They didn't speak as they left the Vault of Echoing Wind.
Not at first.
Seris carried the Diadem wrapped in stormsilk, the crown humming faintly through the cloth like a creature not quite asleep. Her hands trembled, but not from fear.
From resonance.
Kaelen stayed at her side, jaw tight, every step radiating a coiled storm of emotion. Pride. Worry. Awe. Terror. He didn't know whether to reach for her hand or draw his blade.
"Say it," Seris finally muttered as they descended the path carved into the cliffside.
"Say what?"
"You're afraid of me."
He stopped walking. "I'm not afraid of you."
She turned to face him, wind catching her hair, setting it alight in the fading sky. "Then what are you afraid of?"
"I'm afraid of what they'll ask you to do now that you've touched both crowns."
She didn't answer right away. Then: "What if I'm the only one who can?"
Kaelen's silence was answer enough.
---
Back in Cael'Thorne, the sky buzzed with unrest.
The Eye had gone dormant. The skyguards had sealed the palace vaults. And word of the crown's retrieval had already reached the Ember Court—through whispers, through flame.
Queen Alaryss sent a vision-flame that evening. A flickering projection, elegant and steeled.
> "Seris. You are walking a path not even our ancestors dared. Come home. Before the realm calls you its queen and its sacrifice."
Kaelen watched her as the flame burned out. "She's scared."
Seris didn't blink. "So am I."
---
But not all watched her with fear.
Lady Arin came to them the next morning. The stormcaptain of Cael'Thorne had lost none of her sharpness—but there was a shift in her gaze now. Less suspicion. More calculation.
"You didn't claim the Diadem," Arin said. "That earns respect."
Seris tilted her head. "Or fear."
"They're not so different in a place like this."
Arin set a stormforged compass on the table. It glowed softly, its needle spinning in erratic circles.
"The vault's breach weakened other wards," Arin said. "A rift opened in the high reaches. Not natural. A corridor—between realms."
Seris leaned forward. "Between which realms?"
Arin's lips pressed into a thin line. "Ours… and its reflection."
Kaelen's brow furrowed. "You mean the Mirrorlands?"
"No," Arin said quietly. "I mean the space between. The breach that holds the Mirror Queen's prison."
---
Seris stared at the compass. "So the Mirror Queen isn't just stirring power from afar. She's reaching through now."
Kaelen cursed under his breath. "That breach—if it grows, she'll be able to cross fully into this realm."
Arin nodded. "And if she brings her mirror army with her, they won't just take thrones. They'll replace the ones who sit on them."
Seris whispered, "Like a shadow swallowing its light."
The decision was made in silence.
They had to seal the breach.
---
They left at dusk with a small wing of skyguards and spellbinders. Arin came with them, blade at her back, wind in her steps.
The breach lay high above the city's core—past even the Watchlight Tower, in a place once sacred to the skykin: the Tear of Caelum, where wind was born and lightning slept.
As they ascended, reality itself frayed.
Clouds spun too slowly. Lightning forked upward. The wind whispered in languages not spoken in this world.
And at the center of it, cracked open like a wound in the sky, was the breach.
It glimmered like broken glass suspended in air—a vertical scar, bleeding mirrorlight. Shadows flickered on the other side. Twins of those present. Some distorted. Some identical. All watching.
"I hate mirror magic," Arin muttered.
Kaelen's hand drifted to his sword. "They're studying us."
"No," Seris whispered. "They're choosing."
---
Then a figure stepped from the breach.
A tall woman in armor of glass and fire, her eyes silver and cold. Her voice rang with distorted elegance.
> "Hello, me."
Seris stared in horror.
Because the Mirror Queen didn't look like her anymore.
She looked like a version of her—older, regal, twisted with shadows and pride. Her face was familiar, but wrong in ways too subtle to define.
Kaelen stepped forward. "You've crossed too far. This realm is not yours."
The Mirror Queen smiled. "And yet I am in it. Just as the crowns are waking. Just as she opens the way."
She pointed to Seris.
"You are the key, child of fire and storm. Come willingly, and I will not shatter what remains."
Seris took a single step forward—and then set the Diadem at her feet.
"No."
The Mirror Queen's face hardened.
"I am not your shadow," Seris said, fire rising in her voice. "And I won't become your doorway."
Kaelen raised his blade. "Then we seal this breach."
The sky howled.
And the war of reflections began.