𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫 𝐎𝐟 𝐄𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐥𝐞𝐧

Chapter 14: The Second Fracture

Mira found Thistle waiting at the edge of the veil, where birch trees bent in unnatural arches.

“I thought you’d gone,” she said, kneeling beside him.

“I did. But I came back because something’s wrong. The Cartographer is missing. Her tower is empty, and... the ink is bleeding again.”

Thistle led Mira into Elderglen proper. The world she had helped save was shifting—slowly, subtly. The forest floor pulsed with faint red lines. In the sky above, a c***k shimmered like a splinter in a crystal dome.

“Is it another gate?” Mira asked.

Thistle shook his head. “No. Worse. It’s a memory.”

They reached Hollowspire. Only now, it wasn’t in ruins. It stood tall, twisted by time. Doors that shouldn’t exist had opened again. Inside, Mira saw fragments of herself—not just as she was now, but as she could have been. Fearful. Angry. Lost. Reflections of choices she never made.

Cael was waiting inside.

“It’s happening again,” he said. “But this time, it’s not me.”

He held out his hand. A shard of a different mirror glowed faintly in his palm, dark veins crawling across its surface.

“They’re coming through.”