The world did not fall apart.

It peeled, like a painting scraped from the wall of reality. Sound vanished first, then weight. Then direction. What remained was light and sensation, too vast to grasp and too intimate to ignore.

Thorne blinked, but his eyes didn't close.

There was no longer a "room," or a "floor." There was only a surface, endlessly deep and perfectly still, like standing atop a sea of glass that stretched into the stars. He wasn't falling. He wasn't floating. He was simply… there.

Across from him, Varo stood unbothered. His silver-white braid hung motionless in the non-air, and his black coat drifted around his long frame like a shadow trying to detach itself.

"This place," Varo said softly, "is not mine. It is yours."

Thorne frowned.

"My what?"

"Your core."

Varo spread his arms as if unveiling something obvious. "Well, its threshold, at least. The part your mind can survive."

The mirror beneath Thorne's feet rippled at the word "core," and from the silver below rose a dozen reflections of himself. Each one wore a different expression, rage, grief, triumph, despair, innocence. They mimicked his movements with a delay, then began to drift outward into the stillness like leaves on a windless pond.

"You may not understand what you are yet," Varo continued, watching the illusions scatter, "but your core does."

A low vibration stirred in Thorne's chest. Not pain. Not even discomfort. Just pressure.

Presence.

It felt like something was waking.

"What is this test supposed to be?" Thorne asked, his voice echoing in a strange delay.

Varo tilted his head, white-ringed eyes glimmering.

"I didn't say it was a test. That would imply you can pass or fail."

He stepped onto the mirror-lake and began walking across it in a lazy arc around Thorne.

"I only want to see."

"See what?"

"If the blood remembers," Varo said simply.

Then he was gone.

Just… gone.

And the mirror shattered.

Thorne fell.

Not physically.

It felt like falling inward, through himself.

Each breath he took became a storm. Each blink, a flash of a different memory. Not his. Not entirely.

There was a forest, burning with blue fire.

A temple carved from aether-crystal.

A sky, cracked with thunder, where figures like gods floated above a field of broken stars.

Then...

A door.

Simple.

Wooden.

Waiting.

His heart pounded.

The door didn't beckon. It dared.

The door stood alone.

No walls. No frame. No ground. Just the door and the nothingness it defied.

Thorne stared at it, breath shallow. It was unremarkable in every way, smooth oak, no carvings, no handle, no lock. Just… there.

And yet something in him recoiled.

Not from fear.

From memory.

Except, he had never seen this door before in his life.

But his blood had.

It called to him with no voice, no sound. Just gravity, humming through the marrow of his bones.

His fingers twitched.

The space behind the door wasn't just unknown. It was unspeakable. Heavy. Vast. Ancient.

Thorne stepped forward, his footfall rippling across the broken mirror beneath him.

The moment his fingers brushed the door...

It opened.

No noise. No creak.

Just light.

It wasn't bright. It wasn't blinding.

It was pure.

The color of beginnings.

And inside…

Was a hall.

An impossibly tall corridor of obsidian stone, lined with statues carved from crystal and shadow. They weren't still. They breathed. Their eyes, gemstone-bright, watched him as he passed, though their faces remained veiled by hoods or masks.

The air buzzed, full of power so old it didn't even feel like magic anymore. It felt like language, waiting to be spoken for the first time.

At the far end of the corridor stood a pedestal. On it, a mirror.

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Not polished silver. Not glass.

It was aether. Solidified and still, glowing from within, as if lit by a star's dying breath.

He approached.

And the moment he looked into it...

He staggered.

Not because of what he saw.

But because it wasn't just a reflection.

It was a version of him.

Older.

Taller.

And closer to his real visage, the one he had always kept a secret.

Eyes brighter than flame. Cloak stitched with sigils that shifted too quickly to read. A crown of fractured crystal hovering above hair that shimmered silver-white. And the core, Thorne could feel it, burning behind his ribs like a second sun.

The reflection spoke without speaking:

"This is what you could become."

And just as quickly...

It changed.

The reflection warped, twisted...

Now it was Thorne, chained, bowed under weight and whispers. Eyes dulled. Hands bloodied. Cloaked in regal armor, but hollow. His power used. Bound. Directed by others.

"This is what you might become."

Thorne tore his gaze away, gasping.

The corridor began to fracture. Statues crumbled. Shadows bled across the floor, whispering in languages he almost understood.

And from the far end of the hall...

Footsteps.

Soft. Deliberate.

And then...

Varo stepped through the mirror like water.

Untouched. Unchanged. Still smiling.

"Well," he said. "That's quite the bloodline you've inherited."

Thorne's heart was pounding.

"You saw it," he said, voice low.

Varo's gaze met his, burning rings flaring with something between awe and calculation.

"I saw enough," he said.

"And?"

Varo grinned.

"I was right."

Thorne gasped.

His body snapped upright as if yanked from deep water, the memory of the dream-space dissolving like mist behind his eyes. The chamber around him had returned, Varo's mirrored domain, with its strange polished floors and colorless light.

Everything was exactly as it had been.

And yet... Everything had changed.

A sound pinged in his skull.

Then another.

And another.

Skill level up: Mindguard!

Skill level up: Mindguard!

Skill level up: Mindguard!

...

Skill level up: Mindguard!

Mindguard: 19 → 28

The notifications flooded his vision like a storm. Thorne clenched his jaw, eyes flaring with silver light.

His breath shook.

His Mindguard skill had been triggered.

Fighting. Struggling. Scrambling to protect his thoughts, his core, from something that had already passed through like a blade through silk.

Varo.

He had gone inside.

"You..." Thorne's voice was ragged, low with fury. "You went inside my mind."

Varo stood where he had been, utterly composed. His silver-white braid rested lightly on his shoulder, and the burning rings of his eyes danced with amusement.

"I went into your core," he said calmly. "Not your mind. I have better taste than that."

"You had no right."

Thorne's aether spiked.

His power surged to the surface, blooming hot and wild beneath his skin, his newly bonded wand vibrating faintly from beneath his coat. The polished floor groaned beneath his feet, microfractures webbing outward in a burst of silver light.

"Ah," Varo said, mock-delighted. "There it is. The temper."

His smile curved, not cruel but knowing.

"You're angry because I touched something you haven't even named yet. Because I saw a part of you before you gave it permission to speak."

Thorne's hands twitched at his sides.

His instincts screamed.

Strike.

Burn.

Defend.

But something stopped him.

Not fear.

Not logic.

Just… clarity.

The space around Varo had shifted. Not visibly. Not magically. But fundamentally.

He wasn't shielding himself.

He wasn't preparing to defend.

He didn't need to.

Every part of Thorne's soul knew: if he struck first, he wouldn't strike again.

Varo's power was dormant, like a volcano mid-sleep.

But it was there.

And it would swat him like an insect.

"Breathe," Varo said gently.

Thorne didn't. Not immediately.

But his aether settled, barely. Like a wolf held back by a leash.

"I didn't take anything from you," Varo said, voice calm, unbothered. "I looked. I learned. But I didn't steal. Believe me, Thorne, if I wanted to own you, I wouldn't need tricks."

He stepped closer, just one step.

"And if I meant you harm, you'd be a scorch mark."

Thorne said nothing.

But he didn't look away.

Varo sighed softly, hands clasping behind his back.

"I don't expect gratitude. I expect understanding. You've gone your whole life hiding what you are. I gave you a glimpse of it. Now you get to decide what you'll do with that truth."

He turned away with casual grace, his voice growing lighter again.

"Let your anger simmer if you must. But don't waste it. The world is full of people who'll use you without the decency to warn you first."

He paused near the exit.

"And when you're ready to learn more, truly learn, it won't be a mirror waiting next time."

The air had not yet settled.

The mirror-world shimmered as if unwilling to return to stillness. Fractures remained in the stone beneath Thorne's feet, whisper-thin but gleaming faintly like spider-silk threads of starlight.

Across the chamber, Varo sat down.

Calmly. Casually. As though they'd just finished a quiet afternoon chat over tea.

He crossed one leg over the other, leaned back into his chair, and laced his long fingers together.

"Soon," he said, his voice back to its smooth, lyrical cadence, "you'll receive a formal offer from me. Something tasteful. Impressive. Properly gilded with all the customary wording, the proper seals, and the long list of enticing little boons and binding clauses."

He waved a hand as if brushing away cobwebs. "All very official."

His eyes flicked to Thorne, not blazing, not intimidating now. Just… tired. Or perhaps patient.

"And I advise you, sincerely, to accept."

Thorne didn't speak. Couldn't. His heart was still racing. His hands still tingled with restrained aether.

Varo tilted his head, that ever-sardonic smile curling faintly.

"I will be the only one in this entire place who can help you become what you're meant to be. Not just a clever little mage with glowing eyes and potential but the version of yourself that terrifies the world, and rightly so."

He unfolded his legs, standing once more with the grace of a willow tree and the weight of something far, far older.

"Everyone else will try to make you useful. I will make you whole."

Thorne stared at him, pulse thudding.

"I know what they'd do to you, Thorne. I've seen it before. How institutions gild cages and call it glory."

His eyes dimmed slightly, the white rings softening.

"I've been the cage. And I've worn it."

Then the moment passed, and his sardonic grin returned.

And then, with a quick flick of his hand, like a parent shooing away a lingering child, Varo added, "Now go. I have another meeting. Apologies if that makes you feel less special. You're not, by the way. Not yet."

He grinned.

"You have the tools. The blood. The spark. But greatness, Thorne Silverbane, isn't inherent. It's forged. Now shoo."

The door behind Thorne opened not with magic or noise, but as if the world itself agreed he should leave.

Thorne turned.

He didn't look back.

Not once.

Thorne walked away, and for a moment, just one moment, he thought he'd left Varo behind.

But the feeling lingered.

Like ash in the lungs. Like blood on the tongue.

He kept walking.

Each step felt normal, automatic. But inside, he was burning.

Not from anger. Not fully.

Something deeper.

A wrongness curled tight around his ribs, like his core was still reacting, still sounding some silent alarm. Not loud, but persistent. A low-frequency protest in the shape of pressure.

He shouldn't have gone through that door.

He shouldn't have let that man speak.

He shouldn't have let him look.

His breath caught, and for a heartbeat, he stopped. Not visibly. Just, internally. Like the rest of him kept moving, and something in his mind was trying to stay behind.

Varo hadn't cast a spell.

Not really.

He hadn't taken anything.

But he'd left something.

A mark. An impression.

A fingerprint on the inside of his soul.

Thorne clenched his jaw. His core still hadn't calmed. It wasn't panic. Not even pain. It was... refusal. The sense that something sacred had been touched without consent, and the door hadn't closed all the way.

And underneath that...

A feeling he didn't want to name.

He knew Varo was something old. Powerful. Dangerous.

But he also knew without logic, without proof, without any sense of how, that the man was like him.

That strange kinship had thrummed between them from the moment they'd locked eyes. Unspoken. Unwanted.

But real.

Thorne's gut twisted.

Another one of us.

And he knew before I did.

He couldn't tell if that made him furious… or afraid.

Because if Varo had touched his core that easily, what else could he do? What else had he seen?

What had he left behind?

And what if that wasn't the end but the beginning?

He exhaled through his nose.

Hard.

The kind of breath meant to shake something off.

It didn't work.

So he kept walking.

Not toward anything.

Just away from whatever that had been.

But as he walked, his core still throbbed. Unquiet. Unsettled.

Like a bell still ringing after the tower has fallen.

And beneath all of it… that whisper again.

That gut-deep knowing.

Varo was like him.

Maybe not the same race.

But the same bloodline.

The same root.

Another branch of the Elder Race.

And whatever that meant, Thorne wasn't sure he was ready to know.

And for the first time in years, he didn't feel alone in the worst possible way.

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