The first mirror cracked at dawn.
Not a clean break, but a spiderweb fracture that spread across the reflective surface in jagged veins. It was one of the Academy's sacred Glimpse Mirrors, standing tall in the eastern corridor where students passed each morning.
By tradition, the mirrors never broke. Crafted from crystal mined beneath the mountains, inscribed with resonance runes, they reflected not only appearances but faint threads of possible futures. To see one shatter was like seeing the sky fall.
When Anaya entered the corridor that morning, whispers already swirled like stormwinds.
"Did you hear?""It's impossible, they never—""Bad omen. Someone cursed it."
She pushed through the crowd, heart pounding. The fractured mirror loomed before her, the cracks catching light like frozen lightning. And there, faintly visible in the shards, threads flickered — glimpses cut short, futures bleeding out of sight.
Her stomach dropped. Ashbinding.
She wasn't the only one who noticed.
Mira stood on the far side of the corridor, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. She wasn't whispering like the others; she was watching. Her gaze slid over the cracked surface, then landed squarely on Anaya.
Accusation burned there, unspoken but sharp.
Anaya forced herself to look away, to melt back into the current of students, though her skin prickled with every step.
By midday, rumors were everywhere.
Some said a student's resonance had gone wild. Others swore it was a punishment from the Seers for disobedience. A few whispered darker still: that someone had broken a glimpse.
Anaya, Leila, Rafael, and Kato convened in their secret corner of the library, the journal open between them.
"This is our fault," Kato said flatly. "We toyed with things we shouldn't, and now the whole Academy feels it."
Rafael shook his head. "We tested on a mouse. A mouse, Kato. That can't crack a sacred mirror."
"Unless," Leila said softly, "the resonance bled outward. Kaelen wrote that glimpse-threads connect, ripple into the greater weave. If we cut one strand, maybe others trembled."
Anaya ran her hand across the journal's charred edge. The thought chilled her. What if one severed thread weakens the whole tapestry?
That night, the second mirror shattered.
This time, Anaya was there.
She had been returning from her forbidden training session with Headmistress Veyra, the echo of shadow exercises still burning in her veins. As she passed the Hall of Reflection, she heard a sharp crack — like ice splitting on a frozen lake.
She turned. The mirror at the hall's end quivered, cracks spreading like veins of dark fire. A moment later, it burst. Shards rained to the floor, scattering in a deadly glitter.
She gasped. For a heartbeat, she swore she saw something in the fractured glass — a face, hollow-eyed and burned, whispering her name.
Kaelen.
Then it was gone.
By dawn, the Academy was in uproar. Seers patrolled the halls, muttering incantations. Headmistress Veyra herself addressed the student body in the Great Atrium.
"There has been… disruption," she said, her voice smooth but edged. "The mirrors are sacred conduits, and their fracturing is no accident. Someone here meddles with powers forbidden. Rest assured, they will be found."
Her gaze swept the crowd like a blade. When it passed over Anaya, she felt it linger, heavy and knowing.
Mira smirked across the hall.
Anaya's throat tightened. She couldn't tell if Veyra's warning was a shield for her or a threat.
In their secret circle, the group's unity began to fray.
"This is getting out of control," Kato hissed. "First a mouse, now mirrors. What's next? Whole people unraveling? We should stop before—"
"Before what?" Rafael shot back. "Before the Academy erases us like Kaelen? We've seen too much. We have to keep going."
Leila's voice was softer, torn. "Kaelen's writings said power always leaves echoes. Maybe this was inevitable. Maybe the mirrors breaking is a sign we're… closer to the truth."
Anaya said nothing. She stared at the journal, at the passage circled in ink:
The weave cannot be cut without the world knowing. The tapestry screams when threads are severed.
The mirrors were screaming. And the Academy was listening.
That evening, Anaya couldn't stay away from the Hall of Reflection.
She walked the broken corridor alone, her footsteps crunching on shards. The mirrors were covered now, cloth draped over them, but still she felt their fractured resonance humming in the air.
Her reflection wavered faintly in the glassy floor. For a heartbeat, it wasn't her face at all — it was Kaelen's again, hollow-eyed, charred, mouth forming words she could almost hear.
They will come for you.
A hand clamped on her shoulder.
She spun. Mira stood there, smile sharp.
"Interesting place for a late-night walk," Mira said softly. "Almost like you're drawn to the scene of the crime."
Anaya's mouth went dry. "Crime?"
Mira leaned close, her whisper venomous. "I don't know what you're hiding, Transfer, but I'll find out. And when I do, the mirrors won't be the only things shattered."
That night, sleep refused to come. Anaya lay awake clutching Kaelen's journal, her mind spinning. She thought of the broken mouse, of the cracked mirrors, of Mira's smirk, of Veyra's heavy gaze.
Was Kaelen right? Was freedom possible only through breaking the world? Or was Kato right — that all they were doing was courting ruin?
When she finally drifted into uneasy dreams, she found herself standing in a hall of infinite mirrors. Each one fractured, each shard reflecting a thousand versions of herself: laughing, screaming, bleeding, burning.
At the center stood Kaelen, his figure half-shadow, half-light.
The weave is breaking, Anaya, he whispered. The question is: will you break with it, or remake it?
The mirrors around them cracked louder, shards falling into an endless abyss.
Anaya woke gasping, the dawn light catching on the small shard of glass she hadn't noticed before — lying on her pillow like a warning.