The Mirage Revealed

  The sky above the Midnight Mirage shimmered with refracted wardlight, casting spectral colors across the polished marble terrace. Arcane sigils floated like fireflies—each tied to a unity charter, a pact signed in blood, breath, or magic. Today, those oaths faced their next great test.

  The doors of the Mirage opened wide—not for war, but for education.

  For the first time since the accords were signed, the Mirage welcomed its students: a carefully chosen assembly of young representatives, apprentices, and factional scions from across the twelve domains. Some arrived in procession. Others alone. All stepped onto consecrated ground that had once been carved from the bones of a battlefield.

  Elysia stood in ceremonial attire, her flamebound mantle trailing soft gold embers. Beside her stood Soric “Ash” Varos, Sovereign reborn, his aura a quiet heat that whispered of centuries lost and reclaimed.

  “This place was once the edge of collapse,” Elysia said, addressing the gathering from the crystal-stepped dais. “Now it becomes a beginning.”

  The crowd hushed.

  The Council members stood in quiet witness—twelve souls, each heavy with history:

  Commander Maris Althar, steel-eyed and steady, watched with measured hope. Once a Thalrasi operative, now a dismantler of their legacy, she had fought too long to waste words on ceremony.

  Alpha Cadorin, silver-furred and unsmiling, stood arms crossed, observing every twitch and scent of the students with a predator’s calm.

  Naevira of Stormrest offered a nod of approval as a young elemental student knelt respectfully before the fountain etched with her crest.

  Lord Merion Vael and Lady Thalindra stood apart but were unified in stance—the Unseelie and Seelie each cloaked in centuries of formality, yet both were here under a shared banner.

  Councilor Jareth Valen, the vampire noble, had already taken quiet notes on student interactions, his mind running centuries ahead.

  Kazar Vey, demon-turned-peacemaker, offered his hand to a hesitant fire-wielder, who flinched before realizing no threat lingered behind his golden eyes.

  High Enchanter Brynna Hollowhart blessed the hall’s threshold with a quiet sigil of harmony. The runes flared only faintly—magic tempered by wisdom.

  Ambassador Thomas Greaves stood among the non-magical aides, his presence a statement in itself: this space belonged to mortals, too.

  Professor Eluin Rell said nothing. But the moment he arrived, every arcane ward in the Mirage rebalanced itself without instruction.

  Harlan Dune, tiger-born and broad-shouldered, stood like a storm in waiting. When a student stumbled during the procession, he caught them, fast, silent, kind.

  Torrek Thorneclaw, the Wilderborn’s Beastbreaker, arrived last, cloaked in bear hide and silence. He stood near the door, as if protecting it, not from what came in, but from what might someday try to leave.

  The first lessons began at sundown.

  Naevira led the opening symposium, speaking of diplomacy as an extension of elemental harmony: “Even flame,” she said, glancing at Elysia, “must know when to yield to water.”

  Jareth Valen followed with a lesson on inter-factional law, conjuring illusions of past treaties—some honored, some broken, all costly. “We do not learn diplomacy to avoid war,” he said, “but to survive its return.”

  Later, Alpha Cadorin and Torrek Thorneclaw paired up in an unexpected joint exercise—teaching students to communicate in silence, through movement and breath. When a young fae mocked the exercise, Torrek met their gaze once and said only: “Words are prey. Understanding is the hunt.”

  A murmur passed through the room. The lesson resumed.

  As the stars rose, the Midnight Mirage gleamed like a beacon, ringed by enchantments and faith. The students dispersed to their quarters. Some whispered, others glared, and, unexpectedly, a few smiled.

  A shadow passed her periphery as Elysia made her final rounds through the empty halls. A veiled figure, face hidden, stepped deliberately and placed something on a windowsill before vanishing.

  She approached carefully. There, beneath the moonlight, lay an obsidian feather. Its edges shimmered with runes of surveillance magic—subtle, old, dangerous.

  Soric approached, sensing her tension.

  “Phoenix?” he asked.

  Elysia shook her head. “No. Something watching phoenixes.”

  She pocketed the feather.

  Behind her, the halls of the Mirage pulsed with youthful energy and buried tension—the first sparks of something new.

  And somewhere, beyond even Soric’s reach, an old flame stirred.

  Embers and Echoes

  They came from every corner of the realm.

  Some are by wing, others by portal, and others are on foot—boots dusty, nerves taut. Young emissaries and hand-chosen apprentices, heirs of legacy and those with nothing to lose. Their feet crossed the shimmering threshold of the Midnight Mirage, and for the first time, the twelve factions would live, learn, and challenge each other under one roof.

  The entrance hall grew loud with hesitant greetings and sidelong glances.

  A werewolf girl from the Shadow Moors bared her teeth too quickly in what she meant as a smile. A fae boy from the Seelie branch flinched, hand twitching toward an unseen ward. Lady Thalindra, watching from the upper balcony, gave the faintest shake of her head. They would need guidance—a lot of it.

  Down below, Brynna Hollowhart moved among the arriving witches and hedge-born with the quiet grace of wind in the woods. She placed a calming rune on a nervous spellbinder’s collar, murmuring, “Breath before brilliance.”

  A boy wrapped in fur and iron stepped forward without ceremony. He bowed low—not to anyone, but to the hall itself. His name was Tarn, of the Wilderborn. He carried no luggage, only a bone-handled knife at his belt and a small wooden charm shaped like a bear’s paw.

  Across the hall, two vampire cadets in deep blue silks arrived with a noble flourish, flanked by glowing blood-wards. One—taller, with a hawk-like stare, introduced himself as Ilius Vael, distant kin of Lord Merion. “We are here to observe,” he said to the registrar, “not assimilate.”

  Commander Maris Althar—a former Thalrasi—watched that exchange with unreadable eyes. Her students wore plain grey cloaks. Each was a survivor of a different war, trained to look for escape routes before making friends.

  In the center courtyard, elemental wards pulsed gently as Naevira’s students approached. Water-kin and storm-dancers moved like tide and current—smooth, cohesive, quiet. But one—a girl with frost on her skin and flame in her eyes—lingered back from the others.

  “Half-born?” Soric asked, emerging silently at Elysia’s side.

  “Not just that,” Elysia murmured, watching the girl. “Divided.”

  The Council had agreed that students of mixed origin, contested loyalty, or uncertain magical balance should be given mentorship. Elysia volunteered without hesitation.

  Maela Syr’s delegation arrived last from the ocean gateways—siren students cloaked in sea-wrapped robes, their voices sealed by charm to prevent passive enchantment. One made eye contact with a human boy holding a mechanical staff. They smiled.

  He blushed. She blinked once, approving.

  Thomas Greaves beamed from the sidelines, noting the interaction. “Hope,” he said aloud to no one. “That’s what that looks like.”

  A low, feline growl interrupted the moment as Harlan Dune arrived with his shifter cadets. They came in loose formation, alert, reactive. One boy’s pupils shifted to slits as he passed a fae girl. She muttered something in her tongue. He answered with a snarl.

  Elysia stepped between them.

  “No one wins on day one,” she said, voice steady. “Save it for the training floor.”

  The crowd dispersed slowly into their respective wings—dormitories woven with faction-tuned wards, mirrored classrooms bearing enchanted chalkboards, silent libraries, and sparring rooms sealed with layered magic.

  That night, the Midnight Mirage pulsed like a breathing heart. In each room, some students stared at the ceiling, others at their hands, the door, and each other.

  Some planned how to escape.

  Some whispered about spying.

  A few, despite themselves, fell asleep with a strange thing taking root in their chest.

  Curiosity.

  In the dark of her chamber, Elysia stood at the window, watching the soft pulse of wardlight across the sky. Behind her, Soric spoke.

  “They’ll fight.”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll fail.”

  “Yes.”

  “They might also change everything.”

  Elysia smiled faintly.

  “Yes.”

  The Flame Within

  The shadows peeled away from the southern wall of the Mirage with the silent grace of a curtain drawn back by invisible hands.

  Ronan stepped out of the darkness first, his boots making no sound on the warded floor. Beside him, Dorian emerged in his wake—cloak still flickering with residual shadowlight, hand resting on the hilt of a blade he hadn’t needed in weeks but never left behind.

  They arrived without fanfare, but the air shifted anyway.

  The Mirage always knew when power walked through its halls.

  “Bit late,” Dorian murmured, glancing at the glyphclock sigil above the corridor. “Think she’ll be mad?”

  “She’s teaching,” Ronan said, gaze already drawn toward the pulsing heart of the lecture atrium. “She won’t say a word until it’s over.”

  They moved through the eastern archway just as the doors silenced behind them. Inside the great crescent-shaped amphitheater, rows of students sat in near-total stillness, watching the woman standing before a flame-woven wall of living script.

  Elysia.

  She stood in a halo of firelight, not conjured but exhaled, her cloak draped back, the flame in her hair catching every flicker of ward light behind her. She held a flickering shard of sonic flame in one hand—a visual aid, she had called it. But to the students, it was nothing short of myth incarnate.

  “Rebirth is not a gift,” she was saying. “It is a decision.”

  Her voice was calm but full, rising into the high, curved ceiling like a spell not meant to be broken. Some students leaned forward, wide-eyed. Others, arms crossed, looked as if they were pretending not to listen.

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  “You’ve heard that phoenixes rise because they are destined to. That it’s instinct. That we’re flame given memory. That is false.”

  Behind her, the shard ignited in her palm, then dimmed again.

  “Every time we burn, we choose to. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.”

  Ronan stood just inside the arched doorway, arms crossed. He said nothing. He didn’t have to. The moment her eyes slid over the crowd and found him, her voice dipped slightly—just enough that he heard something layered beneath her words.

  She was speaking to them.

  But she was also speaking to him.

  “To rise again does not mean to forget what was lost. It means to carry it. Flame doesn’t erase. It remembers.”

  Dorian leaned toward him. “She’s good.”

  “She’s better than good,” Ronan murmured.

  A flash of light erupted from behind her as the flame wall flickered, projecting a phoenix in full flight—its wings arched back, flame cascading in ribbons from its tail.

  “This cycle is not endless,” she said. “Each phoenix has a final flight. Not because we fail, but because we choose to pass our fire to the next. To let others rise.”

  As she ended, silence held the room like a breath.

  Then the wall dimmed, the shard went out, and Elysia closed her hand.

  “You’re not here to learn magic. Not really. You’re here to learn how to hold power without using it to burn the world down again.”

  She stepped back, nodding once. “Class dismissed.”

  The spell broke.

  Chairs scraped. Murmurs returned. Students filed out, some shaken, some inspired, some pretending not to be either. Dorian watched them all.

  “That one with the frost burn on his arm,” he muttered. “Didn’t blink once during the flame conjure. Phoenix potential?”

  “No,” Ronan said, his eyes still locked on Elysia as she walked toward them. “Just someone who’s lost more than they’re ready to admit.”

  When she reached them, Elysia didn’t speak right away. She just looked at Ronan, something in her expression unreadable but warm.

  “You were watching.”

  “I always do.”

  She gave him the ghost of a smile, then turned to Dorian. “You’re late.”

  “We’re not that late,” he said, grinning.

  “You missed the part where I rewrote history.”

  Ronan raised a brow. “I saw it. And I think they believed you.”

  “They should,” Elysia replied. “I believed it too.”

  Steel and Stillness

  The dueling courtyard of the Midnight Mirage was not quiet.

  Not today.

  Steel whispered against stone. Energy thrummed low through the warded ground, tuned to absorb spell shock and shifter surges. Students circled the arena and split into their factions—some smug, some nervous, and most skeptical.

  Kaelor stood at the center.

  No crown. No medals. Just hardened leather armor, pale hair braided tight, and a scar trailing from his jaw to the edge of his throat—earned in the spine passes during the Rift Siege. One of the Wilderborn’s most feared tacticians turned into an unlikely instructor.

  He said nothing at first.

  Not until every student’s eyes were on him. Not until even the vampires stopped muttering.

  “When I say conflict resolution,” he began, voice like cracked stone, “some of you think strategy. Others think diplomacy. Most of you think ‘how do I win?’”

  He turned slowly, making eye contact with a different species in each corner of the yard.

  “That’s the problem. You’ve been taught that to resolve conflict means to win it. What if I told you it means to disarm it?”

  A ripple of discomfort passed through the crowd.

  Commander Maris Althar and Alpha Cadorin watched from the sidelines with crossed arms. Elysia leaned against a pillar beside Ronan, both silent but intrigued.

  Kaelor raised one hand, and two students stepped forward: a vampire boy in mirrored black and a seelie fae girl with silver-banded wrists. Both had volunteered.

  “You’ve been paired because your factions nearly destroyed each other twice in the last five centuries,” Kaelor said flatly. “Show me if you’ve learned anything.”

  The fight began fast.

  Too fast.

  Steel met illusion. The fae vanished, reappeared. The vampire dodged, swept low, and feinted high. For a moment, they looked impressive—equal.

  Then Kaelor stepped in.

  He didn’t knock them down.

  He caught the vampire’s blade with a bare hand, redirected it with casual precision, and flicked the fae’s next spell into the dirt with a twist of wind-forged movement. It all happened in four seconds.

  They froze.

  “You fight like your factions argue,” he said, stepping between them. “Fast. Flashy. Pointless.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” the vampire spat, red eyes flaring.

  Kaelor didn’t flinch. “You’re both standing. Neither of you bled. But neither of you learned.”

  He turned to the crowd. “Next.”

  The pairing was more volatile this time: a shifter boy from the Spinewood Pact and a witch girl from the Verdant Circle. Both carried tension like a second skin.

  Kaelor didn’t give them time to posture.

  He set the rules: “You may not strike first.”

  They blinked. Confused.

  “If one of you initiates violence,” he said, “you fail. If you do not find another way to end it, you also fail.”

  The two circled. Mistrust rising. The witch lifted her fingers, light gathering, then hesitated.

  The shifter shifted—partly. Just claws. Enough threat to tip the balance.

  Then… he dropped them.

  “I’m done,” he said, voice low. “This isn’t a real fight. And I’m not wasting my claws on something staged.”

  Kaelor nodded once. “Passed.”

  The witch looked stunned. So did half the yard.

  “Sometimes,” Kaelor said, “the only way to win is to refuse the game.”

  Murmurs stirred. Some scoffed. Others looked thoughtful.

  From the crowd, Harlan Dune offered a slow nod. “Good lesson,” he growled.

  Naevira, watching from above, smiled faintly.

  As the students filtered out, Kaelor remained in the yard, standing alone beneath the training dome’s fading light.

  Elysia approached him, arms folded. “You could’ve taught them technique.”

  “They’ve had technique rammed down their throats since they could walk,” Kaelor said. “What they don’t have is purpose.”

  Soric, behind her, murmured, “Flame and fang. Maybe we’re not so different.”

  Kaelor glanced toward the arena gates, where students still looked back—some in awe, some in confusion.

  “They won’t all get it,” he said.

  “But some did,” Elysia replied.

  And that was enough for now.

  Velvet and Venom

  The Moonlight Spire of the Mirage shimmered like a dream.

  Suspended high above the training wings and council chambers, the grand ballroom was carved from star-glass and veined onyx, glowing with charmlight that pulsed with the rhythm of the leyline beneath the Mirage. Silverleaf branches twisted through the support columns like vines frozen in motion. Floating lanterns cast soft halos of indigo and rose over a floor polished enough to reflect the guests’ every misstep.

  Valarian, High Envoy of the Unseelie, stood in tailored dusk velvet at the center of the room. His pale hair was braided with starlight threads, and his expression was unreadable.

  “Welcome,” he said to the crowd, his voice smooth and honeyed. We honor the arrival of the delegates and the students tonight, and the uneasy miracle that we are all still alive. Cheers.”

  A ripple of laughter followed the toast, though several guests didn’t drink.

  Ronan and Elysia entered late.

  They drew attention without trying—he in shadow-black formal wear lined with silver thread, her in a phoenix-cut gown of obsidian silk kissed by flickering flame. Where Elysia passed, the wardlight brightened. Where Ronan followed, it dimmed again. Balance. Eclipse and fire.

  “You hate this,” Elysia murmured to him, their arms brushing as they walked side by side.

  “I don’t hate it,” Ronan said. “I just don’t like wearing a shirt I can’t fight in.”

  “That’s… fair.”

  Ronan’s eyes scanned the crowd, already calculating. “There’s a duel buried in every smile here.”

  Elysia’s fingers ghosted over his hand. “Try not to start one.”

  “No promises.”

  Across the ballroom, Dorian nursed a glass of wine with the expression of a man counting the seconds until he could leave. “You two look like you walked out of a prophecy and onto a fashion scroll,” he said when they reached him. “I’m flattered you brought the weather with you—hot and brooding.”

  Elysia grinned. “We try.”

  Valarian approached just then, gliding across the floor like mist incarnate. He bowed to Elysia, then inclined his head toward Ronan. “You both are glowing. Which is lovely. And potentially concerning.”

  “Don’t provoke him,” Dorian warned. “He hasn’t punched anyone in days.”

  “Tragic,” Valarian said smoothly, handing Ronan a glass of crimson tonic. “Shall I arrange a volunteer?”

  Ronan accepted the drink without sipping. “Let me know when someone earns it.”

  Elysia’s smile faltered slightly as she caught movement across the room—Ilius Vael, one of the vampire students, whispering to a fae girl near the mirrored wall. They didn’t look at her, but the timing felt too precise, like they wanted her to see them not seeing her.

  Ronan followed her gaze.

  “I know that look,” he muttered.

  “They’re testing boundaries.”

  “Do we let them?”

  “Tonight?” Elysia replied. “We dance.”

  Valarian turned to the center of the ballroom, where soft music had begun to drift from the illusionary ensemble. “Let it not be said the Unseelie have no sense of timing.”

  He raised a hand.

  The music swelled.

  The dance began.

  Pairs glided forward. Vampire and witch. Siren and shifter. One brave mortal and a perplexed elemental student.

  Ronan stepped closer. “Dance with me.”

  Elysia raised an eyebrow. “You hate dancing.”

  “I hate politics more.”

  She took his hand without a word.

  They moved together with a grace that startled some and irritated others. Her fire, his shadow. His steadiness, her flame. A rhythm is born not from formality but instinct. A pair that didn’t just complement each other—they steadied the room.

  Dorian leaned on a column, watching with a smirk. “I give it five minutes before someone panics about symbolism.”

  Behind him, Kaelor nodded grimly. “Three.”

  Across the room, Naevira swirled past with her water-kin students, casting a calm over the rising tension. Brynna Hollowhart murmured a protection ward beneath her breath. Thalindra sipped her wine while watching three rival delegates pretend not to circle each other like wolves.

  And above them all, high in the spire’s shadow, a faint flicker of magic shimmered unnoticed—etched runes glowing for a breath, then fading.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  Listening.

  The gala continued.

  But the Mirage never forgot what came before the dance.

  The Unmarked Sigil

  The morning after the gala broke with a strange stillness.

  The Mirage was rarely silent—its wards hummed, its halls echoed, and its students rose in patterns of urgency and curiosity. But today, an unease had settled across the wings like dust no one could clean. It wasn’t dread, exactly.

  It was anticipation.

  Elysia stood in the Hall of Accord, reviewing reports with Soric when Professor Eluin Rell entered the chamber without announcement—robes trailing starlight threads, expression unreadable.

  “There was a visitor last night,” he said.

  Elysia raised a brow. “At the gala?”

  “No,” Rell replied. “After. Long after.”

  Soric straightened slightly. “Who?”

  “She did not speak. She left something behind.”

  He extended his hand.

  A small, curved pendant was resting on his palm, about the size of a thumbnail. It was shaped like a stylized eye with three lashes, etched into something that shimmered between crystal and bone. The pendant was colorless at first glance, but as Elysia stepped closer—

  —It flared with a pulse of white-gold flame.

  Soric drew a slow breath. “Phoenix-aligned?”

  “No,” Rell said. “But it recognizes phoenix blood.”

  Elysia turned her head as Ronan and Dorian entered through the high arch behind them.

  “Problem?” Ronan asked, immediately sensing the tension.

  Dorian gave the pendant one look. “If that’s jewelry, it’s ugly. If it’s a message, it’s worse.”

  Rell extended the token toward Ronan.

  The moment he drew within a few feet, the pendant shimmered again—this time not flame, but shadow light—silver eclipsed by black, the color of a blood moon reflected in still water.

  Soric hissed. “It reacts to lineage.”

  “It reacted to me too,” Rell said. “But not to Kaelor. Or Naevira. Or even Valarian.”

  Elysia took the pendant carefully. It sat cold in her hand, then warm. Then cold again.

  “It’s choosing,” she whispered.

  Dorian exhaled slowly. “Fae magic doesn’t usually choose unless it’s part of an old system. A bloodline enchantment. A binding.”

  “There was no scent,” Ronan said. “Whoever left this used masking wards. Deep ones. I didn’t even feel the veil stir.”

  “And the wards didn’t trigger,” Rell added. “Which means either the Mirage let them in—or it didn’t know they came.”

  That silenced the room.

  Soric stepped forward and stared down at the pendant. “That’s not from any modern court.”

  “Unseelie?” Ronan asked.

  Soric shook his head. “Older. Pre-Court. Forestbound. Maybe even Hollow-born.”

  Dorian cursed under his breath. “Fantastic. Ancient cryptic fae. The best kind.”

  “We’ll need to run resonance tests,” Elysia said. “And check which Council members it responds to. Quietly.”

  Rell nodded. “I’ve already prepared a neutral chamber for testing.”

  As the others moved toward the Vault of Silence, Ronan paused beside Elysia, his voice low.

  “Do you think this is a threat?”

  “I don’t think it knows how to threaten,” she replied. “Whatever it is, it isn’t trying to be seen.”

  “But it is trying to be felt.”

  Their eyes met. Fire and shadow. Past and future.

  Ronan leaned slightly closer. “I don’t like old magic. It never leaves clean.”

  “Neither do we,” Elysia said and walked ahead.

  The pendant pulsed once in her palm, warm now. Not just flame.

  Recognition.

  Far behind them, a single veil-thread fluttered in the breeze in the upper rafters of the Mirage’s spire. Unseen. Unmarked.

  Watching.

  Still.

  Waiting.

  The Thread Beneath

  Nyx hadn’t slept.

  She didn’t need to, not when something older than prophecy was singing through the spellwork of the token like a name half-remembered.

  The object lay in the center of a sealed study deep within the Arcane Wing of the Mirage—hovering above a suspended stasis sigil, caught between starlight and shadow.

  Elysia watched from the corner, arms crossed, while Ronan stood at the door, saying nothing. His instincts were already tuned to the possibility of a trap.

  Dorian leaned against a bookshelf, turning an unlit spell-rod in his fingers. “Tell me you’ve figured out what it is. Or that it won’t explode.”

  Nyx didn’t look up. Her eyes gleamed with a violet glow, irises spinning with active runes. “It won’t explode.”

  “Yet,” Dorian muttered.

  Nyx waved one hand. A cascade of binding runes flared across the token’s surface, like circuitry etched in light, shifting as they passed. But as she adjusted the spell’s frequency, something changed.

  The outer runes fell away, revealing a hidden layer beneath.

  Nyx went still. “It’s not just a charm. It’s a threadlock. Fae-make, yes, but Hollow-threaded. That’s not a message. It’s a tracker.”

  Elysia stepped forward. “What kind of tracker?”

  Nyx’s voice dropped. “One keyed to bloodline magic. Ancient. Possibly pre-sundering. This isn’t watching a person—it’s watching a trait.”

  Ronan tensed. “What kind of trait?”

  Nyx hesitated. “Lineage tied to flameborn sovereignty, old eclipse-bound magic… and something else I can’t quite isolate. But the moment anyone carrying that resonance comes close, the token activates—quietly. It doesn’t alert them. It doesn’t warn. It simply... records.”

  Elysia’s hand tightened on the edge of the table. “Who would leave that at the Mirage?”

  “Someone testing the Council,” Nyx said. “Someone who wants to know which of you still carry bloodlines that were supposed to be extinct.”

  Dorian cursed. “So it’s not a threat. It’s a mirror.”

  Nyx nodded. “And it’s pointing back at someone.”

  She adjusted the light again. The token pulsed, just once, and a faint magic tether stretched outward like a spider thread.

  It connected not to Elysia.

  Not to Ronan.

  But toward the north wing of the Mirage.

  Elysia blinked. “The council chambers?”

  “No,” Nyx said slowly. “The student dormitories.”

  Ronan straightened. “Someone among them matches the resonance?”

  “Not just matches,” Nyx whispered. “They’re bleeding it.”

  Elysia’s thoughts moved fast. “We need to scan the dorms. Quietly. No fear. No panic.”

  “I’ll handle it,” Dorian said, already moving. “Shadow scan, no contact. If this is a warning, we’ll intercept before it becomes a weapon.”

  Nyx turned to Elysia as Dorian vanished down the corridor.

  “Whoever left this,” she said, “isn’t just watching phoenixes or wolves or fae. They’re watching descendants. Forgotten lines. Maybe even hidden heirs.”

  Ronan stepped forward, voice a low growl. “Then let them watch. And when they reach for what’s ours, we’ll burn the hand that dares.”

  The token pulsed one last time, then went still.

  Outside the chamber, the Mirage remained quiet. But the air had shifted, as if something ancient had become interested.

  Not in the powerful.

  Not in the know.

  But those waiting to be found.