Chapter 3 He’s Not Just a Normal Classmate
The mirror pulsed again.
And the shadow behind me breathed deeper.
It didn’t belong in this world.
And neither did I.
‘Daughter of the Dark King,’ it had said.
A title I hadn’t heard since the trial.
The trial where the council stripped me of magic and tossed me across realms.
But how could it speak?
How did it get here?
I whipped around, but the room behind me was empty.
Only Jae-min stood at the door.
Watching.
Unmoving.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I heard it.”
He stepped forward, staring at the mirror.
“It talks sometimes.”
“It knows who I am.”
“It always knows.”
The air felt thicker now.
Like the room itself was remembering things better left forgotten.
Jae-min glanced at my reflection.
“You weren’t surprised to see it.”
“You weren’t either.”
He gave me a half-smile.
One that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Because I’ve seen worse.”
That was no bluff.
No fake bravado.
Something in his voice cracked a little.
And suddenly I saw it — the heaviness in his posture, the way his fingers always curled inward like he was holding something back.
“You’ve used magic before,” I said.
He didn’t deny it.
“Only once.”
“And?”
“It nearly killed me.”
I stepped away from the mirror, the chair screeching against the stone floor.
My seal still glowed faintly.
But something had changed.
It didn’t hurt anymore.
It hummed.
A warning?
Or an invitation?
I turned to him.
“You brought me down here for answers.”
“I did.”
“Then ask what you really want to ask.”
He swallowed hard.
“Are you the reason my brother disappeared?”
That stunned me.
“I’ve never met your brother.”
“But he was researching runes. Dimensional ones. The kind only your people used.”
“And what — he opened a gate and fell through?”
Jae-min didn’t answer.
But the silence told me everything.
He hadn’t just lost someone.
He was trying to bring them back.
“I don’t have a gate,” I said.
“Then help me find one.”
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
The magic in the mirror had tugged at me.
Like a thread pulling loose from a stitched wound.
My powers were sealed, but they weren’t dead.
Something was changing.
And Jae-min — he wasn’t just a normal student with a tragic past.
He was a link.
To a bigger truth.
To my world.
To something deeper than this school’s lies.
The next day, the principal made an announcement over the intercom.
“Effective immediately, students are restricted from entering the old buildings after hours.”
A cover-up.
They knew something had been disturbed.
And they were trying to hide it.
Jae-min met me in the hallway during break.
He didn’t smile this time.
“They’re watching us now.”
“Let them.”
“I don’t think you get it,” he said.
“This school doesn’t punish rule-breakers. They erase them.”
“Then let’s not get caught.”
He hesitated.
Then pulled something from his pocket.
A folded sheet of parchment.
Old.
Stained.
He handed it to me.
It was a rune chart.
One I recognized immediately.
A portal sequence.
“I found it in the archives,” he said.
“Same symbols on the mirror’s pedestal.”
My pulse quickened.
This wasn’t just forgotten magic.
It was intentional.
Someone left this here.
Like a trail.
“Who gave you this?” I asked.
“My brother left it in his journal.”
“And what happened after that?”
“He was expelled.”
That word sounded too clean.
Too mild for what had really happened.
“He’s not gone,” I said.
“You know that, right?”
“I want to believe that.”
“Then let’s find out.”
By lunch, half the class knew something was off.
Whispers followed me.
The silver-haired freak.
The transfer who broke the gym star’s wrist and never ate with anyone.
Jae-min didn’t sit with me this time.
Too many eyes.
But as he passed behind my chair, he dropped something in my lap.
A map.
Old building.
Basement layout.
X marked at a chamber beyond the mirror room.
Something hidden deeper.
Tonight.
10 PM.
I folded the paper and finished my meal in silence.
That night, we met at the back gate.
Jae-min had a flashlight.
I had a crowbar.
“Don’t ask where I got this,” I said.
He smirked.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We slipped inside through the laundry chute.
The school was too quiet.
No guards.
No teachers.
Just distant humming from the generator room and the buzz of an exit sign.
We reached the old building and descended into the basement.
The mirror chamber was empty.
Cold.
But the rune on the floor glowed faintly now.
Brighter than before.
As if it sensed us.
I stepped onto it.
The seal on my wrist vibrated.
I held out my hand.
“Give me the map.”
Jae-min passed it to me.
I matched the coordinates on the parchment to the rune pattern on the floor.
They fit.
Perfectly.
“This was meant to be activated.”
“Can you do it?”
“Not alone.”
He stepped beside me.
Together, we placed our palms on the central glyph.
The rune surged.
Light exploded around us.
A circle of symbols flared on the floor.
And then — silence.
And darkness.
Then the stone behind the mirror cracked.
A hidden wall.
Shifting open.
Dust poured out like smoke.
A passage.
Jae-min raised the flashlight.
The hallway beyond was narrow.
Cramped.
Lined with old carvings.
“Are those… names?” he whispered.
I nodded.
“Exiled students. Lost mages. All buried by the school.”
We moved slowly, every step echoing.
Until we reached the end.
A vault door.
Covered in more runes.
These weren’t Velrathi.
They were something else.
Older.
Before even my father’s reign.
“Should we open it?” he asked.
I hesitated.
“Whatever’s in there…”
“It might be the only way to find him.”
“And to break my seal.”
I placed my hand on the door.
The metal pulsed.
A heartbeat.
Then a whisper in the air.
Different this time.
A new voice.
“You are not ready.”
I froze.
Jae-min looked at me.
“Did you hear that?”
I nodded.
“It’s not the same presence as before.”
“It’s something bigger.”
The door remained closed.
But now we knew it could speak.
Think.
And it was judging us.
“We need more power,” I said.
“Or someone else who’s been here before.”
Jae-min stared at the door for a long moment.
“Then we find them.”
“And if they’re not friendly?”
“Then we fight.”
He turned to me.
“You’re not the only one with enemies, Rina.”
“I know.”
We stood there, shoulder to shoulder.
Two students.
One cursed by exile.
One haunted by blood.
And behind that door — a truth that neither of us was ready for.
Yet.