Solene hadn't summoned fire in two days.
Not by choice.
Her magic trembled without form—sparks curled behind her eyes, heat spun around her wrists, but nothing took shape. Her connection to the world felt disjointed, like language spoken with missing syllables.
Rheia was gone.
The innkeeper said she left at twilight. No maps, no words. Just the whisper of glass chiming in her wake.
Solene didn't cry. She scorched. Everything she touched turned fever-warm. Candles melted. Ink in her journal curdled. Her body was betraying her grief in all the ways she wouldn't speak aloud.
She stepped toward the mirror.
It rippled.
Then it screamed.
Not with sound—but with visions.
Rheia in glass. Bleeding. Kneeling before something wearing her face. Words unheard. A curse invoked. A question answered wrong.
Solene staggered back, breath ragged.
The mirror pulsed again. This time—it reflected her.
Burning. Eyes empty. Standing over a field of mirrors turned to ash.
And Rheia nowhere.
"No," Solene whispered. "Not yet."
She ran. Not away—from herself. From prophecy.
She summoned flame.
It obeyed.
She reached the Vale by dusk—her fire unraveling trees, carving the air, demanding entry. The mirror gates split open. Magic bent. The trial stirred.
And Rheia felt it.
Inside the shattered mirror realm, she dropped her blade.
"Solene's here."
The air shifted.
And the mirror—the one that held their faces—sealed itself.
Because what's broken always remembers what nearly healed.