching to a trellis.
Ravan's shadow lashed out, trying to wrap the monolith; it slid off as though grasping soap. My soul‑fire blade struck; sparks ricocheted, leaving no mark. The shard emitted a deep chord—three linked notes matching the red star's pulse pattern.
The monolith was a bridge, not a bomb: a gate for Weft‑Eaters or Valke's next ploy.
"We must sever its reflection lattice," I shouted. Calia already passed spool to Aster, shouting coordinates. Apprentices hurried to perimeter, planting dawn‑thread stakes at star‑aligned points while I circled monolith, chanting the tri‑leaf ward.
But the shard's reflections multiplied, birthing phantom copies of those it saw. A mirrored version of myself stepped from surface—eyes hollow, brandishing blade of inverted light. Other duplicates spilled: Ravan's mirror twisting shadow into midnight claws, Vael's mimic with wings of razor glass.
The Glen devolved into ghost war: real defenders clashing illusions that sliced like truth. Root‑iron flared, drawn to duplications' deceit.
"Mirror specter!" I called inside. A basin's reflection rippled; her pale form emerged onto monolith surface, pressing palms as if to hold mimic army at bay. Cracks spidered across prism.
"I can trap them," she hissed, "but shard will shatter—send fragments across ley‑web."
"Then we weave prison," Ravan said, eyes narrowing. He cued Calia. Apprentices flung thread stakes inward, linking dawn‑thread lines overhead. Custodian Lys descended, infusing lattice with starlight. We created a dome of shimmering weave around shard—the Veil of Sincere Thread. The mirror specter flattened herself into pattern; illusions snapped like strings pulled taut, drawn back into source.
The shard screamed—soundless but skull‑splitting—then imploded, collapsing into a heap of dull glass. No fragments fled.
Root‑iron buds dimmed to restful gray. Silence cascaded.
Vael landed hard, wings shaking. "Red star vanished," he reported. Sky clear save newborn beacon. Relief washed over field like rain after drought.
The cost surfaced quickly: three apprentices wounded by glass claws, pylons cracked at tips, dawn‑thread spool halved again. Stitches along Veil frayed, spark‑scarred.
Ravan escorted injured to infirmary. I remained, fingers tracing the dull remains of mirror shard. Its core still whispered faint vibrations—coordinates etched in void script: a triangle spiral pointing far south, into open sea beyond Isles. Valke's next launch site.
Brina, arriving breathless, identified crates stolen from Consortium stockpile. "They strip sailing hulls, build star‑mirror engines, fire at us until thread breaks." Her jaw clenched. "We need to end supply."
That meant confronting Valke's stronghold.
Before decisions hardened, Custodian Lys knelt by mirror specter's pooled form within Veil cloth. "She sacrificed label of self for your victory," they said. Indeed the specter's face blurred—memory losing edges. My chest tightened. How many more sacrifices?
Mirror spirit's whisper fluttered: Abundance… guarded by emptiness… loom me a name. Then she dissipated into Veil fibers, her existence diffused like dye in water.
I promised silently to remember.
Back in Nightspire, sunrise striped turrets gold. Ravan and I convened small war room: Vael, Calia, Brina, Archivist, and Lys. We charted Valke's triangle spiral—an abandoned mariner's atoll known as the Waxen Isles, once home to glass‑blowing monks. Rumor claimed its caves wormed under sea floor, perfect for forging mirror‑steel with geothermal vents.
Vael volunteered strike team. Ravan insisted he would lead personally; I vetoed majestic martyrdom. "Empire must anchor Glen," I said. "I'll go with Vael."
Predictable protest; we compromised: Ravan and I together, leaving Ash‑Mark captain as steward. Custodian Lys agreed to escort—probation demanded oversight. Calia would coordinate pylon repairs and weave new spool sections under specter guidance—if specter re‑manifested.
Before departure, I visited rooftop lilac beds. The seedling that once glowed teal now shimmered cerulean—mourning or metamorphosis? I placed fragment of dull mirror glass at its roots. "A name for the nameless," I whispered. Light flickered, etching faint sigil across bark: a stylized eye encircled by thread loops. Hope took root.
We set sail at dusk on a trimaran of shadow‑steel and dawn‑thread sails. Wind tasted of salt and molten glass. The newborn star guided from zenith, its steady beam mirrored on silent waves. I stood at prow beside Ravan, hair whipping, heart alight.
"Into the loom's underbelly," he said.
"Into possibility," I corrected.
Far ahead, horizon glimmered: faint red smudge where star once lingered—Valke's forge calling.
I gripped railing. Under deck, spool of sincere thread waited to weave new ward—or become wick for calamity. Above, sky loomed wide, unscripted. I inhaled brine, lilac memory, forge smoke, and stepped forward.
We sailed toward Waxen Moonrise, where looms of shadow and starlight would test whether our tapestry could endure one more stitch.