Abruptly, I gasped awake, the remnants of the night's terror clinging to me like cobwebs. Morning light, sharp and unwelcome, sliced through the curtains of my bedroom, scattering the lingering shadows that still danced with Aziel's phantom presence. My heart hammered against my ribs, an erratic drumbeat echoing the fierce cadence of the night. For a fleeting moment, a desperate, irrational part of me half-expected to see his cold, unwavering gaze lurking in the dim corners of my room, a silent sentinel watching my every move. I turned instinctively, my gaze sweeping the room, as if he were a tangible threat, but found only the pale, mocking stillness of morning. Foolish, I chided myself, the word a bitter taste on my tongue. He's not here. He can't be. The silver rune burned into my palm pulsed faintly, its cold light seeping through the cracks of my clenched fist. I stared at the mark, its intricate lines shimmering like molten metal under my skin. Visible only to those with magic. Panic coiled in my chest. I scrambled for my gloves, stiff leather, frayed at the seams. I yanked them on, hiding the rune beneath layers of false normalcy.

  But the echo of his words, the raw, undeniable surge of power that had ripped through me, remained, a phantom limb that throbbed with a life of its own. A sinking realization struck me, cold and sharp: I was late. Late for my scribe lessons. Panic surged, a familiar, unwelcome guest, as I threw off the covers and scrambled to dress, my fingers fumbling with the familiar fabric of my worn scribe's robes. Just like always, rushing to obey, to conform, I thought, the familiar resentment bubbling beneath the surface. I raced down the temple's labyrinthine corridors, the ancient stone walls blurring past in a desperate flurry of motion, each echoing footstep a frantic attempt to outrun the questions that gnawed at my mind. Every step echoed with the urgency of a heartbeat threatening to burst free, a frantic rhythm that mirrored the turmoil within me.

  Through a narrow archway, I caught sight of my father's stern profile framed in the doorway—a silent sentinel, his gaze piercing the dim light like a sharpened blade. He always watches, I thought, a shiver running down my spine. Always judging. I averted my eyes, the familiar wave of shame washing over me, and muttered, "I'll deal with that later," the words a hasty, hollow promise swallowed by the rush of my footsteps, a desperate attempt to push the overwhelming truth back into the shadows. Just like I always do, I thought, the self-reproach a bitter, constant companion.

  Bursting into the courtyard, I flagged down a temple worker—a stooped, weathered man whose kind eyes held the weight of our ancient world. "A carriage ride down to the Adversaries, please," I demanded, my voice taut with urgency. Just get me away from here. Just get me to something familiar, I thought, the words a silent plea.

  He nodded and beckoned me over to his cart, its worn wood etched with faded sigils that whispered of forgotten rites. As we clattered along the timeworn path, a peculiar vulnerability washed over me. I felt suddenly naked, as if every defense I'd built had been stripped away, leaving me exposed to the harsh, unforgiving light. Like being stripped bare in the arena, every weakness laid bare for the world to see, I thought, the familiar fear prickling my skin. It hit me then, with the force of a physical blow: the realm inside the Spire was no place for sleep. I wasn't dreaming at all—I had been awake throughout that surreal ordeal, and its abstract forces, once banished deep within me, now roared in my pulse like a relentless drumbeat of want and hidden hunger. They were always there, weren't they? Locked away, waiting to be unleashed.

  I drag my exhausted body through the doors of the scriptorium tent to my station, each labored step a silent testament to the brutal toll of the night. The cold, unyielding morning air seemed to seep into my bones, a chilling reminder of the coldness that now resided within me. Today, the vibrant colors and bold textures of my prison were lackluster to me, the familiar routines a hollow echo of a life I no longer recognized. I only wanted to curl up on the dusty bench and sleep my training session away, to retreat into the oblivion of unconsciousness and escape the relentless gnawing of the truth. But even sleep offers no escape now, I realized, the weight of my newfound knowledge a heavy burden. The nightmares are real.

  As I am preparing my ink and quill, the dim light of the sun dances across textile walls and tablets etched with the scars of forgotten wars and broken dreams. I almost miss it at first: a stained, cracked mirror leaning by the far wall, its surface marred by time and sorrow. As I pass, I catch my reflection—a brief, shattering glimpse that halts my heart. For one agonizing second, the glass fractures my face into a thousand jagged pieces, and behind my eyes. Behind the cracks, he emerged—pale as moonlit bone, eyes hollowed by centuries of torment. His lips parted, a silent scream etching itself into my skull. His spectral form emerging like a nightmare. I stagger, heart pounding in a frantic drumbeat. I gasp, the sound barely audible, a whisper lost in a sudden, overwhelming terror, his eyes burning with a desperate, accusing fire that makes my blood run cold.

  "Tia." Maris's voice snapped me back. Her calloused fingers closed over mine, steadying the quill I hadn't realized I'd dropped. "This relic doesn't show fantasies. It shows truths. What do you see?"

  I spun on my heels, my heart pounding in my ears. One moment, Maris stood across the room, and the next—like she'd stepped from the shadows—she was right beside me. Her eyes, sharp and unwavering, held a glimmer of urgency that made my skin crawl.

  A ghost. A curse. My failure.

  "Nothing," I lied.

  "This isn't an ordinary looking glass, Tia," she said in a hushed, intense tone. "This is an Overton Relic—a remnant of the kingdoms that ruled before our time. It does more than reflect our faces; it reveals the hidden scars of our past, the curses our ancestors thought they could bury deep. Look at it: it shows not what you wish to see, but what must be known."

  Maris's finger swept toward the stained mirror, and I followed her gaze, my breath catching in my throat. What am I seeing? What is this? In the fractured glass, amidst the mottled shadows, Aziel's spectral face reappeared. His gaunt features were etched with agony, a stark contrast to the cold indifference he usually projected. His hollow eyes burned with a sorrow so ancient, so profound, it seemed to seep into the very stone of our world, a tangible weight that pressed down on me. He's suffering. He's really suffering, I realized, the thought sending a jolt of shock through me. For a split second, his presence exploded before me—a sudden, heart-stopping vision that made my breath catch, a wave of raw emotion that threatened to drown me.

  Before I could gather my thoughts, before I could even begin to process the whirlwind of emotions crashing over me, I blurted out, "We can still see? Even though we're mortal?" The silver rune itched under my gloved hand.

  Maris didn't answer immediately. Instead, she reached for my quill again. A simple, ink-stained tool that had borne witness to countless secrets—and began rolling its tip between her calloused fingers. A small, knowing smile played at the corners of her lips as she handed it back. "Some of us can," she said softly.

  I glanced back at the mirror—its fractured surface still holding his face, frozen in a moment of terror and accusation, a silent scream trapped in glass, and then shook my head. "No, I don't see anything," I murmured, unwilling to give voice to the dark visions churning in my mind, unwilling to admit the fear that gnawed at my insides. If I don't speak it, maybe it's not real.

  Maris's gaze turned grave as she stepped closer, her eyes filled with an unsettling knowledge. "There is a dark legacy that lingers in our blood and bones," she intoned, her voice low and weighted with ancient sorrow, a voice that seemed to carry the echoes of forgotten ages. "If we ignore what it shows us, Tia, our fate will be sealed by the very shadows of our past."

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  Without another word, she handed me my quill and limped away toward her workstation. A cluttered space piled high with scrolls and tablets that dwarfed my own modest parcels, a testament to her years of dedication. I forced myself to avert my eyes from the Overton relic, its secrets too perilous to meet again, and instead gathered my scrolls to sit at my desk, seeking refuge in the familiar. Just focus on the work, just keep your head down, I told myself, the old habits of survival kicking in.

  I pressed the quill to parchment, trying to drown out the echo of that ghastly visage that still haunted me, to lose myself in the rhythm of the words. Yet, from the ancient Aevarin tablet before me, the long-dead voices rose—a hushed susurrus of secrets meant only for my ears, a whisper of truths I wasn't sure I wanted to hear. I kept my left hand buried in parchment, copying tactical scrolls with robotic precision. Just like any other day, pretending everything's fine, pretending I'm just like everyone else, I thought, the familiar bitterness rising in my throat.

  But Lirial's sharp laugh cut through the murmur of trainees, her voice laced with amusement. "Still pretending to be a scribe, Tia?" she sneered, her amber eyes narrowed as they lingered on my gloved hand. "Or are you hiding something?"

  "Just doing my job, Lirial," I replied, my voice tight, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

  "Funny," she retorted, her gaze flicking to the stack of scrolls beside me. "Those gloves won't protect you from blending in with the rest of the village freaks now."

  "Do you need something?" I scoffed, finally meeting her eyes. "Unlike you, I don't need magic to make myself useful."

  "Don't scribes have to touch the ancient scrolls to prove their mortal?" Lirial tilted her head, her smile predatory.

  "Wouldn't you like to know?" I snapped, tilting my head in a mockery of Lirial's own sly grin. Her amber eyes narrowed, but I didn't flinch. "Funny—for someone who thinks mortals are beneath her, you're awfully invested in my business. Get lost." I flicked my wrist toward the tent flap, my glare sharp enough to carve stone. She left, but not without hissing something about "stains" and "consequences," her words slithering into the shadows like smoke.

  Alone, I sagged against my desk. Sleep clawed at me all afternoon, relentless as a tide, dragging my thoughts into fog. My quill shook in my grip, ink splattering like old blood across the parchment. Focus. Prove you're still worth something. I scribbled until my fingers cramped and the words blurred—twice as many scrolls as yesterday, each line a silent scream: See? I'm useful. I'm here.

  Jarek paused by my station as dusk stained the tent red. He didn't speak, but the corner of his mouth lifted—a flicker of solidarity, there and gone. My throat tightened. He knows. Not the truth, maybe, but the weight of it. The ache.

  I thought of Celine and Atlas then, their laughter ringing in my skull. It had only been a day since we'd sat together in the garden, sharing stolen honey cakes and complaining about duty drills. A day. But the temple walls had a way of twisting time, stretching hours into eternities. Without them, the silence here felt heavier, the shadows thicker. Like learning to breathe underwater.

  ____________________

  My Father's summons arrived at midnight.

  The sound ricocheted off the temple's cold bones, sharp enough to make my teeth ache. I watched the acolyte slink backward, his shadow melting into the gloom like smoke from a snuffed candle. My gloves clung to my palms, leather fused to sweat-slick skin, and beneath them, the rune pulsed like a live coal buried in my flesh. He knows. Lirial's nasty tongue had slithered its poison into his ear. The corridors warped as I walked, their obsidian walls carved with reliefs of the Kingdom's conquests, skeletal kings astride ash wolves, their hollow eyes following me like they had in the Spire's trial. My boots scuffed stones worn smooth over the generations of leadership my father has led.

  He stood by the blazing fireplace, a silhouette carved from hunger and ash. Embers gnawed at the air, their light clawing at his face, a flicker of bone here, a slash of shadow there. The stench of burnt myrrh clung to my throat, sweet and suffocating, like funeral flowers left to rot in the sun.

  "Explain." His voice wasn't a word. It was a knife pressed to the soft underbelly of a kill.

  My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, parchment-dry. "Father, I don't-"

  He turned. Moonlight sheared through the high windows, honing his features into something feral. Cheeks hollow as a starved hound's. Eyes blacker than a poacher's pit, glinting with tears he'd sooner bleed than shed. "Maris came to me." His voice dropped, low and lethal. "Late. Distracted?" The accusation hung in the air, a snare tightening around my throat.

  The gloves bit deeper, seams sawing into my pulse. He can't see. Can't know. "It's fatigue. I am doing a lot of drills with her and-"

  "Fatigue?" He moved like a wolf closing on wounded prey. The hem of his Grandmaster's robe hissed against stone, a sound that raised the hair on my arms. "You smell of spent magic." His hand lashed out, fingers iron-trap tight on my chin, forcing my gaze up. "Where. Have. You. Been?"

  The rune burned, molten silver searing through sinew and bone. Truth rose like bile. I remember the cold, unyielding stare he gave my mother when he struck his deal with the leaders of the West Adversaries. Did Maris sense the lies I had been hiding? Did she know I lied about seeing Aziel in the mirror?

  "Weakness." He spat the word, flinging me back. He had a habit of doing that often. "Tia, you cannot waste any time spent with Maris. She is the only scribe we have that I trust to train you up." The brazier roared, flames licking hungrily at the dark.

  "I'm sorry, Father." My voice wavered, a practiced apology that did little to ease the tightening in my chest. The rune, a constant, searing reminder of my failures, pulsed beneath the stiff leather, the scent of singed flesh mingling with the coppery tang of fear. The truth, as always, was a viper coiled in my throat, ready to strike, but I dared not release it.

  "Your mother's weakness." The words landed like a physical blow, each syllable a fresh wound. "Your mother was always," He paused, tears welling up in his eyes. "Carefree. She was carefree and special. Tia, your mother was just as free-spirited and artistic as you are. You remind me of her so much." My father took my face in his hands. One tear managed to slide down his cheek. I've never seen him cry before. Tears of my own begin to well at my eyes, I'm not sure if they are really from the raw emotion displayed by my father, or if they are due to my exhaustion. His moods were like fractured glass, sharp and unpredictable, shattering without warning.

  "Please, Tia. Take your studies seriously. She would want that for you. I want that for you. You excel at being a scribe already. You will complete these next few weeks of training, and then I have a place for you. Working among the judges every single day. Your work is invaluable to the prosperity of our kingdom."

  The promise of a place among the judges hung in the air, a gilded cage disguised as opportunity. My lips part to answer as Jesse stumbled in. His armor was dented and askew, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and his face was pale, etched with raw fear and urgency. Clutched in his shaking hand was a bloodied gash on his arm, a stark testament to the battle beyond. "Grandmaster!" he rasped, his voice barely a whisper yet desperate, charged with the weight of impending doom.

  In the flickering firelight, the glint of steel in his hand drew my attention—a drawn sword, its blade smeared with fresh blood. The scene was a study in contrasts: Jesse's disheveled, haunted presence clashed violently with my father's regal composure. In an instant, his face hardened; any trace of the earlier emotional vulnerability vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating gaze.

  "Grandmaster, a breach!" Jesse gasped, his words tumbling out in a frantic rush. "The barracks... they're under attack! Rebels from the Dusk Legion, I think." His voice trembled as he continued, "They came from the lower levels. They moved fast, like shadows." The very mention of the West Adversaries sent a chill through the room—a threat heavy enough to silence even the boldest murmurs.

  My heart pounded in my chest as dread coiled within me. The news hit like a bolt, and I couldn't help but wonder—had my secret actions somehow set this calamity in motion? I searched my father's face, desperate to see if his icy facade betrayed any flicker of surprise or regret. Without a word for me, he moved with a speed that belied his age, his hand reaching for the hilt of the sword at his side. "How many?" he demanded, his voice sharp and imperious, cutting through the mounting tension like a blade. In that moment, he was no longer the father I had seen in moments before—he was a general, issuing orders with the cold precision of a man whose focus had shifted entirely to the threat at hand.

  He turns to me, "Cease this. Or I'll have you confined to the sanctum, scrubbing runes until your hands bleed and your mind breaks." He turned away, his back a wall of rigid disapproval, the embers crackling like a funeral pyre. I breathe a sigh of relief, and of exhaustion all at once.