Their fingertips met.
For a single, trembling heartbeat, Lina felt Kai—truly felt him—through the fire: his stubborn warmth, his terror wrapped in devotion, the quiet oath in his bones that refused to let go.
Then the world detonated.
Gold light tore through the flame-realm like a sun being born. Shadows screamed. Prophecy-runes shattered into sparks that burned the air itself. Lina's body went weightless as if her soul had been ripped out by the collar.
"Kai—!"
Her voice vanished inside the blast.
She fell—not down, but through.
Through memories that weren't hers.
A cold corridor. A child's cry. A hand smeared with black-gold flame. Arienne's eyes. A roof collapsing. Kai's arms around someone small and shaking—
And then Lina's own name was yanked away like a thread.
For one terrifying second, she couldn't remember who Lina Veris was.
Panic slammed into her chest. She clawed at the emptiness.
No. No—no—no—
The Seventh Flame trembled, whispering like living heat.
Cost.
A voice that was not the entity, not Seren, not prophecy—something older than her fear.
Memory first. Identity next.
Lina choked on the horror of it, gripping the burning sigil over her heart as if she could hold herself together by force.
"Kai," she tried again, and this time the name stuck.
The light cracked open like an egg—
—and Lina slammed onto stone.
Real stone.
Cold.
Her flame burst instinctively, gold light spilling from her palms, and the darkness around her recoiled with a hiss.
She lifted her head, breath ragged.
They weren't in the corridor anymore.
They were in a room of mirrors.
Not the friendly kind. Not the decorative kind.
These mirrors were tall, arched, carved into the walls like ribs—each frame etched with runes that pulsed faintly as if the glass had a heartbeat. Between them, shelves rose up in spirals: books chained shut, tomes with eye-shaped locks, cracked lenses that reflected nothing at all.
A sign above the nearest archway—half-eroded, half-alive—read:
MIRROR LIBRARY.
Lina's stomach dropped.
One of the forbidden wings.
Unlocked.
By them.
Behind her, the air rippled.
A figure stumbled out of the gold haze and hit the floor on one knee.
Kai.
Lina's breath caught like she'd been punched.
He wasn't burning.
But he wasn't normal, either.
Shadowsteel crawled over his arms in living veins—dark metal threaded with gold, like night infused with firelight. His Oathbreaker mark still existed… but it had changed. The cracks that had been spreading now formed a ring, a sealed circle that looked like a broken chain being reforged.
And his eyes—
Gold.
Not fully. Not inhuman.
Just… lit from within, as if her flame had left a fingerprint on his soul.
"Kai?" Lina whispered, voice shaking. "Kai, say something."
He lifted his head slowly.
And the look he gave her was so achingly him that her knees nearly buckled.
"I'm here," he rasped.
Lina surged forward, then stopped short—terrified of what her flame might do again.
Kai's gaze flicked to her hands.
He understood instantly.
So he did what he always did.
He made the danger about himself, not her.
Kai pushed up to stand—unsteady—then took one step closer with his palms open, as if approaching a frightened animal.
"Don't pull away," he said quietly. "Not from me."
Lina's throat burned. "I— I don't want to hurt you."
"You didn't." His voice was rough with pain and something deeper. "The flame tried. And I… didn't let it finish."
Her chest tightened. "How?"
Kai swallowed. Shadowsteel flared, then steadied, as if answering a new rhythm.
"I think…" He exhaled shakily. "I think my Resonance awakened something. A secondary. From heartbreak. From almost losing you."
Secret Resonances.
The academy's hidden rule.
Lina's hands trembled.
"What is it?"
Kai's jaw tightened as if the words tasted like fear.
"An anchor."
The mirrors around them flickered.
In one reflection, Lina saw herself and Kai as they were—
In another, she saw Kai with a crown of shadow and gold fire, his hand pressed to her chest like he was holding her flame inside her body.
In another—
She saw nothing at all.
A blank space where Kai should have been.
Lina's breath hitched.
A mirror whispered, glass vibrating like a throat.
"If you love him, he vanishes."
Lina spun toward it, flame rising.
"Shut up."
The mirror smiled anyway—because her reflection smiled.
Kai's hand caught her wrist, gentle but firm.
"Don't." His voice softened. "It wants you to burn yourself out."
Lina blinked hard. "Kai… I felt it. The cost. I forgot— I forgot myself for a second."
Kai's expression darkened with protective fury.
"That's the Seventh Flame's price."
Her voice broke. "So every time I use it… I lose pieces?"
Kai didn't lie.
He only stepped closer until the heat between them felt like a living thing.
"Then we protect those pieces," he said. "Together."
A laugh—low and ancient—rolled through the library.
The mirrors dimmed.
The shadows thickened.
And the entity's presence returned like a weight settling onto their shoulders.
"Flame and Shadow," it murmured, voice inside the glass and the books and the air between Lina's ribs. "You have done what the Council feared."
Reyon's voice suddenly echoed from somewhere behind a shelf—
"LINA! KAI! IF YOU'RE ALIVE, PLEASE MAKE A NOISE THAT ISN'T TERRIFYING—"
A crash.
Seren's gasp—sharp, panicked.
"We're here!" Lina shouted, spinning.
Reyon appeared first, stumbling out from behind a mirror archway, face pale and dust-streaked. Seren followed, shaking, eyes bright with Soul Echo terror.
"The whole wing collapsed," Reyon panted. "We got— sucked— into your romantic apocalypse—"
"Reyon," Seren whispered, staring at Kai's changed eyes. "Kai's Resonance… it's… braided."
Kai tensed. "Braided?"
Seren nodded slowly. "With Lina's flame."
The entity's shadow moved across every mirror at once, like a creature crawling under the skin of glass.
"This bond will crack the academy's cage faster," it whispered. "Every time you reach for each other… the seal below loosens."
Lina's stomach sank.
"So you WANT us apart."
"I want you desperate," the entity said gently. "Desperation makes choices."
One mirror flared brighter than the rest.
It showed a scene Lina had never lived—
Mira laughing, Jax shouting, students running—
then the academy splitting open like a mouth.
And in the center of it, Lina stood with black flame haloing her head, holding something in her hand—
a mask.
Veilbound.
The reflection lifted its eyes and looked directly at Lina.
Not the way reflections do.
The way people do.
And it whispered through the glass:
"You already wore me once."
Lina went cold.
Kai stepped in front of her instantly, Shadowsteel threading gold as it rose like protective wings.
But the mirror wasn't looking at Kai.
It was looking past him—
at Seren.
At Reyon.
At all of them.
Because their reflections… didn't match.
Reyon's reflection smiled a fraction too late.
Seren's reflection blinked when Seren didn't.
And Lina's reflection—
Lina's reflection lifted one hand and pressed it to the glass from the inside.
As if trying to come out.
Seren's voice cracked. "That's not— that's not right—"
Kai's jaw clenched. "The Veilbound."
The library lights died.
Every mirror went black at once—
except one.
A single mirror at the far end of the room lit up with runes.
And in it, a figure appeared wearing Kai's face…
but with no eyes.
Just shadow.
It whispered a sentence that turned Lina's blood to ice:
"The next time you touch him… you won't get him back."
Lina's flame flared.
Kai's Shadowsteel surged.
Reyon grabbed Seren's arm.
And the mirror began to crack from the inside—like something was trying to break through.
To be Continued© Kishtika., 2025
All rights reserved.