I step closer. A single step. And it is like plummeting from a great height.
The world shatters.
Shapes blur, colors bleed into a violent swirl. The sounds of the chamber turn hollow, distant, until even my own breath feels impossibly far away.
Then silence.
Darkness, vast and suffocating. The kind that presses in on all sides, black as the void itself.
For one brief, breathless moment, I fear that is exactly where I am.
But he is not here.
Gygarth.
I do not feel his presence. His poison.
I inhale slowly, steadying.
In this silence, it is only me and the mirror, and when its surface ripples like disturbed water, I brace myself for what awaits on the other side.
Suddenly I am falling.
Not through space, not through time, but through something deeper. My body remains rooted before the glass, yet my soul is wrenched forward, dragged into the vision with a force that steals my breath.
A sea stretches beneath me, endless and glistening like liquid sapphire. The mirror pulls me across its rolling expanse, faster than the wind, until the waters blur into nothing but streaks of light. Then, without warning, I ascend.
Higher.
Higher.
The air turns thin, crisp, charged with raw magic.
Driftspire.
Its floating isles materialize before me, wreathed in mist and clouds. The vision surges forward, spiraling upward, until at last, it fixes upon a lone tower.
A window.
And within it… Amara.
My heart clenches as I see her standing there, framed by sunlight, her hands cradling her belly.
Our child.
She is radiant, with her waves of hair cascading over her shoulders, her brown skin glistening, almost golden. But her face is solemn, her gaze lost to the horizon, as if she is searching. Yearning.
For me.
Emotion crashes through me. Love, longing, loss, each one sharp as a dagger to the ribs.
I reach out, my fingers trembling as they press to the mirror’s surface. It is cold and hard, but still, I touch her. I trace the curve of her cheek, caress the lips I have kissed a thousand times.
She closes her eyes.
I freeze, my breath catching.
Can shefeelme?
