Ariaxa didn’t think.
She became light.
Her wings snapped open, flaring so bright they cast shadows even in the storm. A furious pulse of solar energy erupted from her palms—white-gold, blazing hot—and collided with the incoming mirror storm.
Shatter.
Shatter.
SHATTER.
Thousands of mirror-shards exploded midair like glittering weapons reduced to dust. The blast thundered through the ruins of Vharon, shaking broken towers and lighting the sky with incendiary gold.
Below, citizens shielded their eyes, whispering her name like prayer.
Above, Rhaelle hissed in frustration, her body distorting like cracked glass trying to hold shape.
“You dare break my mirrors?” she snarled, her voice threefold, overlapping and warping. “I am reflection. I am truth. I am—”
“Annoying,” Kaedan growled.
He was already moving.
A blur.
A shadow.
A feral storm clothed in darkness.
He launched himself off a broken battlement, claws extended, wings slicing through the corrupted sky. When he struck Rhaelle’s illusions, they burst like silver ghosts.
Three phantoms down.
Two more leapt at him.
He ripped through them with such brutal force that for a moment, it looked like he was fighting the storm itself.
Ariaxa felt it—every slash of his claw, every punch of his shadow-magic, every ragged breath—as if they were hers.
Because through the bond… they almost were.
Every time Kaedan landed a blow, Ariaxa’s pulse surged with him.
Every time he grunted from impact, she gasped.
Every time her light flared too bright, he wavered.
The connection was a double-edged blade.
A weapon.
And a weakness.
Ariaxa launched into the sky after him, her newly-forged wings cracking the air like thunder. She soared upward, streaking gold and shadow behind her, stopping just short of colliding with Kaedan mid-air.
His shoulder bled from where a mirror construct had sliced him.
Her throat tightened.
“Kaedan—”
“I’m fine,” he gritted out. “Focus.”
She wanted to grab his face. She wanted to kiss him in the middle of the storm. She wanted to scream at him for fighting without fear when she could feel his pain like it was her own.
Instead, she threw herself sideways as Rhaelle summoned more mirror phantoms.
The sky filled with fractured versions of the Triarch queen — dozens of broken-faced reflections lunging at them with blades shaped from corrupted memory.
Ariaxa spun mid-air.
Her wings sliced clean through the illusions, tearing them apart in spirals of gold-black fire.
Kaedan joined her—
Dipping low.
Diving fast.
His claws catching the jaw of a mirror-beast and snapping it in half with a burst of shadow-wind.
“Behind you!” Ariaxa shouted.
He twisted just in time, catching a phantom by the throat and crushing it before it could impale him.
The storm above churned faster, reacting to Rhaelle’s fury.
“You fight like lovers,” the Triarch monster hissed, spiraling higher. “So I will kill you like lovers.”
Her form flickered—
Once Rhaelle.
Once Vaelen.
Once Brakus.
Then all three.
She raised both hands.
Glass formed around her palms like spinning galaxies of shards.
Kaedan tensed.
Ariaxa’s magic surged.
Then—
Rhaelle flicked her wrists.
A massive mirror-plane ripped open beneath Kaedan.
He dropped—
shadows snagging around his ankles—
the mirror swallowing him like a collapsing maw.
“KAEDAN!” Ariaxa screamed.
She dove.
Too late.
The mirror closed like jaws clamping shut.
Ariaxa hit the barrier with a crack like lightning, wings throwing sparks. Pain ricocheted through her ribs from the impact, but she didn’t stop. She hammered her fists into the reflective surface until spiderweb cracks pulsed across it.
“NO—NO—GODS—KAEDAN!” She slammed again.
Inside the mirror-prison—
Kaedan was trapped.
She could feel him.
His heartbeat—
fast
fast
fast
…slowing.
Her stomach dropped.
“RHAELLE!” Ariaxa roared, solar veins blazing so bright they illuminated the entire battlefield.
Rhaelle floated above her, cracked-glass face smiling.
“Strike the mirror,” she taunted, “and you strike his heart.”
Ariaxa’s vision blurred red-gold.
Her power surged uncontrollably.
Her wings extended, trembling with rage.
Through the bond, she felt Kaedan’s consciousness slipping—
heartbeat fading
shadows weakening
fear echoing
where breath should be
“Kaedan…” she whispered, voice breaking. “Stay with me… stay with me…”
Her hands pressed against the mirror, desperate, burning.
The glass pulsed under her palms.
Kaedan’s heart—
slowed again.
No.
No.
NO—
Her scream ripped the sky.