He shouldn't have followed her.
But Kairon Vel Serak was never built for obedience.
He moved like smoke through the Academy's hidden corridors, trailing the scent of her power bitter lilac and scorched promises.
She left no footprints.
Only fractures in the air.
Time itself warped around her path, turning left when it should turn right.
And then he saw it.
A door with no handle.
A mark seared into the wood: đ“‚€
His blood screamed not to touch it.
So, of course he did.
Inside: blackness.
So absolute it pressed against his teeth.
He stepped forward and the world blinked.
He was no longer in the Academy.
He was in a child's room.
A throne made of books.
A chandelier of bones.
A bed shaped like a coffin, velvet-lined.
And on the floor…
Her.
But not her now.
Her then.
Little Elariax. Pale knees. Bare feet. Holding the doll with the stitched mouth.
She didn't see him.
She was humming again.
And then
She started speaking.
"He said I'd be beautiful if I stopped crying."
"So I tore out my tear ducts."
"Now they call me monstrous."
Kairon flinched.
"What… is this?"
His voice echoed like a lie.
The girl paused.
Lifted her head.
"You're not supposed to be here," she whispered.
"You're not allowed in me."
Suddenly the room cracked.
The chandelier shrieked.
The mirror across the wall bent inward like it was breathing.
And in it
He saw Elariax as she is now.
Standing behind her child self.
Watching him.
Expression unreadable.
"Kairon," she said, voice colder than any winter.
"Why did you follow me?"
He stepped forward, trembling.
Eyes wild.
"Because you left me," he hissed.
"Because you looked me in the face and smiled like I was nothing."
"Because I love you, and I will not be forgotten."
The girl tilted her head.
The child.
The monster.
The memory.
"Love doesn't come here," she whispered.
Then she stood.
And the doll opened its mouth.
From it spilled not thread
but a scream.
Kairon fell to his knees.
His vision fractured into splinters of red and gold.
Every memory of her stabbed him at once.
The way she once bled in his arms.
The way she never called him back.
The way her last words were a spell that choked his name.
Elariax reached forward.
Touched his chest.
Not tenderly.
Surgically.
"Now you'll see me," she said.
"Not the girl you tried to save.
Not the fire you wanted to own.
Me."
And then he was yanked back.
Back through the mirror.
Back through time.
Back into the real.
He collapsed in the courtyard, coughing up roses.
Real blood.
Petals.
Shame.
And in his palm
A stitch of red thread.
Still warm.