The first thing Elara noticed was the silence.
Not the peaceful kind. The kind that felt orchestrated. Like someone had taken a blade to the sound and left it bleeding behind her ears.
She stood on the edge of a forgotten city; Vaerin, she guessed. A name scraped into the corners of her mind by memories that weren't hers.
The sky above was cracked like a dying mirror. Light bled from it, fractured and cold. Towers bent at impossible angles, and doorways led to staircases that hung midair. The city looked alive, like it was thinking, shifting… breathing.
And in her ears, always, was the whisper of the Mirror Cloak.
"You've been here before."
She hadn't.
Not Elara.
But Lyra had.
...…
She walked the main street, boots crunching over silvered gravel. Windows around her flashed with phantom reflections; figures that vanished when she turned to look. Some wore hoods. One looked like Talren.
None were real.
At least… not yet.
Each building whispered things as she passed.
"You wore the crown and shattered the sea."
"You turned your own brother into ash."
"You screamed his name when you killed him."
Elara stopped.
A building to her left was pulsing softly. Its door opened for her, slow and deliberate, revealing a dim hallway carved with mirror-script.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the world shifted.
She was no longer in the street.
She was standing inside a grand hall of twisted glass, surrounded by black statues with no faces. Her heart thundered. She raised her hand to call magic—but it didn't come.
The Cloak whispered.
"Not here. Here, she controls the rules."
"Who?"
"Lyra."
...…
A mirror bloomed from the center of the floor like a flower opening in reverse. Not a smooth one, a shattered one, shards twisting in midair. Each piece showed a different version of Elara.
One with burning eyes.
One kneeling in blood.
One laughing as she set fire to a child's bedroom.
And one, very still, looking directly at her.
"Who am I?" Elara whispered.
"A question too late for an answer."
.....
Then, the still one in the mirror moved.
She smiled.
"Welcome back."
The floor collapsed.
...….
She landed hard on her knees in what looked like a catacomb made of glass. Bodies were embedded in the walls—preserved perfectly in death, their hands clawing outward. Some wore robes. Some were soldiers. One-
Elara froze.
One was Lyra.
But she wasn't dead.
Her eyes flicked toward Elara. Wide. Terrified. Screaming—but no sound came.
Her hand reached forward, pressing against the inside of the glass.
Behind her, the real Elara heard footsteps.
Slow. Deliberate.
Talren.
.....
"I warned you," he said, voice low. "You weren't ready."
She spun, the cloak flaring behind her.
He stepped into the torchlight. Older than before. Changed. His face bore a mirror-scar across one cheek, and his right eye gleamed like polished obsidian.
"What is this place?" Elara demanded.
"Lyra's prison. Her final memory."
"You lied. She's not dead, she's trapped!"
"And she begged me to do it."
He walked past her to the glass. Touched it gently.
"She saw what she was becoming. What you are now becoming."
"That's not me."
"But it could be."
He turned.
And in that moment, Elara saw something horrifying.
He wasn't alone.
Her reflection stood behind him. Smiling.
Not Elara.
Not Lyra.
Something else.
.....
The cloak constricted suddenly, and Elara dropped to her knees, gasping. Visions poured into her—Lyra's final fight, the betrayal, the Mirror Cloak turning on her. Talren holding her hand as she begged to be sealed away before she tore the world apart.
"This isn't transmigration," she realized.
"This is resurrection."
The cloak wasn't just passing down power.
It was rebuilding Lyra through Elara's soul.
And soon, there wouldn't be a difference.
....
Talren crouched beside her.
"She's waking up, isn't she?"
Elara nodded slowly.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
"Then we don't have much time."
And he took her hand.