The rain pounded against the window of Rikk Morgan’s bedroom, a relentless rhythm that echoed the restless thudding in his chest. He sat cross-legged on his faded green quilt, staring at the small hand mirror he’d dug out of the attic earlier that day. It wasn’t much to look at—dull brass frame, chipped glass, the kind of thing his mom would call “vintage junk”—but something about it felt alive. When he tilted it just right, the reflection didn’t quite match his movements. It was subtle, a half-second delay, like the boy in the mirror was deciding whether to follow him or not.

Rikk was sixteen, lanky, with a mess of dark brown hair that always fell into his gray eyes. He wasn’t the type to stand out—average grades, average friends, average life in a quiet little town where nothing ever happened. But lately, he’d started to feel... off. Like he didn’t belong. Like the air itself was keeping secrets.

“Rikk!” Mom’s voice sliced through the storm from downstairs. “Dinner’s ready! Put that junk down and come eat!”

He sighed, setting the mirror on his nightstand. “Coming,” he called back, though he didn’t budge right away. His eyes lingered on the glass, where his reflection stared back a little too long before blinking out of sync. Weird. Probably just the light. He shook his head and trudged downstairs.

The kitchen smelled like spaghetti and garlic bread, warm and familiar. Mom was dishing out plates while Dad scrolled through his phone at the table. They were a normal family—too normal, Rikk sometimes thought. Mom with her curly red hair and freckles, Dad with his broad shoulders and perpetual five o’clock shadow. Rikk didn’t look much like either of them, but people always said he’d “grow into” his features. Whatever that meant.

“Find anything good up there?” Mom asked, sliding a plate in front of him.

“Just some old stuff,” Rikk said, twirling his fork in the noodles. “That mirror’s kinda cool, though.”

Dad snorted without looking up. “Cool if you like tetanus. That attic’s a mess.”

Rikk shrugged, but his mind stayed on the mirror. He didn’t tell them about the reflection. They’d just laugh it off or tell him to get his eyes checked. Dinner passed in a haze of small talk—school, the weather, Mom’s latest knitting project—until Rikk excused himself and bolted back upstairs.

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The mirror was waiting for him, perched innocently on the nightstand. He picked it up again, tilting it under the glow of his lamp. This time, the reflection didn’t just lag—it changed. His gray eyes turned a sharp, unnatural silver. His hair darkened to midnight black, and for a moment, he looked... different. Not him, but someone else entirely. Rikk froze, breath catching in his throat.

“What the—” He jerked the mirror away, then back. Normal Rikk stared back now, wide-eyed and pale. “Okay. Okay, I’m losing it.”

A sudden clap of thunder shook the house, and the lights flickered. In that brief flash of darkness, something seemed to move behind him—or at least, he thought it did. He spun around, heart racing, but his room was empty. Just the rain, the desk cluttered with homework, the posters of bands he barely listened to anymore. He turned back to the mirror, and there it was again: Silver Eyes, staring at him with an intensity that made his skin prickle.

“Who are you?” Rikk whispered, barely aware he’d spoken aloud.

The reflection smirked.

Before he could process that, a sharp crack split the air—not thunder, but something closer, sharper. The mirror vibrated in his hands, and a voice—low, urgent, and definitely not his—hissed from the glass.

“They’ve found you.”

Rikk dropped the mirror like it burned. It hit the floor with a dull thud, face-up, and the silver-eyed boy was gone. But the room felt different now, heavier, charged with something he couldn’t name. His phone buzzed on the nightstand, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Just a text from his friend Jake: You doing the chem homework? I’m dying here.

He ignored it, eyes locked on the mirror. Downstairs, Mom and Dad were still chatting, oblivious. But up here, in the dim glow of his bedroom, Rikk felt the world shift. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a trick of the light. It wasn’t his imagination. And deep down, in a place he couldn’t explain, he knew it wasn’t the first time he’d felt this pull.

_________________________________________________

Across a divide no mortal map could chart, in a world where the sky shimmered with threads of violet and gold, a woman stood in a tower of obsidian stone. Her name was Lysara, and her silver eyes—identical to the ones Rikk had glimpsed—were fixed on a scrying pool. The water rippled, showing a boy in a strange, mundane room, clutching a mirror that shouldn’t exist in his hands.

“He’s awake,” she murmured, her voice tight with both relief and dread. Beside her, a man in dark robes shifted uncomfortably, his staff glowing faintly at the tip.

“They’ll come for him now,” he said. “The blood sigils won’t hold much longer.”

Lysara’s jaw tightened. “Then we move. Tonight. He’s been hidden long enough.”

Sixteen years ago, they’d swapped him at birth, sending their prince to a world without magic to shield him from the enemies who’d slaughtered his kin. The Morgan family had been a convenient shield, unwitting pawns in a game they’d never understand. But the mirror—her mirror—had found its way back to him. And with it, the truth would follow.

The storm wasn’t just rain anymore. It was a warning.