The gutter trembled beneath our hurried steps, each jolt reverberating through the metal, an ominous chime in the night. The wind cut across the outer wall, sharp and biting, stealing away my breath as we ascended the maintenance ladder to the roof. The night air bore a taste of iron, reminiscent of aged ink and blood.
Behind us, the scraping at the dorm window finally ceased.
Sareth's pace remained unrelenting. "He can't scale the outer walls. The Calyra doesn't grant them that freedom."
"He?" I repeated, the word heavy in the air.
She paused, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her features before she shook her head. "The form that once was him."
A sharp, unexpected pang pierced my heart, deeper than I had anticipated. Luthen had never been a remarkable friend. He'd been tender, anxious, and eager to seek approval. Ordinary. Human. And now he had transformed into something altogether other.
We continued our ascent.
The ladder led us to a narrow ledge below the slanted roof. Sareth pulled herself up first, then grasped my wrist, yanking me to her side. The tiles beneath us glistened with rainwater and dust, shining like shards of polished glass. The Calyra's architecture seemed to radiate in the moonlight -- almost too vibrant.
Perhaps because it truly was.
The building exhaled.
A gentle vibration thrummed beneath her palms, a pulse coursing through the stone.
"Do you feel that?" I whispered, my voice trembling.
Sareth nodded solemnly. "This structure had never been mere mortar and beams. It has evolved over centuries -- layer upon layer, akin to tissue. It's not an archive. It's a living body."
She caressed the tiles with her fingertips.
"And in this moment, it knows we tread upon its skin."
A low hum pulsed beneath us, swelling in intensity, rippling across the rooftop.
I faltered, trying to steady myself. "What is that?"
"The theologians," Sareth replies, her breath labored. "They're summoning it."
We scrambled across the slanted tiles toward the southern spire. Lantern flickered in the courtyard below, casting erratic shadows that roamed across the windows -- a swarm of figures gathering like moths drawn to a flame.
Were they in pursuit of us?
Or her?
Or me?
Sareth tugged me behind an ornate pillar, glancing cautiously over the ledge.
"Vaerin," she breathed, urgency tinged in her tone. "Look."
I followed her gaze downward.
At the base of the spire, obscured partially by scaffolding, the procession of the theologians unfurled.
Cloaked silhouettes. Tall, imposing. Faceless phantoms. Their hoods taper into elongated teardrop shapes.
In each of their hands, a mirror--yet not like ours. These mirrors were alive.
Their silver surfaces rose and fell, akin to a rhythmic breath. Veins pulsed beneath their glass skins, radiating a spectral blue glow.
Sareth's voice quivered beneath her steadiness. "They're crafting a mirror-door."
"Why?"
"To reclaim Kallith," she murmured, a solemn weight in her words. "Or to unleash something else."
As the theologians began to hum, it wasn't music. Nor chant. It resonated far deeper. A sund unearthed from the marrow of the ancient structure itself--a vibraction that made the tiles tremor beneath my knees.
And then--
The mirrors began to open.
Not in shards or cracks. No, they unfurled, as if eyelids drew back, unveiling a darkness that shifted and coiled like smoke interlaced with sharp teeth.
Within the mirrored abyss, a silhouette emerged--tall, hunched, limbs stretched grotesquely, a spine curled like a sinister hook.
Sareth gripped my arm fiercely. "We cannot allow them to bring anything out, Vaerin. We must reach the other side of the spire before--"
Behind us, the rooftop tiles began to shift.
Not fall. Shift.
Rearranging as if the very building had grown weary of its own layout.
I spun, heart-wrenching in my chest.
The tiles peeled back to reveal--
nothing.
Only an engulfing chasm of darkness below, vast enough to swallow our souls.
Sareth cursed softly under her breath. "It's severing our escape."
The Calyra was not merely defending itself; it was hunting us.
We edged along the remaining tiles, clutching the gutter for support.
Below, the humming escalated into a crescendo. The mirror-door expanded further.
And then--
A shadow stepped through.
It moved with an unsettling similarity to Luthen, yet stretched unnaturally taller, as though the Calyra had pulled his essence like taffy. His limbs twisted awry; hands curled around the mirror's edge like vines overtaking a trellis.
But his face... His face was no longer his own.
It was an amalgamation of all his identities, each visage the Calyra had ever consumed.
Eyes layered one atop another, some blinking in confusion while others remained frozen in silent horror. Mouths half-formed, stitched into silent screams--a grotesque tapestry of lost selves.
I staggered back, nausea rising in my throat. "Luthen..." I breathed, the name escaping in a fragile whisper.
Sareth's grip tightened, a vice of urgency. "Don't utter his name. The Calyra claims every echo of it now."
Yet he--no, it--caught the whisper.
The patchwork face broke into an expression that lingered somewhere around recognition.
Then it spoke.
Not in coherent words, but in voices.
Hundreds interwoven, layered, and overlapping, a haunting chorus of longing and despair.
"Vaerin...Vaerin...Vaerin..."
My name echoed, woven into the fabric of him, into the remnants of countless others--a tapestry of forgotten memories stitched together by the Calyra into his grotesque form.
Sareth shook me urgently. "We have to move! NOW!"
We dashed across the sloping tiles as the Luthen creature scuttled up the spire like a spider made of shards of glass. Its limbs dragged against the stone, leaving behind glimmering trails. Those many eyes blinked in disarray.
The theologians raised their mirrors, directing our way.
The mirror-lungs took a deep breath.
The air grew thick, shimmering with silver dust.
Sareth yelled, "Vaerin, down the north tower hatch! It leads to the under-archives! Kallith must've gone there!"
We slid across the tiles, nearly losing our footing on the edge before gripping the hatch handle. The metal felt warm, almost pulsating, but it yielded to our weight.
We tumbled inside.
The hatch slammed shut above us.
The humming faded into silence.
Below us lay a dark, claustrophobic tunnel of stone and ancient manuscripts, lit only by a dim, residual glow.
Sareth bent over, breathless. "If Kallith is still alive... she's down there."
I steadied myself. "Down where?"
Sareth held my gaze.
"In the mirror-hollows. The deepest recess of the under-archives. Where erased archivists linger when they're not quite dead."
A shiver coursed through me.
The Calyra had stopped guarding its secrets.
It sought to reclaim us.
And somewhere beneath, shrouded in the darkest of mirrors--
Kallith awaited.
Possibly alive. Possibly half-rewritten. Perhaps something entirely different.
Regardless--
We would seek her out.
For if we failed, the Calyra would finish etching my name. And I would join its cacophony ov voices.
