Elias lay motionless on the floor, his chest rising in faint, shallow breaths.
Lyra knelt beside him, her hands trembling as she reached for his wrist. A pulse—weak, but there. Relief flooded her for a second before the cold voice behind her returned.
"He's not dead. Not yet," Elira said, circling the room like a predator. "But if you want to keep him breathing, you'll listen."
Lyra stood. "Why now? Why come for me now?"
Elira's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Because you finally woke me. You tore the veil with your ritual. And now… the Hollow listens to me again."
She stepped toward the mirror.
"It only has room for one of us."
---
The mirror pulsed again.
Not just a door now—but a mouth. It reflected not the room, but a different world entirely: twisted trees, endless fog, and ruins of a house just like theirs, but inverted and burning with cold fire.
Lyra felt the pull in her chest—the shared soul twisting.
"If I go back," Elira said, "I disappear. Again. You live. You forget. And I rot alone."
Her voice cracked on the last word. For a moment, Lyra saw it—the pain beneath the mask. Not a monster. Not entirely.
A girl. A twin. A mirror.
"I'm sorry," Lyra said. "For everything they did to you. But this life—it's mine now."
---
Elira's gaze darkened. "Then we fight for it."
The mirror flared white.
Suddenly, Lyra was no longer in the vault—but in the mirror world. She stood opposite Elira in the chapel ruins, now twisted and overgrown with vines made of bone.
"I don't want this!" Lyra shouted.
"You called me here!" Elira screamed back. "You summoned the soul. You broke the Rite. Don't act innocent."
And she charged.
Their hands met, not in violence, but in light.
A vision flashed through Lyra's mind: two girls in a cradle, one crying, one silent. A mother torn between them. A father choosing one.
And a ritual that split a soul into two bodies.
---
Lyra fell to her knees, breath gone.
Elira hovered above her, expression unreadable. "This was never about revenge. It was about balance. You were never meant to live without me."
Lyra reached for her again—not to push her back, but to take her hand.
And Elira—hesitated.
The mirror behind them shuddered.
Lyra whispered, "We can both leave. But not as enemies."
Elira blinked, something breaking behind her eyes. The thorns faded from her crown. The chapel crumbled around them. The two halves of the soul began to merge—not to destroy, but to heal.
A final flash of light—
And silence.
---
Lyra awoke on the floor of the vault, Elias coughing beside her.
Elira was gone.
But in the mirror's shattered surface, there was no reflection at all.
Only stillness.