Chapter Four – The One Who Cast from Shadow
Part One — The Mirror She Refused to Break
The chamber was silent—far too silent for the fire that had just torn through memory.
Selka stood alone at the center of a mirrored hexagon, each wall reflecting her figure at slightly different angles. The Doctrine called it the Verity Hexa, a room designed not to interrogate—but to reveal. One truth spoken in here would reflect sixfold. One lie would fog the entire room.
She said nothing.
The mirror did not fog.
Her hair was still damp with snowmelt. Her pulse, buried beneath Doctrine layers, fluttered at the edges. She stared into one mirror, then the next, not watching her own expression but what shimmered behind it.
The figure in the mask.
The lightning that didn't kill.
The flame that remembered.
"Tell me what you saw," came the voice. Regal. Edged like ceremonial steel.
King Vaelen Tiramis. His robes hadn't been changed since the flight in. He was still clutching a Doctrine seal in one hand, as if it could cast judgment simply by being near her.
Selka didn't flinch.
He waited.
"I saw a Riftborn," she said, voice empty. "One we couldn't classify. It attacked Kaelen and Yolti."
"Your pulse beacon didn't activate."
"I didn't get close enough."
His brow twitched. That was a subtle break in the king's silence—one most wouldn't catch. Selka had been trained to catch everything. Even her own lies.
Vaelen leaned forward from the dais. "And the masked figure?"
She met his gaze fully now.
"The Riftborn was not alone. Someone intervened."
"Who?"
Her eyes didn't move.
"I couldn't see."
That did it.
Every mirror fogged.
Not fully. Just a gentle swirl. But enough.
The Doctrine elder beside the king scribbled something. Selka caught the sound of the ink. Fast. Unhesitating. Doctrine records never stuttered. They rewrote before the lie even dried.
Vaelen stood. "You're dismissed. The Lyceum will resume instruction in three days. Until then—"
"Permission to remain in the field," Selka said suddenly.
Vaelen halted.
He didn't ask why. He only narrowed his eyes.
"Approved," he said. "But don't lose your song, Selka Veyel. Not again."
She bowed, slow and quiet. But when she rose, something had already changed. The way her cloak sat. The way her eyes didn't reflect anymore.
Outside, the snow had thinned into glass-shard drizzle.
And far beyond the Doctrine wall, beneath fractured pine and violet light, Kaelen was carving his own truth.
One stroke at a time.