The world had fallen silent. The storm that had once screamed across the manor grounds was gone, leaving only the sound of crackling energy and faint, distorted echoes that didn’t belong to this world.

Nareth pushed himself up from the ground, blood running from a cut on his cheek. The air shimmered, fractured like broken glass.

“Lucian!” he shouted, his voice hoarse.

But Lucian was gone. Only a faint reflection danced across the cracked surface of the courtyard mirror — a reflection that wasn’t moving in sync.

Across from him, Daelen stumbled to his feet, his heart pounding in panic. “Irian—where’s Irian!?”

Nareth’s sword clattered to the ground as he scanned the glowing runes now fading into the earth. “They’ve been split. The mirror took them.”

Daelen’s voice broke. “What do you mean, took them?”

He didn’t answer — because there was no answer that would make sense.

---

Lucian’s POV

He woke up gasping. The world around him was dim — fog rising from a mirror-like lake, the sky bleeding silver and violet. Everything shimmered, unreal, beautiful, and wrong.

His reflection rippled across the lake’s surface, but it wasn’t his reflection that looked back — it was Irian’s.

“Not again,” Lucian whispered. His hand trembled as he touched the water. The moment his fingertips brushed it, pain surged through his chest — the mark of the curse, burning alive.

“Irian,” he breathed. “Where are you?”

The wind answered with whispers — a hundred voices that sounded like his name. The realm around him was shifting, unstable. This wasn’t his world, nor the human realm. It was something in between — the Veil.

---

Irian’s POV

He woke to silence and smoke. The ground beneath him was black glass, and shards of his own reflection floated in the air like glowing fragments.

His hands shook. He remembered the explosion, the light, Lucian’s face — and then nothing.

“I… I’m not dead?” His voice echoed strangely, almost twice, like two versions of himself speaking at once.

Then, from the distance — a faint, familiar hum. The bond.

He clutched his chest. “Lucian.”

The voice in his head whispered like a heartbeat. “Find me before the mirror seals.”

Irian stood, determination flooding his body. “I’ll find you,” he whispered. “Even if it breaks the world again.”

He turned toward the endless path of shattered mirrors stretching before him. Each shard reflected a different memory — laughter, betrayal, blood, love.

And somewhere among them… Lucian waited.

---

Meanwhile, back in the real world — Nareth and Daelen stood among the ruins of the courtyard, facing the flickering mirror that no longer reflected their faces.

Daelen’s voice was low. “We can’t just stand here.”

Nareth nodded grimly. “Then we find a way in — before it closes forever.”