Chapter 38
It began with a whisper in the dark.
A breath that did not belong to anything living.A name spoken backward.A door opening without hands.
The Seventh Gate had been sealed by gods, locked by flame, and bound in soul-silver—
But it was never obedient.
Because unlike the others, it did not need a key.
It had always been sentient.
And now, in the aftermath of Eliendara's rejection of divinity, that Gate—ancient, cruel, and forgotten—chose to open.
Not by force.Not by prophecy.By will.
Its own.
In the Hollow, Eliendara awoke to the taste of static in her mouth and a sudden chill on her skin.
Something in the weave of the world had shifted. Like a bone snapping back into the wrong place.
Kael helped her sit up.
"You felt that too," she said.
Ravien nodded grimly. "The Seventh. It's no longer dormant."
"But I didn't open it," she whispered. "I sealed myself. I refused the blade's path. That should've stopped it—"
"No," Ravien said. "You were the balance. You held the tipping point. Now that you've stepped down…"
Kael finished the sentence for him.
"It found a replacement."
Far below, in a vault that had never seen sun,light flickered.
Not golden. Not fire.
Mirrorlight.
Reflected flame with no source of its own.
And from within the core of the gate stepped her.
No—not her.
Not exactly.
She wore Eliendara's face.
Her eyes. Her smile.
But the soul was hollowed.
A shell filled with everything Eliendara had locked away:
Her doubt.Her pain.Her rage.The version of her that might have said yes to Solryn.
The mirror-gate had created its own heir.
An echo of Eliendara—perfect in memory, flawless in form, but stripped of all mercy.
She opened her eyes and whispered:
"I remember the fire… but not the fear."
She turned to the void gate behind her and held up her hand.
It bowed.
And followed.
In the real world, fires began to ignite in places where no one had lit them.
Memories began to rewrite themselves again.
And Kael, standing at Eliendara's side, felt it in his bones.
"Something's coming."
"No," Ravien said.
"She is."
Eliendara rose to her feet, the last of the Crown's ashes still swirling around her.
And across the veil of flame—
Her doppelgänger smiled.
Not from malice.
From inevitability.
As if to say:
You sealed your gate…So I opened mine.
🔮 Next Chapter Preview – Chapter 39: Ash Without Flame
The Mirror Eliendara begins her march—Gathering forgotten powers, rewriting memory as she goes.
And with every step, the real Eliendara fades from the world's story…
Until even Kael begins to forget the sound of her name.