Velisane was built to reflect starlight.
The city rose out of the canyon like a bloom of obsidian and silver, its towers polished to mirror perfection, its streets lined with crystalline panels that shimmered in shifting hues. Every surface bent light, twisted it—until up looked like down, and shadows danced in places where nothing stood.
Elara stepped off the skycraft and felt the weight of it immediately.
Not the beauty.
The silence.
No laughter. No footsteps. Just wind through the spires and a metallic tang on the air.
Cassian frowned. "Where is everyone?"
"This doesn't feel abandoned," Elara murmured. "It feels… watched."
They descended into the city center, where a grand plaza stretched out beneath a broken sundial. The streets were lined with statues—figures in cloaks, hands raised to shield their faces. At first glance, Elara assumed they were artistic.
Then she saw the expressions.
Frozen.
Terrified.
"Gods," she whispered. "They're real."
Cassian knelt beside one. "Petrified. Recently."
Elara reached out instinctively—and the moment her fingers brushed the statue's surface, a vision slammed into her skull.
Screams.
A child running.
A mirror fracturing from the inside.
And eyes—dozens of eyes, glowing red in the cracks.
She staggered back. "It's the Coil. They've already started."
Cassian helped her steady. "This city… it must've been a testing ground."
"For what?"
Before he could answer, a voice echoed down the avenue:
"So the Fulcrum finally comes."
Elara turned.
A woman stood atop a shattered obelisk. Hair white as ash. Eyes lined in black ink. Cloak woven from spider silk and flame.
She smiled without warmth.
"My name," she said, "is Vyrel. I am the first finger of the Ashen Coil."
Cassian stepped in front of Elara. "You shouldn't be here."
Vyrel laughed. "Says the ghost prince with no kingdom."
Her gaze flicked to Elara. "You feel it, don't you? The burn behind your eyes. The crack in the sky pulling tighter every day. You were never meant to survive the crossing. And yet… here you are. Whole. Golden. Bright."
She sneered.
"You should've died. Like the others."
Elara stepped forward, voice steady. "I'm not them."
"No," Vyrel said. "You're worse. Because you hope. That's always the first mistake."
She raised a hand—and the mirrors behind her shattered outward, revealing black tendrils crawling beneath their surfaces. The air thickened with magic.
Cassian unsheathed his blade. "Go. Now."
"No," Elara said. "I'm done running."
She called the Flame.
It erupted through her arms in spirals of starlight, brighter than before, cracking the stones beneath her feet. Vyrel flinched, eyes narrowing.
"Impressive," she said. "Let's see how long you can keep it."
Then the shadows struck.
They fought in the plaza of glass and ghosts.
Cassian moved like a storm—graceful, precise, deadly. Every motion a blur of steel and intent. Elara held the center, pushing the Flame outward in sweeping arcs. Where it touched the dark tendrils, they hissed and retreated.
Vyrel danced at the edge, watching. Testing.
"She's not attacking directly," Elara panted, deflecting another coil. "Why?"
"She's measuring you," Cassian said grimly. "Looking for cracks."
"Then we give her nothing."
They pressed forward.
The Flame surged—hotter, faster, alive. It responded to her anger. Her fear. Her defiance. For the first time, it didn't feel foreign.
It felt like hers.
Elara raised her hand—and the light exploded outward in a wave that shattered every mirror within fifty yards.
Vyrel hissed and fell back.
"You're not ready," she snarled. "But you're close."
She vanished in smoke—retreating into a mirror that hadn't even been visible a moment ago.
The city fell silent once more.
Except for the sound of something cracking.
Elara turned.
The sundial in the plaza was splitting—down the middle. And beneath it, a staircase spiraled into the ground.
Cassian stared. "That wasn't there before."
Elara wiped blood from her temple. "Guess we passed the test."
The stairwell led into a chamber unlike anything Elara had seen before.
It was a hall of mirrors—but none of them showed her reflection. Instead, they flickered with memories. Not hers. Others'.
A young boy crying beside a broken flute.
An old woman whispering to the stars.
A man with Cassian's face—but older, harder—raising a blade toward a throne.
"What is this place?" she whispered.
Cassian's face was pale. "A memory vault. Forbidden. The kind the Houses were supposed to destroy."
"Why?"
"Because too much truth is dangerous."
At the center of the chamber stood a pedestal—and upon it, a single object: a star-forged pendant, shaped like a spiral flame.
Elara reached for it.
Cassian grabbed her wrist. "Wait. You don't know what it is."
"I don't care."
She took it.
Pain lanced through her chest.
And suddenly she was somewhere else.
The world around her had changed.
She stood on a battlefield of stars—dozens of Fulcrums, each cloaked in constellations, battling shadowed figures of impossible size.
And in the center, a woman—tall, gold-eyed, screaming as she split the sky in half.
The vision zoomed toward her.
"Don't be me," the woman said, voice raw. "Don't forget who you are. Or you'll burn everything."
Then silence.
And Elara was back in the chamber, gasping.
Cassian caught her before she fell.
"What did you see?" he asked.
"Truth," she said hoarsely. "And a warning."
She looked at the pendant in her hand.
It was warm.
Alive.
And it bore her name on the back.