She didn't speak at first.
She simply stood there, beneath the flickering courtyard light, half in shadow. Her skin was pale beneath the ash. Her dark hair hung like coiled rope, and her eyes — sharp, dark, alive — moved between Azel and Kain as if measuring weight, not trust.
The spiral tattoo on her wrist wasn't drawn. It was burned into the flesh.
Azel stepped forward, heart pounding harder than when he'd broken into the archive room or snuck through the north wing. This was different.
This was real.
"You're not from here," he said.
She didn't answer.
Kain looked from her to Azel. "Who is she?"
"I don't know," Azel replied. "But she remembers something we don't."
The girl's gaze shifted.
"You're louder than you think," she said. Her voice was hoarse, dry, but steady. "You leave your thoughts behind when you walk."
Azel blinked. "What?"
She pointed to the coin in his hand — the one with the etched spiral. "You activated it. That echo doesn't fade fast."
Azel felt the coin tremble slightly. It was still warm.
Kain took a cautious step back. "What do you mean 'echo'?"
The girl ignored him.
She looked straight at Azel.
"You've seen the Ashnet, haven't you?"
Azel hesitated. "The… what?"
Her lips pressed into a thin line. "You haven't. Not fully."
She walked toward him — slow, deliberate. When she was close enough to touch, she leaned in and whispered:
"There's a world stitched behind this one. A place where the old memories still burn. They call it Ashnet. You found the gate when you touched that coin."
Azel's mouth went dry.
The whispers. The visions. The dreams.
All connected.
The girl turned to leave.
"Wait," Azel said. "Who are you?"
She didn't stop walking.
But just before she disappeared into the tunnel beneath the courtyard, she answered.
"My name is Mira."
They didn't see her again for three days.
Not that they tried to chase her. The academy was on alert. Someone had tripped an internal override in the north wing. Surveillance drones now circled twice as often. Students were escorted in pairs. The Reflection Courtyard was off-limits.
Kain whispered about Mira constantly, eyes wide with questions and fear.
"Where do you think she came from?"
"How did she survive without a Ring?"
"What's the Ashnet?"
"Why didn't she bring more of them with her?"
Azel didn't answer most of them. He didn't have to.
His dreams had changed.
No more quiet whispers. No more warm voices in the dark.
Now there were cities aflame. Storms of thought and memory. He saw hands reaching through smoke. Chains falling like broken glass. And always — always — the spiral burning in the sky like an eye refusing to blink.
He began sketching symbols in the margins of his lessons.
He began hearing thoughts that weren't his.
He stopped feeling afraid.
On the fourth night, Mira returned.
This time, she came from above.
Azel was lying awake when he heard the faint clink of metal against stone. He slipped out of bed and climbed to the roof of the ward, careful not to alert the drone that patrolled the eastern rail.
Mira sat on the ledge, one leg dangling over the edge, chewing on something that looked like dried fruit.
"You found me," she said without looking.
"You wanted to be found," Azel replied.
She smiled. "You learn fast."
They sat in silence for a while. Below them, the city flickered with artificial light. Everything down there moved with programmed rhythm — drones sweeping in sync, tower lights blinking in alternating colors, pedestrians walking in neat straight lines like data packets flowing through a grid.
"Why come back?" Azel asked.
"Because you're not the only one," she said. "You're just the first to wake up in a long time."
He turned to her. "You said you knew what the Ashnet was."
She nodded. "It's what they couldn't destroy. A living archive. Buried under everything. It was built before the Rings."
"Before Clarity?"
"Before the Lie," she corrected.
That word hit different.
Mira handed him a small device — circular, no bigger than his palm, carved with the same spiral.
"This is a Mindburner," she said. "It doesn't teach you. It shows you."
He took it carefully. "And what happens if I'm not ready?"
She smiled faintly.
"You wouldn't be holding it if you weren't."
That night, Azel activated it.
The moment he did, the world cracked.
Not physically — not visibly — but somewhere deep in his mind. Like a floor he didn't know existed gave out beneath him.
Flashes came. Fast. Brutal.
A world filled with music, colors, different voices singing in languages he'd never heard. Faces. Tears. Laughter. Books filled with forbidden names. Bodies rising in protest. A fire swallowing a massive tower. A child screaming as his Ring melted off. A hand reaching down.
A voice:
"They chained the body. But the mind was always the threat."
Azel fell back, gasping.
His vision flickered.
The dorm room was still around him. But the lights were... dimmer. The air... louder.
And in the shadows, the spiral glowed faintly on the wall.
Burned into it.