Chapter 18: "Echoes in the Mirror"
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The next morning, the academy felt colder.
Not by weather—by silence. The kind that presses into your chest before something breaks.
Students moved in whispers. Rumors of strange sounds near the sealed wings. Faint lights at night. Bells ringing without wind.
Yui sat at the far edge of the dining hall, untouched meal before him. He hadn't slept. Every time he closed his eyes, she was there—the girl in the flame. The girl he'd never met but somehow knew.
Lucen approached quietly.
"Your rhythm's off," he said.
Yui blinked. "You can feel that?"
Lucen nodded. "The flame's grown restless. It wants to remember. But your body's not ready to know."
Yui looked down at his hand. The rune on his palm was faint again—but not gone.
> "Then why is it still waking up?"
Lucen didn't answer.
He simply handed Yui a folded slip of parchment—an invitation.
> "You've been summoned. Binding Trial. Midnight. North Tower."
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Far below the academy, in the broken chamber where she once slept, the Dormant Girl stood barefoot in the dust.
Chains still hung around her wrists like ornaments. Her white hair drifted in a wind that didn't exist.
She took one step forward, and the walls trembled.
A voice echoed behind her—Kael's.
"You've crossed the threshold," he said calmly.
She didn't turn to him.
> "So has he."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Not fully."
"He will," she whispered. "Because I'm beginning to remember what he forgot."
Kael stepped forward. "You weren't supposed to connect this soon. The mirror was only meant to test him—"
"It wasn't the mirror," she interrupted. "It was me."
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Back in the training hall, Seris stood alone. Her glove was off. The mark beneath it glowed faintly.
Another Mirror Garden agent emerged from the shadows.
"He's unstable," Seris said.
The agent replied coldly, "Good. That means the Binding Trial will do what it's meant to do."
She didn't answer. Her eyes lingered on the wall—where days ago, Yui had made the flame spiral across the stone. It had left no burn, but she remembered how it felt.
Alive. Watching. Old.
> "I don't think he's like the others," she murmured.
The agent smirked. "That's exactly what they said about her."
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Midnight came.
Yui stood alone in the North Tower.
Moonlight cut through the cracked ceiling. The room was bare—no weapons, no sigils, no signs of battle.
Just a mirror. Oval. Tall as a man. Its surface shimmered like water under moonlight.
Yui approached, heart steady, flame quiet.
> "Let's begin," a voice said behind him.
Seris stepped into the light, not wearing robes or lace this time—just black. No symbols. No expression.
> "Your trial isn't to fight," she said. "It's to see."
Yui looked at the mirror.
And it rippled.
> But instead of his reflection—
He saw her.
The Dormant Girl. In a room of mirrors. Reaching out to him.
Their hands met through the glass.
And in that moment—
> He heard her whisper:
> "You weren't supposed to wake first."
The mirror shattered.
Not into shards—into flame.
White fire erupted outward, engulfing the tower in silence.
Yui didn't move.
He stood at the center of it, eyes open, palm glowing.
> And for a moment—
> The world watched back.
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End of Chapter 18