The stone steps didn’t echo.

They swallowed sound.

Each footfall sank into silence like it had been waiting for centuries. The torch in the High Priest’s hand flickered, casting jagged shadows across the walls—walls carved with old language and older warnings.

DO NOT CALL WHAT CANNOT BE UNCROWNED.

“Is this where you teach your chosen ones?” I asked.

The priest didn’t look back.

“Chosen ones are born. You were… selected.”

Selected to burn?

I didn’t say it out loud. The crown thrummed against my scalp as if it agreed.

The stairs ended in a circular chamber. Cold. Breathless. Carved entirely from black stone. No windows. No altar. Just a raised basin in the center—filled with something silver, like smoke trapped underwater.

The priest gestured.

“Step forward, Kael.”

“What is this?” I asked.

“A mirror.”

“It doesn’t look like one.”

“Because it doesn’t reflect what you see. It reflects what the crown sees.”

The silver rippled. Images flickered across its surface—too fast to make sense. A throne made of bones. A boy screaming. A woman with a crown of antlers. Then darkness.

The priest took out a dagger.

Simple. Black. Ancient.

“If you wish to survive the awakening, you must bind the crown to you—not just in spirit, but in blood.”

“A blood pact.”

“Not with me,” he said, offering the dagger.

“With it.”

The liquid in the basin stilled. A single golden eye opened in the center.

It blinked.

My breath caught.

“What happens if I don’t?” I asked.

The priest smiled.

“Then you’ll live just long enough to become a warning for the next boy it chooses.”

I looked at the dagger.

Then at my reflection.

I wasn’t Tavren anymore. Wasn’t just Kael either.

I was something becoming.

I took the blade. Slid it across my palm. Blood dripped into the silver pool—and the eye flared gold.

The room shook. Not violently—but like the air itself was shifting.

The mirror rose. Stretched. Split.

A hand reached out.

Clawed. Armored. Familiar.

It looked like mine.

I didn’t step back.

I stepped forward.

And I gripped it.

Pain flared through my spine like lightning. My veins lit with fire. I screamed—but the crown didn't let me fall.

The creature—my reflection—pulled me through the silver.