At first, Elara thought she imagined it.
The whisper was so soft it could have been the wind sighing through the cracks of her window, or the echo of her own breath. But then it came again, her name, drawn out like the drag of silk across stone.
Elara…
Her pulse stuttered.
The sound came from below, the floorboards, the cold space that should have been only wood and dust.
She sat up slowly, the faint light from her bedside lamp catching the sheen of sweat on her skin. Lyra's bed across the room was empty; she had gone to the infirmary for night duty. The dormitory was silent except for that whisper.
Elara… come below.
She slipped from her bed, bare feet brushing the chill of the stone tiles. The mark on her palm flared once, gold veined with violet, casting faint shadows across the wall.
The whisper pulsed in rhythm with it.
She knelt beside the floorboards, pressing her hand flat against the wood. The moment her skin touched it, the sigil reacted, light threading through the seams, outlining a circular pattern hidden in the planks.
A concealed seal.
Elara's breath caught. The design was older than the Academy, she recognized the style from the archives. Warding sigils belonging to the First Founders, the mages who had supposedly built the Academy atop ancient ruins.
Only this wasn't a ward.
It was a door.
She whispered a focus charm under her breath. The runes flared gold, then cracked like old ice.
A section of the floor shifted and lifted with a low groan, revealing a narrow stair spiraling into darkness.
For a moment, she just stared at it. Every instinct screamed no. But her heart, and the mark, thudded in unison, urging her down.
"Fine," she whispered to the empty room. "You win."
And she descended.
****
The air below was cold enough to bite.
The stair opened into a passageway carved of rough stone, damp with condensation. Threads of faint blue light ran through the walls, not lamps, but veins of raw magic. The hum from before was louder here, vibrating through her bones.
It didn't feel wrong, exactly.
It felt alive.
Her cloak brushed the wall as she moved forward. The tunnel curved once, twice, and then widened into a vaulted chamber she had never seen marked on any map.
At its center stood a mirror.
Not glass — silver, polished to perfection, its surface rippling like water. Runes ringed the frame, faintly luminous, the same gold-and-violet pattern that marked her palm.
And before it, kneeling as if in prayer, was someone she knew.
"Professor Dalen," she breathed.
The old scholar looked thinner, his usually pristine robes torn at the sleeves. His gray hair hung loose, his hands clasped tight around a crystal orb that glowed faintly blue. When he turned, his eyes weren't the warm brown she remembered. They were pale, almost white, clouded by exhaustion and something more terrible.
"Elara," he said, voice hoarse. "I hoped it would be you."
She took a step closer. "You're alive."
"Alive?" He gave a dry, cracked laugh. "In body, perhaps. The Council thinks I'm gone. Let them."
Her gaze flicked to the mirror. "What is this place?"
"The roots of the Academy," Dalen said. "The first tower wasn't built here by chance. The Founders sealed something beneath this ground. Something tied to the Veil itself."
Her heart pounded. "The Vessel?"
He nodded once. "Lucien."
The mirror's surface rippled, and for an instant, she saw Lucien's reflection, standing somewhere else entirely, bathed in silver light, unaware he was being watched.
Elara reached out, but Dalen caught her wrist. His grip was ice-cold.
"Listen to me," he hissed. "You must not trust what's inside him."
"I know what he is—"
"No, you don't." His voice shook. "You think he is the Vessel, but he is only half of it. The other half — the part that completes the seal — is you."
The air left her lungs. "What?"
"You were bound to him long before either of you were born," Dalen said. "The Council used fragments of your essence — your bloodline — to stabilize his existence. That bond is what draws you to him. Why your mark responds to his."
Elara stepped back, heart hammering. "That's impossible."
Dalen's expression was grief and fear entwined. "You think you were sent back by fate? No. You were summoned — pulled through time because the Veil is failing. And when it breaks, you and Lucien will either seal it again…" His eyes flicked to the mirror, where Lucien's reflection turned, silver eyes hollow with light. "…or become what it unleashes."
The mirror flared white.
Dalen stumbled, clutching his chest. The orb in his hand cracked with a shattering cry.
"Go," he gasped. "They've found me—"
Before she could move, the walls of the chamber shuddered. Dust fell from the ceiling. The runes along the archway burned red.
Elara grabbed his arm. "Come with me!"
He shook his head. "Too late."
And then the mirror exploded.
Light and shadow poured outward like liquid fire, throwing her back against the wall. Her vision blurred, violet, gold, white, all collapsing into a single blinding point before darkness swallowed everything.
****
When she opened her eyes, she was lying on her dormitory floor.
The hidden stair was gone. The planks were whole, unbroken. The lamp beside her bed flickered calmly as if nothing had happened.
But the mark on her hand had changed again.
The gold and silver were dimmed, overrun by deep, pulsing violet, a new line curling outward, tracing up her wrist like the beginning of a chain.
And when she turned her head, she saw something that froze her blood.
Lucien stood in the doorway.
No knock, no sound — just there, his eyes faintly glowing, the faint echo of violet threading his aura.
He said nothing.
But the look on his face — part fear, part recognition — told her he had felt everything.
Every word.
Every burst of light.
Every secret pulled from the dark.
"Elara," he said quietly. "What did you open?"