Elira stood at the edge of a cracked mirror, staring at her reflection—eyes blue like frozen flame, hair dancing with ember strands, wild and untamed. The girl she used to be no longer lived in that reflection. What stared back at her was war-born, trauma-fed, and brimming with wrath barely caged beneath her skin.
Kael sat a few paces away, silent. He knew better than to speak when her hands trembled like that—when her gauntlets emitted heat waves strong enough to distort air. She had barely spoken since the run-in with the Wraiths in Deymah District. And who could blame her? That attack had exposed something—no, someone—she thought she buried.
"You keep seeing her," Kael finally said.
Elira's lips parted, cracked and dry. "My mother."
Kael nodded slowly. He didn't ask for details. Elira had made it clear: the past wasn't up for discussion. But the way she stood there now—haunted by the mirror—it was obvious. The ghosts weren't just in her mind. They were circling.
The mirror pulsed.
Not a trick of light. Not a reflection error. It pulsed, once, like a heartbeat.
Then came the whisper.
"You were never enough."
Elira's jaw clenched. The flame flickered to life across her gauntlets. She shattered the mirror with a single punch, glass flying in sharp, burning fragments.
Behind it? A hollow in the wall.
Kael rushed to her side. "What the hell—"
Inside the hollow was a black scroll. Ancient. Cursed. Emitting that same energy signature they encountered in the Deymah ruins.
Elira picked it up.
It burned, but she didn't flinch.
This wasn't just a clue. This was a message from the people who took her family.
And she was ready to burn the whole damn world to get them back.