There's an unspoken rule at Emberthorn Academy:
If a place is forbidden, it's probably either magical, deadly, or cursed. Possibly all three.
So, naturally, Riven and I decided to go there immediately.
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It began with a name.
"Find the mirror that burns. Find the flame that thinks."
The words whispered themselves into my dreams, tangled with golden fire and shadowy figures whose eyes glowed like dying stars.
When I told Riven, she gave me that look she always gave me when I said something clearly insane—but also probably important.
"Okay," she said, tying her hair up. "We're breaking into a secret tower, aren't we?"
"Yes."
"Perfect. I'll bring snacks."
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The Tower of Thorn isn't on any of the school maps.
We only knew about it because Riven once saw a professor vanish through a tapestry—right into a spiraling corridor that wasn't there before.
We found the tapestry just before curfew: an ancient thing, woven from ash-colored threads. It depicted a burning tree with roots curling like claws. At its base: a mirror, cracked straight down the center.
I stepped close.
Fire pulsed in my fingertips.
The tapestry rippled—like water.
And then it pulled us through.
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The corridor behind it was made of blackstone and dust. The walls whispered when we passed, not in words, but in feelings.
Fear. Memory. Regret.
The stairs spiraled upward forever. Riven kept muttering something about "ghosts with terrible interior design taste," while I tried not to let the fire in my chest flare out of control.
We finally reached a door.
It was made of silverwood and covered in carvings of thorns—each one etched with runes I couldn't read but somehow understood.
Flame-keepers. Mirror-sleepers. Fire-walkers.
I reached for the handle.
It burned—but not in a painful way.
More like… recognition.
The door creaked open.
Inside, the chamber was round, windowless, and completely silent. The walls were lined with mirrors. All different. Some ancient, some modern, some twisted into spiraling frames that seemed to shift if you looked too long.
At the center was one single pedestal.
And on it: a shard of glass, glowing faintly with golden fire.
"That," said Riven slowly, "is not normal."
I stepped closer.
The shard hummed in the same frequency as the fire in my chest. Like it was part of the same language—one older than Emberthorn, older than magic, older than memory.
Then a voice spoke.
"You shouldn't be here."
We spun around.
There was no one.
Then the largest mirror rippled—and a figure stepped through.
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He wore black robes with a collar of flame-colored thread. His face was half-covered by a porcelain mask, smooth and featureless except for a single crimson line where the mouth should be.
His eyes, visible through the mask's slits, were gold.
"You've awakened something that was meant to sleep," he said, voice echoing unnaturally. "That shard is a piece of the Mirror of Flame. It reflects not your image… but your truth."
I swallowed. "And what truth is that?"
"The one they tried to burn from history."
He raised a hand.
The shard floated.
My chest burned.
And for the second time that week, I saw something I didn't understand:
A burning city.
A girl made of light, screaming in a language that cracked the sky.
A symbol carved into the world: two flames entwined in the shape of an eye.
The figure lowered his hand.
"This is the Thorned Flame," he said. "The magic before magic. And you, Elira Wren, are its heir."
Then he vanished into the mirror.
Gone.
No trace.
The shard dropped to the pedestal like a fallen star.
Silence.
Then Riven finally exhaled.
"Okay. One—WHAT. Two—WHY. Three—WHAT."
I didn't answer.
Because I couldn't feel my hands.
They were glowing again.
And etched into my palms, like a brand, was the symbol I'd seen in my visions.
Two flames.
An eye.
Watching.