My hand ached, the skin raw from hours of transcribing ancient script, yet I barely registered the pain. My mind was a battlefield, a replay of the dream with Aziel. My father's tower of lies. Missing the days when I woke up every morning excited to go to school, excited to see Celine and Atlas. All my excitement feels as if it has been sacrificed to anxiety. Working in the scriptorium was easy work for my hazy brain. It was a simple distraction from his gaze. Heavy and knowing, still burned behind my eyelids. His voice, a low thrum that resonated in my bones, echoed in my ears: You would, if the one who cast it had not hidden it so cunningly.

  The words were a barbed hook, tearing at the thin veil of my denial.

  I blinked, hard, trying to clear the fog. The parchment before me swam, the neat lines of translation blurring into a chaotic mess. My father had vanished last night, his chambers as empty as a tomb when I rose before dawn. Indisposed, the servants and guardsmen had parroted, their eyes sliding away from mine. The word, a sugar-coated lie, left a bitter aftertaste. My fingers tightened around the quill, pressing it against the parchment until a dark blot of ink bloomed, a stain spreading like a bruise. Curse it. I set the quill aside, the metal clattering against the desk, and began rolling the scroll, my movements sharp and jerky. Two days. Two days of endless work, a desperate attempt to drown my worry in the endless stream of ancient words. It was a futile effort. Worry was a weed, tenacious and relentless, its roots digging deep.

  Maris must've decided the Overton Relic was safer veiled. The mirror lurks beneath a fraying quilt, its embroidered birds and sunflowers, draped haphazardly over the glass. A corner slips, revealing a sliver of its surface: obsidian-edged, cold as a Guardsman's gaze. I ache to rip the cloth away, to confront the reflection that isn't mine, the one that showed Aziel's face yesterday, warped and wavering like smoke over coal. Now the glass breathed, how it trapped the light and refused to let go. What if I look again and it shows me his corpse this time, pale and bloated like the adversaries in the field? Or worse—mine?

  He's still gone.

  I sealed the final scroll, the wax dripping like congealed blood, a crimson stain against the parchment's pale surface. The box, now heavy with completed translations, was stacked neatly, a monument to hours of meticulous work. This batch, bound for the Temple archives, a secret sanctuary hidden within the city's labyrinthine underbelly. A place I hadn't known existed, a void in the map of my world. Hidden from me. Hidden from everyone.

  Why?

  The question echoed in the hollow chambers of my mind, a persistent, gnawing ache. Aziel's voice, a ghost in my ear, whispered: Cunningly. The word was a venomous seed, planted in the fertile ground of my doubt. My gut tightened at the thought, a physical manifestation of the dread that was beginning to bloom. I didn't want to believe it, couldn't let myself, but the suspicion was a splinter, lodged deep beneath my skin, festering with each passing moment. Was my father the architect of my isolation? Had he been manipulating me, a puppet on invisible strings, all this time? Had my life been a carefully constructed stage, with me as the unwitting player?

  My fingers clenched around the edge of the box, the rough wood digging into my skin. The weight of the scrolls, the weight of the unanswered questions, pressed down on me, a suffocating burden. My father, the man I'd trusted, the man I'd striven to please, was a stranger to me. A stranger who held my fate in his hands.

  "No," I hissed, the word a desperate plea, a fragile shield against the encroaching darkness. I hoisted the heavy box from the table, the muscles in my arms straining against the weight. "He wouldn't."

  But the denial rang hollow, a lie whispered in the face of mounting evidence. The image of his gaunt face, his distant eyes, flickered in my mind, a chilling reminder of the man he had become. The man I didn't know.

  Would he?

  The question hung in the air, a dark cloud obscuring the sun. Each creak of the floorboards, each rustle of parchment, seemed to whisper the same insidious thought. My world, once defined by certainty and obedience, was crumbling, revealing a foundation built on secrets and lies. And I, trapped within its collapsing walls, was left to wonder if I had ever truly known my father at all.

  The air outside the tent was a suffocating blanket, thick with humidity and the scent of damp earth. My muscles strained under the weight of the scrolls, a welcome burn that momentarily eclipsed the gnawing fear. I crossed the grounds, the rough gravel crunching beneath my boots, toward the waiting carriage parked beside the outer courtyard wall. The driver, a stout man with sun-weathered skin and eyes that held the weariness of a long life, stepped forward, his hand outstretched.

  "I've got it," I said, my voice clipped, a dismissal. "Thank you."

  He hesitated, his gaze lingering on the strain in my shoulders, but nodded, retreating a step.

  Carefully, I placed the box among the others, the wood thumping against the carriage floor. The East Temple. A phantom limb, a place I'd never known existed. And now, I was sending my work there, into its hidden depths. If my father could conceal a temple, what other secrets did he hold?

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  A murmur of voices drew my attention. Across the courtyard, a tide of people was flowing toward the town square. Not just guards, not just adversaries, but townspeople, their faces etched with a grim anticipation. Families, merchants, children, all moving as if drawn by an invisible thread.

  I stepped forward, my heart hammering against my ribs. "What's happening?" I called to a passing guardsman, his armor dull in the midday sun.

  He barely glanced at me, his eyes fixed on the distant crowd. "The High Priest has called a Convocation. Kingdom-wide. He's addressing everyone."

  My stomach churned, a cold, leaden weight. My father was back, his voice booming across the kingdom, and he hadn't even bothered to find me.

  The square was a sea of faces, a churning mass of fear and uncertainty, their expressions a grim tableau of unspoken anxieties. My father stood on the high stone dais, a solitary figure against the vast canvas of the sky. His frame, gaunt and brittle, seemed to have shrunk, his skin sallow and translucent, as if life itself had been siphoned from his bones, leaving behind a husk. Yet his voice, amplified by some unseen magic, boomed across the square, a thunderous echo that drowned out the hushed murmurs. It was a voice of command, not compassion, a voice that brooked no dissent.

  "My people!" he began, his words slicing through the air like a honed blade, each syllable a declaration of impending doom. "Dark times are upon us. Forces beyond our understanding have begun to stir."

  A chill, sharper than any winter wind, ran down my spine, a premonition of the terror to come. What are you doing, Father?

  "I have called this Convocation because I can no longer keep you in the dark." His tone deepened, edged with dire authority, the words hanging in the air like a death knell. "The enemy grows bolder. The shadows creep closer to our borders. The Ash Temple has stirrings of rebels that may have banded together."

  A ripple of fear spread through the crowd, a collective shudder that transformed the sea of faces into a wave of panic. Mothers clutched their children tighter, merchants gripped their purses, and guardsmen shifted their weight, their hands instinctively moving towards their weapons. The crowd trembled, their collective dread a physical weight that pressed down on the square, a suffocating blanket of anxiety.

  My father raised his hands, palms open in a grand, sweeping gesture—not a gesture of supplication, but a theatrical display of power, as though calling them to unity under his absolute rule. "We will stand strong." His voice resonated with a forced confidence, a desperate attempt to quell the rising tide of fear. "Our adversaries will double their patrols. Our magicians will reinforce the kingdom's shields. We will not fall to this force."

  Then his gaze swept the crowd, a predator scanning its prey, his eyes cold and calculating. He paused, his gaze lingering, and landed on me. His face, a mask of control, barely flickered, but I saw it. Recognition. Guilt. A flicker of something that might have been regret, quickly extinguished. My heart pounded, a frantic drumbeat against my ribs, a desperate rhythm against the silence of my fear. The air grew thick, charged with an unseen energy, as if the very stones of the square were holding their breath. I watched him, my eyes searching his, desperate for a glimpse of the man I thought I knew, but all I saw was a stranger, a puppet master pulling the strings of a kingdom teetering on the brink of chaos.

  I wandered forward through the crowd, a river of faces flowing towards the dais, searching for my father's descent. I abruptly stopped, a sudden stillness in the chaos, when I saw Celine. She stood apart, a solitary figure amidst the throng, her gaze fixed on the field below the town square. "Celine!" I called out to her, my voice barely audible above the murmuring crowd. She didn't react, her eyes distant, lost in the scene unfolding before her. She was staring off to all of the troops being rallied in the field below the town square. I rapidly joined her, pushing through the bodies, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

  "Celine! Are you okay? You must have—" I began, my words catching in my throat.

  "They took Atlas. Look." She gestured down, her hand trembling slightly, her voice flat and devoid of emotion.

  I followed her gaze. The field below was a scene of organized chaos. Troops, clad in gleaming armor, were being marshaled into formation. Banners snapped in the wind, the colors a stark contrast to the grim faces of the soldiers. But it was the vanguard, the frontline, that drew my attention. Atlas stood there, his figure silhouetted against the rising sun, his posture rigid. He looked like a statue, frozen in place.

  "He's going to the border?" I whispered, my voice barely a breath.

  Celine nodded, her eyes fixed on Atlas. "They said they needed the best. For a rapid defense. They said he was the best." Her voice was a low, hollow sound, as if she were speaking through a thick fog.

  "But... that's—" I stammered, unable to articulate the sheer insanity of it. Atlas, always so calm, so measured, so... safe, being sent to the frontlines? It was a death sentence.

  "What did you see last night, Celine?" I asked, my voice urgent. "What happened at the Ash Temple?"

  She turned to me, her eyes wide and haunted, pupils dilated like they'd absorbed the void itself. "Darkness," she whispered, her voice trembling. "But not empty—alive. It moved like liquid, Tia. It poured out of the temple's altar and... crawled. And the smoke..." Her fingers clawed at her collarbone, nails leaving crescent moons in her skin. "It wasn't smoke. They were shadows. Threads of them, snapping through the air like black whips. When they touched me, it wasn't just burns. It was... memories. Their memories."

  "Whose?" I asked.

  "The ones the temple's eaten. I saw a girl my age, screaming as the shadows sewed her mouth shut. A man begging for mercy as they peeled his skin back, layer by layer, and the smoke poured into his veins." She gagged, doubling over. "And then—then it showed me us. You and me, kneeling at the altar. Our faces hollow, our eyes gone black. And the relic... the Overton Relic... it wasn't a mirror anymore. It was a door. And something on the other side was laughing."Her breath hitched, raw and wet. "The temple's not ruins, Tia. It's a throat. And we're the sacrifice it's still chewing."

  Her words painted a terrifying picture, a scene of chaos and destruction. I shuddered, the image of burning smoke seared into my mind. "Rebels," my father had said. "But... what kind of rebels...?"

  Celine shook her head, her gaze returning to Atlas. "I don't know," she whispered. "But whatever it was... it wasn't human."

  She looked back at the field, her eyes filled with a desperate, unspoken plea. "They're sending him to die, Tia. They're sending him to die."

  I staggered back, bile rising in my throat. My father had said rebels. But now I knew.

  This was no rebellion.