The voice echoed through the vast chamber, wrapping around Seraphina like a coil of smoke—familiar, yet impossibly ancient. The ground trembled beneath her boots, veins of golden light cracking through the black stone floor as if something beneath it stirred, awakening after centuries of sleep.
She stepped back instinctively, eyes darting around the chamber. "Who's there?" she called out, her voice steadier than she felt. "Show yourself."
From the darkness beyond the mirror's remains, a figure emerged. He didn't walk so much as glide forward, his form cloaked in a robe stitched with threads of shadow. His face was hidden beneath a hood, but his presence exuded an unsettling calm, like a storm just before the first strike of lightning.
"I've waited long enough," the figure said. His voice was low, smooth, but not entirely human. "For you. The last of the broken flame. The bearer of the undone crown."
Seraphina's fingers twitched at her side. She felt the magic inside her thrum, wild and chaotic, reacting to this stranger's presence. "I don't know you."
"No," he agreed, "but I know you. I have known all versions of you. The girl who ran. The queen who fell. The monster you feared you'd become."
She narrowed her eyes. "Then you know I'm not here to play games."
He laughed softly, the sound echoing unnaturally across the stone walls. "No, Seraphina. You are here to remember. To awaken what was sealed. To claim the truth."
He lifted a hand, and the floor before them split open with a grinding roar, revealing a deep chasm that pulsed with a violet light. Inside, fragments of time flickered like dying stars—scenes from different lives, different timelines, all weaving around each other in a chaotic dance.
Seraphina gasped.
She saw herself—versions she didn't recognise. In one, she ruled with an iron fist, crowned in black gold. In another, she was hunted and broken, her wings—yes, wings—torn from her back. And then another… where she stood beside Caius, hand in hand, facing down a creature made of nothing but shadow and teeth.
"These are echoes," the figure whispered. "Reflections of what was, what might be, and what could still come to pass."
Her heart pounded. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because you must choose which fate to follow. And which one to destroy?"
Before she could respond, a sharp pain sliced through her chest. She stumbled, clutching her ribs as fire flared beneath her skin. The magic—her magic—was reacting violently. The mark of the crown burned, and her vision blurred.
The figure moved closer.
"You are awakening, Seraphina," he said, voice like silk over steel. "But you are not the only one. The others… the ones who crossed with you, the ones hidden in the shadows of this world—they are stirring too."
Her blood turned to ice.
"What others?"
But before he could answer, the chamber shook violently. Cracks erupted along the ceiling, sending stone crashing down. The mirror shards, long turned to dust, began to swirl into the air like a cyclone.
The figure turned to the light, his voice suddenly grave. "It's begun. The seal is breaking."
Seraphina's eyes widened as the ground beneath her gave way. She fell into darkness again, but this time, she wasn't afraid.
She had seen enough to know one thing: This world was not just a story. And she was not just its villain. She was the key.
And someone… or something… was coming for it.
The fall didn't feel like falling.
It felt like unraveling.
The air was thick, electric, tugging at her limbs and thoughts as if the world itself were trying to peel back her layers and peer into her soul. Seraphina tumbled through a kaleidoscope of visions—echoes of past lives, voices calling her name in languages she did not know but somehow understood. Memories not her own bled into her senses: a child's laughter in a burning garden, a battlefield soaked with rain and regret, a mirror shattering under a silver blade.
When she landed, it was with a jolt that forced the breath from her lungs.
The world around her had changed.
Gone was the ancient chamber and the shadowed figure. Now she stood at the edge of a city she recognized—yet didn't. Black spires pierced the sky like jagged thorns, and streets that once pulsed with life now lay quiet under a red-tinged sky. The kingdom she had once seen in ruins during her visions was now real, breathing with an eerie stillness that made her skin crawl.
It was her kingdom. But not.
It had twisted into something darker.
A cold wind swept past her, carrying whispers that seemed to come from the stones themselves. They hissed her name—not in hatred, but in warning. As if even the land feared what she might awaken next.
She stepped forward, boots crunching against ash and shattered glass. The buildings around her bore the marks of war—scorch marks, broken walls, doors hanging from their hinges. But the most terrifying part was the silence. There were no birds, no voices, no signs of life. Just the feeling that something watched her. Followed her.
A flash of movement caught her eye.
She spun around, summoning the flickering magic to her fingertips, ready to defend herself. But no attack came. Instead, from the alley ahead, a figure slowly emerged—hooded, familiar, but this time… smaller.
A girl. No older than fifteen. Her eyes shimmered with the same violet glow that had burned in Seraphina's veins.
Seraphina lowered her hands slightly, frowning. "Who are you?"
The girl stared at her for a long, silent moment before speaking.
"I'm the first."
The words hung between them like a spell, charging the air.
"The first… what?" Seraphina asked, tension gripping her spine.
"The first version of you," the girl whispered. "The one who broke the seal. The one who tried to burn the ending before it began. But I failed. And now you're here… to finish what I couldn't."
The sky rumbled above them, a dark cloud swirling over the city like a wound torn into the heavens.
Seraphina's mind reeled. Versions. Echoes. Paths that twisted and rewrote themselves. And now, she was face to face with one of them. She opened her mouth to ask more, to demand answers—but before she could speak, the ground trembled violently again, and a monstrous shriek tore through the air—one that did not belong to anything human.
The girl's eyes widened. "They found us."
"Who?"
The girl didn't answer. She grabbed Seraphina's hand and pulled.
"No time. Run."
And as they raced down the broken streets of a kingdom long forgotten, with shadows giving chase and forgotten truths clawing their way back into the light, Seraphina realised one thing.
The game wasn't just about power anymore. It was about survival. And the end… had already begun.