The wind howled as they walked back to the temple Ravion in silence, Elira trailing behind him with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She didn't speak not because there was nothing to say, but because too much had happened.
Her feet moved on instinct. Her thoughts? Chaos.What was she?
Why had the realm rejected her escape? Not because she didn't belong but because she belonged too well.
That frightened her more than anything.
The bone gates of the outer temple creaked open at their return. The sigils on the wall stone flickered dimly, reacting to her presence now as much as Ravion's. She caught the way Lysandros glanced at her from the shadows above just a flick of his gaze, like a soldier assessing a threat. Or an asset.
She didn't like either possibility.
Once inside the temple's darkened heart, Ravion turned left, disappearing down the corridor that led to the war chambers his domain of fire, strategy, and blood. Elira didn't follow.
Instead, she took the long, winding staircase that twisted up the spine of the ancient ruin. At the top sat the old observatory tower, cracked open to the sky like a wound in the stone. Few dared climb it anymore. It had once belonged to an oracle-demon one whose wings were cut and sanity lost, consumed by a prophecy he was never meant to glimpse.
That was exactly why she went.
Not for peace.
But for the silence that held secrets.
She wasn't searching for comfort.
She was searching for truth.
The tower groaned as she stepped inside, stone singing with old magic. The air was dry, heavy with memories. The floor still bore the broken remnants of scrying circles and shattered glass. A few cracked tomes lined the shelves ignored, unread, half-burned.
She moved toward the far wall, where starlight thin and sickly red poured in through a cracked dome. The light touched the burned sigil she'd traced earlier, now etched deeper than when she'd first drawn it.
It pulsed. Just once. As if sensing her return.
She crouched beside it and laid her palm on the mark. Fire coiled beneath her skin, responding instantly but not with pain not even with power.
With recognition.
Like a key slipping into a lock.
The sigil flared, and a second symbol appeared beside it, faint and twitching, like flame trying to remember how to form a shape.
She jerked back.
"I didn't trace that," she whispered.
The flame responded not in words, but in emotion. Hunger. Need. It wasn't finished.
It wanted her to complete the sequence.
But how?
She hadn't learned these symbols. They came from nowhere. They came from her.
She bit her thumb again, blood welling, and let it fall to the stone. This time, she didn't force the sigil. She just… breathed. Let the power come.
The blood spread outward and curled into a line.
Then another.
A circle formed. Then angles. Then heat.
The second rune completed itself—ancient, unfamiliar.
A pulse rang out from the floor like a bell made of fire.
And the world shifted.
She wasn't in the tower anymore.
Not fully.
The walls rippled. Stone turned to smoke. The floor vanished, replaced by an endless sea of glowing red sigils that stretched into infinity.
She gasped, stepping back but the world didn't follow her.
It waited.
"Where…?"
A figure stood in the distance. Not Ravion. Not demon. Not priest. No horns. No armor. Just a girl.
A mirror.
Her.
Or something wearing her shape. But older and the eyes were wrong too gold, too still.
The other-Elira smiled faintly. "Now you're listening."
Elira took a step forward, hands clenched. "Who are you?"
"A question with no answer," the mirror-Elira replied. "Because I am not a who. I'm a when. I'm a could-be. A might-be. A truth you buried and now can't ignore."
"You're not real."
"Neither was the bond. Until it was."
The mirror-Elira stepped forward. Her shape flickered, pulsing with flame and blood. Her skin glowed like molten glass, but her eyes—
They were human. Tired. Familiar.
"You think you called Ravion by accident?" she said softly. "You think desperation alone unlocked the gate? No. Something called you back. This power this bond it's older than the devils and deeper than any coven you lost."
Elira shook her head. "I'm not a prophecy."
"No," the other her agreed. "You're a rewrite of one."
Elira's heart pounded. "Then tell me what I am."
But the world shattered before the answer came.
She gasped awake, back in the tower, her hand still on the rune.
The air was too thin. Her breath came fast and sharp. Her skin burned, not from pain, but pressure. The kind that warned her something had been changed.
She looked down.
The second rune was real now fully formed both of them glowed.
And between them, the beginning of a third.
Her hand shook.
"Elira."
The voice startled her. She turned.
Ravion stood in the doorway, half in shadow.
"I felt the surge," he said. "What did you do?"
"I don't know."
He stepped forward. His eyes flicked to the glowing runes. His brows furrowed, "That's not hellscript."
"No. It's mine."
He looked at her.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
"No," she said. "But I will."
She told him—about the vision, about the reflection, about the power that responded not to will, but identity.
He listened without interrupting. But she could see it something in his face closed off.
"What aren't you saying?" she asked.
"You said the reflection had gold eyes?"
"Yes."
"That's an old sign. The Forgotten Flame. The gods tried to burn it out centuries ago magic that's neither holy nor hellish. Just… raw. Unclaimed."
"Unclaimed," she repeated.
He nodded. "It's power without a side. Which means everyone wants it, priests wants to destroy. Devils wants to control. Sorcerers wants to bottle. That's why they're coming."
Elira leaned back against the stone. "So what am I? Some lost key?"
Ravion stared at her a long time. Then said quietly: "No. You're a door."
That shook her more than anything.
Not a weapon.
Not a witch.
A door. To something ancient and waiting.
"What happens if someone turns the handle?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Neither did she.
But both of them understood what had shifted tonight.
The prophecy hadn't come for her.
She had become it.
And from here on, there was no turning back.