The storm struck just past midnight.
Thunder cracked like bones snapping in the heavens, and the rain came down in sheets, hammering against the windows of Elara Quinn's dusty office at the Boston Institute of Arcane History. She should've gone home hours ago, but the mirror wouldn't leave her alone.
It stood in the center of the room now seven feet tall, rimmed in silver that seemed to hum with energy, and entirely black, absorbing light like a living thing. No reflection. No surface. Just... void.
The artifact had arrived three weeks earlier, buried under bureaucratic labels and customs delays, pulled from the ruins of a temple long forgotten. It had no known origin, no sigils, no makers' mark. It shouldn't have drawn her in.
But it did.
Elara reached toward it, heart pounding. The air around the mirror shimmered faintly, like heat rising off asphalt. Her fingers stopped just inches from its surface.
"Just a quick test," she whispered.
Then the mirror breathed.
That was the only way she could describe it. A ripple passed through the void. The air folded in on itself. A force seized her wrist gentle, but impossible to resist.
And then
Light.
Pain.
A tearing sensation, like her soul was being unraveled.
And the scream of a thousand voices layered over her own.
.....
She awoke gasping, drenched in sweat, lungs aching for air.
But it wasn't her office.
She lay on cold marble, surrounded by crumbling pillars and flickering torchlight. A scent of myrrh and burnt sage hung heavy in the air. Above her, a domed ceiling glowed faintly with runes that pulsed like heartbeat rhythms.
Her heartbeat.
No.
Someone else's.
"Elara Quinn?" she whispered, testing the name aloud, but it felt wrong here like wearing a coat that no longer fit.
She pushed herself up, limbs trembling. Her hands were smaller, more delicate. Her nails painted black. She stumbled toward a polished piece of obsidian embedded in the wall then froze.
A stranger stared back.
Pale skin dusted with faint gold markings. Long white hair. Violet eyes that shimmered unnaturally. Lips tinged blue, as if recently dead.
This wasn't her body.
"Elara...?" a voice called.
She spun.
Three figures entered the chamber robed, cautious, all staring at her as though she'd risen from a grave.
"Is it truly her?" whispered one a boy, barely sixteen, with wide, reverent eyes.
The eldest stepped forward a woman in crimson robes, face marked with ceremonial ash. "She breathes. But is it Lyra or something else inside?"
Elara's mouth went dry.
"Lyra?" she asked.
The woman raised a brow. "You don't remember?"
"I don't even know where I am."
"Then the rumors were true," murmured a third a tall man with a shock of silver through black hair. His voice was cold steel. "Her soul was torn. Something else took root."
Elara's heart raced. "I'm not this... Lyra. My name is Elara Quinn. I'm from"
"Another realm," the silver-haired man said. "One with no magic. No knowledge of the Source."
She staggered back. "How do you know that?"
"Because only someone entirely disconnected from the Threads would survive that kind of breach."
He stepped closer, eyes studying her with unsettling calm. "Lyra Voss was the most dangerous novice mage this realm had seen in generations. Powerful. Untamed. Marked by prophecy and plagued by visions of fire and ash. She died two nights ago. Her heart pierced by a blade forged in the Black Forge."
"And now she lives again. With your soul."
Elara shook her head. "This is a mistake."
"No," the older woman said. "This is fate. Something ancient has chosen you. The Mirror of Aram has not shimmered in three hundred years. You awakened it."
A shrill alarm rang out suddenly a long, low bell from deep within the city walls.
The woman's face paled. "The Wardens. They know."
"Know what?" Elara asked, breath catching.
"That the dead has returned," the silver-haired man said grimly. "And they won't allow her or you to walk free."
...….
Torches flared outside the chamber. Shadows danced across the walls. The rumble of boots on stone echoed louder and louder.
Elara turned to the man. "I need to get back. There must be a way to reverse this."
"There's not," he said simply. "Not while your soul is fused to hers."
A hidden door creaked open in the side wall. The boy motioned frantically. "This way!"
"Who are you people?" Elara demanded.
The silver-haired man finally answered. "I am Cael Morrow, Sentinel of the Veil. The boy is Rhys. And she is High Archivist Maevan. We were Lyra's guardians. Until she turned on us."
Elara's skin prickled. "Why?"
"She knew too much," Maevan said darkly. "And some secrets are meant to burn."
A flash of blue flame lit the corridor outside. Shouts erupted. Someone banged against the chamber door.
Cael grabbed Elara's wrist. "Come. Now."
They dashed through the passage as the chamber behind them erupted with light and sound magic hurling stone, fire, and steel. Elara's lungs burned as they descended into darkness, each step echoing through her stolen bones.
...…
Deep below the city, they finally stopped. The silence was thicker here. Ancient.
Elara turned to Cael. "If I'm not Lyra…, will they still want me dead?"
He looked her in the eye. "If they think you're her, yes. If they think you're something worse? Definitely."
"And what am I now?"
Maevan stepped forward, placing a hand to Elara's chest. "A soul reborn. But not by choice."
"The mirror" Elara began.
"Was a Gate," Cael said. "One that should've remained sealed."
Rhys looked up at her with awe. "Then maybe she's the one. The tether between worlds."
Elara's eyes shimmered. For a moment, she saw not stone or firelight but the black mirror back in her office, cracked in the center, bleeding light like a wound.
Something ancient had awakened.
And it wasn't finished with her yet.