The rift had collapsed, but silence didn't return.
It was broken by chains.
Heavy. Dragging. Metallic echoes from behind the altar, as though the air itself were resisting whatever now emerged from the torn fold in reality.
Alina turned slowly, her pulse beating in her throat.
Out of the shifting mist stepped a figure wrapped in rusted chains, each link etched with ancient glyphs. The person's face was hidden behind a silver veil, but the shape of them—their stance, the way the air bent around them—was disturbingly familiar.
Selene stepped closer, shielding Alina instinctively. "That's not a creature," she murmured. "That's a prisoner."
The figure raised its head.
And spoke.
"You left me."
Alina froze.
The voice wasn't Damien's. It wasn't even male.
It was her own.
Or… a twisted echo of it.
The chained figure removed the veil.
Alina stared at her own face—older, worn, but unmistakable.
"What is this?" she breathed.
Selene was already summoning magic. "A mirror-curse. A failed future. It's you—if you chose differently."
The other Alina's eyes burned gold. "I am what you became when you chose to fight the curse alone. When you left her—" her gaze flicked to Selene "—and tried to fix everything with rage."
Alina's mouth went dry.
"You're not real."
"I'm more real than you think."
The chained version took a step forward. The air shimmered.
"I remember every moment you erased to survive. Every decision you abandoned. I remember what it cost you."
Selene moved to block her path, but the chains wrapped outward like tendrils, lashing toward both of them.
Magic sparked. Blades met steel. The sanctuary cracked beneath the clash.
Alina's blade touched her twin's chain and recoiled—shaking. The chains weren't just enchanted. They were binding her magic.
Selene was thrown against the wall.
Alina rushed forward. "Leave her out of this. Fight me."
"I am you," the other whispered. "And I already won."
Alina screamed and struck.
Their blades met—not steel against steel, but memory against memory. Each clash brought visions—moments Alina buried. Her first mission. Her first betrayal. The night she was told love was weakness.
And the night she believed it.
The twin drove her to her knees.
"Give in," she hissed. "Let go of her. Let go of hope."
But Selene's hand touched Alina's.
And for a moment, the pain paused.
Alina looked up, blood at her lip, fury in her eyes.
"I'm not you."
She raised her blade—not with anger, but with certainty—and drove it straight through her mirror's heart.
Chains shattered.
The twin screamed, not in pain, but in relief.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Then she was gone.
Alina collapsed into Selene's arms.
But the ground beneath them trembled.
The mirror had shattered. But something darker had seen it.
And now, it was coming.