They moved before dawn.
Lyra's cloak clung to her shoulders, damp with the chill of the early morning mist. The Citadel slept behind them, a fortress of stone and secrets, its spires swallowed by fog. Kael led the way with sure-footed precision, his every step silent. Even in the dark, he moved like he could see through the walls, as if the very stones whispered their layout to him.
Lyra didn't ask how he knew where to go.
His eyes still shimmered faintly in the dark, silver threaded with gold, glowing with something ancient. She hadn't asked him what it cost to have eyes like that. Not yet.
They crept through the garden paths first, slipping past carved angels weeping stone tears, then through a servants' passage hidden beneath the northern wing. No guards had seen them. No one stirred.
And yet Lyra felt eyes.
Not Kael's. Something else. Watching.
It wasn't until they reached the old east tower, the part of the Citadel long declared "sealed for safety" that Kael stopped. He held out an arm to bar her, his head tilting slightly like he heard something she didn't.
"What is it?" she whispered.
His expression darkened. "Someone's been here recently. The dust's wrong."
Lyra frowned. "Wrong?"
Kael didn't explain. He stepped forward, running a hand over the old iron door that led into the tower. It swung open with a soft groan. The air inside was still, stale, and heavy with forgotten time.
The tower was filled with mirrors.
Some were cracked, others shattered, their silvered glass dulled with age. But some still held reflections, warped and flickering. Lyra stepped inside cautiously, the hem of her cloak brushing across broken tiles. The scent of dust and old magic filled her nose.
"Why are we here?" she asked.
Kael shut the door behind them. "There's something you need to see."
He led her through the narrow hall, past tarnished portraits and relics cloaked in sheets. At the end of the corridor stood a single, tall mirror framed in blackened gold. It stood untouched by time, its surface clear and gleaming.
Lyra approached, wary.
In the reflection, she saw herself, still pale, eyes rimmed with the faint glow of firelight that lived under her skin now. But then the reflection shifted.
Her breath hitched.
It wasn't just her face anymore.
It was another version of her.
Hair looser, eyes burning brighter, wearing robes she'd never seen, lined in flame and night. A crown rested on her head. Not of gold, but of twisted obsidian, wreathed in ember light.
"What…?" she breathed.
"It's a memory," Kael said beside her. "But not yours alone. The Phoenix line doesn't just pass magic. It passes echoes. Visions. Pieces of what came before… and what may come again."
Lyra couldn't look away.
In the mirror, the other her raised her hand and fire bloomed across her palm, beautiful and terrifying. Then, behind her reflection, another figure appeared.
Kael.
But not this Kael. He wore armor streaked with blackened blood, his expression hard as stone. He stood behind her reflection with eyes that burned like molten metal. Not a guard. A conqueror.
Lyra stumbled back. "What is this?"
Kael looked grim. "I saw it too. Before I came here. My father showed me once, said it was a vision cast in mirror-iron by one of the last Seers before they were hunted to extinction."
"And he showed it to you?" Lyra asked, heart racing.
Kael nodded. "Because it was his fear. That I'd become this. That we would."
Lyra turned back to the mirror.
The fire queen.
The war prince.
It felt… fated. But also wrong.
"I don't want this," she whispered.
"Neither do I," Kael said. "But that doesn't mean we can ignore it."
She stared at her reflection, the flame glowing behind her eyes. It felt like her. It looked like her. But the version in the mirror looked unrecognizable in how powerful, how untouchable, she seemed.
"Can we change it?" she asked.
Kael was quiet a long moment. "That's what we're going to find out."
A low sound echoed in the tower.
Footsteps.
Both of them snapped to attention. Kael was already drawing his blade, positioning himself between Lyra and the door.
"Too late to hide," he murmured.
Lyra stepped beside him, fingers curling with heat, the whisper of fire stirring to life under her skin. No more silence. No more veils.
The door creaked open and a small figure entered.
Not a guard. Not a threat.
A girl. Barely more than a child.
Lyra blinked. "Wait… I know you."
The girl stepped forward, barefoot, wearing a ragged tunic. Her eyes were silver.
God Eyes.
Kael froze. "What the hell?"
But the girl ignored him, her attention locked on Lyra. She stepped close to the mirror and placed a single hand against the glass. Her voice, when it came, echoed like a hundred whispers speaking in one breath.
"Fire must die to rise."
Lyra's mouth went dry. "Who are you?"
The girl smiled, but it was sad.
"A shard of what was. A warning. A memory sealed here to find the next flame."
Kael moved forward cautiously. "She's not… alive. Not like us."
"No," the girl said, "but I was. I bore the flame before you. I failed before you."
Lyra's heart dropped.
"What do you mean, failed?"
The girl tilted her head. "I chose wrong. I trusted wrong. And my kingdom burned for it."
Kael exchanged a sharp glance with Lyra. "What did you trust?"
The girl looked up, straight into Kael's eyes. "Love."
And then she vanished.
Not slowly, instantly. Like a candle snuffed by wind.
The mirror darkened. The reflection of the flame queen faded, replaced by Lyra's own face again, pale and stunned.
Lyra stood frozen, her heart hammering. "Was that… was she real?"
Kael sheathed his blade with shaking hands. "Real enough."
"I saw her eyes. They were like yours."
Kael nodded once. "She was a Seer. Or born of one. That much I know."
Lyra turned away from the mirror, pressing her hands to her face. "This is too much. The prophecy, the power, this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all of it."
Kael's voice was gentle. "You don't have to know. Not yet. You just have to survive long enough to learn."
She lowered her hands and looked at him. "And if we become them? The ones in the mirror?"
His jaw tensed. "Then we decide how."
She nodded slowly.
They turned and left the tower in silence, the vision still burning behind their eyes. Outside, the fog was lifting. Sunlight crept across the sky, bleeding gold into gray.
And somewhere behind them, deep in the mirror's heart, the flame queen still watched.
Waiting.