The Mirror Gate pulsed like a living wound, its light fractured, jagged like broken glass. Caleb reached for Aria, but her figure was already caught in the shimmer. The hand of her shadow-self—smoke and silver, bone and blood—wrapped around her arm and yanked her forward.
She fell.
Not through space.
Through herself.
The world twisted, warped. Her bones felt too light, her spirit too heavy. Aria landed hard on blackened grass beneath a bleeding sky. The realm was cold, yet humid, like sorrow soaked in fog. Mirrors jutted out of the earth like tombstones, and each reflected a different version of her face—angry, afraid, triumphant, broken.
Ahead stood the Shadow Aria.
She wore a crown forged from bone and ash, wrapped in thorns that bled silver. Her eyes blazed not with hate, but with hunger—deep, bottomless need.
"You shouldn't have come," the shadow said.
Aria rose slowly. "I didn't have a choice."
