The blue-gold flame crackled in silence. No heat. No sound. Just a presence — heavy and watching.
Kaelen called Seris's name again and again, but she stood motionless on the chasm's edge, eyes locked on the figure rising from the light.
Her twin.
Or… not a twin.
A reflection.
The woman looked like her—identical in face and form—but older, more regal, adorned in obsidian and flamewoven gold. She wore the Crown of Cinders, but it was changed. No longer a simple circlet—it had grown with horns of flame, pulsing like a heartbeat.
"Who are you?" Seris whispered, though the answer bloomed behind her teeth.
The reflection smiled. "You know."
The voice was hers. Twisted like smoke in a mirror. It echoed not in the air, but in her bones.
Kaelen stepped forward, blades unsheathed. "What is she?"
The Mirror Queen turned her gaze to him, and the temperature dropped by ten degrees.
"I am what your Seris becomes," she said. "When she stops pretending the fire doesn't hunger."
"Liar," Seris spat, even as her fingers curled with flame. "I would never let it consume me."
"You already have," the Mirror Queen whispered. "Piece by piece. Every time you light a flame. Every time you make them kneel. Don't you see, Seris? I'm not your enemy."
She held out her hand. Fire bled from her palm in perfect harmony.
"I'm your future."
---
Seris reeled back, heart hammering.
"You're a vision. A shadow conjured to manipulate me."
"I'm what's left, when the world fails you one time too many," the Mirror Queen said. "When the council turns. When Kaelen falls. When your mother sacrifices you to save her throne. And when you realize the only thing that has ever truly protected you… is the fire."
Kaelen stepped between them, hands up. "Seris, don't listen."
"Why not?" the Mirror Queen asked, her eyes burning. "Because you think you can save her?"
Kaelen's jaw clenched. "I know I can."
"Then tell her what you saw," the Mirror Queen hissed. "In the Vault. When the crown pulsed. You felt it, didn't you, stormborn? The pull."
Kaelen faltered.
"Tell her what you saw in the flames," she pressed. "You saw me."
He didn't speak.
And that silence shattered something inside Seris.
---
Memories slammed into her all at once.
The Mirror Gate. The crown's heartbeat. The whispers that began long before Kaelen arrived. Visions of cities aflame. Her own hand casting judgment from a throne of obsidian.
It had always been her.
The dreams weren't warnings.
They were invitations.
---
The Mirror Queen stepped forward, voice softening.
"I am not here to destroy you, Seris. I am here to finish you. To help you rise. The fire is not a curse. It is our inheritance."
"No," Seris whispered, flame crackling in her palms. "You are not my end."
The Mirror Queen's smile was sad. "You say that now."
Then, without another word, she vanished—imploding into embers and scattering like stars into the flame spiral behind her.
The chasm snapped shut.
Silence fell.
---
Kaelen knelt beside her. "Seris…"
"You saw her," she said, voice hollow. "You saw her before, and you didn't tell me."
He nodded slowly. "Only once. In the Vault. When the crown shimmered. I thought… maybe it was the flame testing me."
"It wasn't," Seris murmured. "It was her. Watching through the fire. Waiting."
She stood, shoulders tense. "She's not a vision. Not a prophecy. She's real. And if I don't stop her… I become her."
Kaelen took her hand. "Then we stop her."
She didn't pull away. "Even if that means destroying the crown?"
He hesitated. "If it comes to that—yes."
She met his gaze. "Would you destroy me too, Kaelen? If I fall that far?"
Pain flickered in his eyes. "No," he said. "I would walk through flame and storm to bring you back."
The words hit like a vow, fierce and raw.
Seris exhaled, her breath glowing faintly gold. "Then we need allies. We can't do this alone."
---
Later that night, they sat before a dim campfire outside the Veil.
Seris unrolled the scroll again.
This time, new writing had appeared beneath the sigil.
A phrase, seared into the parchment in molten script:
> The First Ember dies when the Second Crown is lit.
Kaelen leaned over her shoulder. "What does that mean?"
Seris stared into the flickering coals, fire dancing in her eyes.
"It means… there's another crown. And if someone lights it, mine dies."
"And you with it?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
She just looked eastward, toward the storm-wreathed horizon of Cael'Thorne.
> "We have to go north," she said quietly. "To the kingdom in the sky."