They left before dawn.
Rowena had been awake since three in the morning, when the palace was still silent and only the sound of crickets from the garden could be heard. Elara helped her put on traveling clothes—not an elaborate noble gown, but a woman's riding outfit made of thin brown leather that Kaelan had borrowed from one of the male servants who was roughly her size. Rowena tucked her hair under a small fur cap and slipped a short dagger into her left boot—a gift from Kaelan, given with a serious expression the night before.
"Just in case," he had said.
Rowena didn't ask what it was in case of. In this world, the answer could be far too long.
Kaelan was waiting for her at the rear gate of the palace, where a small unmarked carriage was already prepared with two impatient black horses stamping their hooves. He had changed his clothes as well—not his knight's uniform, but the plain attire of a traveler: a long black coat, tall boots, and his sword hidden inside a cloth-wrapped sheath. His strikingly handsome face was almost unrecognizable without his proud uniform.
"You look different," Rowena said as she climbed into the carriage.
"Our goal is to remain unrecognized," Kaelan replied. "A Veyne knight traveling with Lady Celine de Montfort would draw attention. Two ordinary people on their way to the capital will not."
He took his position beside the driver—an old man named Orin, who was supposedly a former royal soldier and now the head stableman of the palace. Orin was one of the few people Kaelan trusted completely. He spoke little, his eyes were always alert, and his movements were efficient without unnecessary fuss.
The carriage moved slowly through the rear gate, along the path between the palace vegetable gardens, and out through a small door usually used for logistical deliveries. No one stopped them. Lady Mirabelle and her guards were still asleep, and the main gate guards were too busy with an early merchant caravan to notice one small carriage slipping out the back.
Once the carriage passed the outer wall and entered the dirt road cutting through the small forest at the edge of the Duchy of Verlaine, Rowena let out a sigh of relief.
"We made it," she said.
"Not yet," Kaelan said from outside. His voice was clear even though he was riding beside the driver—his sharp hearing was one of the reasons he was such a good knight. "We've only just begun. The journey to the capital normally takes three days at regular speed. But we'll shorten it to two by changing horses at posts I've already arranged."
Rowena opened the carriage curtain and looked back. The de Montfort palace, with its towering white stone towers, grew smaller in the distance. In the light of the rising sun, the building looked like something from a fairy tale—beautiful, magnificent, and full of secrets.
"Kael," she called.
"Yes?"
"Are you sure this is the right decision? Leaving Verlaine without permission, without official escort, with only the two of us and one driver?"
Kaelan didn't answer immediately. When he spoke, his voice was low and serious.
"You're asking if this is the right decision. I don't know. But I do know that staying in that palace—with Mirabelle plotting something, with Lysander looking at you like you're an obstacle that needs to be removed, with a mirror that could appear at any moment—is far more dangerous than this journey. At least here, we're moving. We're searching for answers. We're not just waiting to be attacked."
Rowena smiled faintly. "You know, for someone accused of having no common sense, you can be very logical sometimes."
She could hear Kaelan snort outside. "I have common sense. It's just… sometimes I choose not to use it."
"Why?"
"With Celine, common sense was never enough. She needed someone who wouldn't calculate the risks before helping her. She needed someone who would act, not think."
Rowena fell silent. Those words revealed more than Kaelan probably realized. He wasn't just loyal—he had deliberately suppressed his rational instincts to become what Celine needed. A devotion so deep that he was willing to be seen as "not very clever" by others.
"That… is very noble," she said at last.
Kaelan didn't answer. But from the corner of her eye, Rowena saw his cheeks flush slightly.
The first day of the journey went relatively smoothly.
They passed through small villages on the border of Verlaine, agricultural areas with wheat fields turning golden in autumn. The farmers they encountered on the road only glanced at them briefly—an unmarked small carriage was not an unusual sight here. Kaelan sat beside Orin, occasionally getting down to check the wheels or the horses, but mostly remaining silent with eyes that never stopped moving, scanning every corner of the road.
Rowena spent her time inside the carriage rereading Celine's journal and writing notes in her own notebook. The Sleeping Eye symbol on her wrist had not changed—still small, faint, and giving off no sensation at all. But she knew it was there. She could feel it like a thin thread connecting something inside her to something outside.
Around midday, they stopped at a roadside inn for lunch. The inn was small, with only a few wooden tables under a thatched roof, and an old owner who served thick soup and hard bread. Rowena sat in the corner with her hood partially covering her face, while Kaelan sat with his back to the wall, a position that gave him a full view of the entire room.
"The sun will set in four hours," Orin said as he chewed his bread patiently. "There's a horse post in Thornwood village, about three hours from here. We can spend the night there."
Kaelan nodded. "Thornwood is safe. I know the post owner—another former soldier."
They had just finished eating when the inn door opened and three people entered.
Rowena's senses sharpened immediately. The first was a young woman with fiery red hair tied in a ponytail, wearing leather clothes like the hunters in this region. A longbow and quiver hung on her back. Behind her were two men—one tall and thin with a face full of scars, the other short and stout with a smile that was a little too wide.
They were not nobles. But the way they moved, the way the woman's eyes swept the room and paused briefly on Kaelan's table before moving on—it was the movement of people accustomed to danger.
Kaelan showed no reaction. He continued eating his soup calmly, but Rowena saw his left hand move under the table, inching closer to the sword hidden beneath his coat.
The three sat at a table across the room. They ordered food and began speaking in low voices, but Rowena's ears—trained to catch whispers in silent libraries—could still pick up a few words.
"…one more week… they say the gate will open…"
"…doesn't matter, as long as the pay is good…"
"…be careful with that woman, she's more dangerous than she looks…"
The red-haired woman suddenly turned and looked directly at Rowena.
Not at Kaelan. At Rowena.
Her eyes were deep green, dark, and there was something in them that made Rowena feel as if she were being examined from the inside out. But only for a moment, then the woman returned to her food as if nothing had happened.
Kaelan stood. "We're leaving."
They exited without haste. Orin was already ready with the carriage. Once they were back on the road and the inn had disappeared behind the trees, Kaelan said in a low voice:
"They're hired hunters. But not the ordinary kind. I recognized the emblem on the thin man's dagger—it's the Shadow Guild's mark. They specialize in… unusual matters."
"What kind of unusual matters?" Rowena asked.
"Things like capturing what ordinary people cannot capture. Killing what cannot die. Tracking someone who is supposed to be dead."
Rowena's blood ran cold. "You think they were sent for me?"
"I don't know. But it's better not to take chances." He glanced back toward the inn fading behind the trees. "We'll speed up the journey. Orin, can we push the horses?"
Orin nodded. "We can. But they'll be exhausted by the time we reach Thornwood."
"That's fine. We'll change horses there."
The carriage moved faster. Rowena felt the harder jolts inside, but she didn't complain. Her mind was occupied with the three hired hunters. Had Lady Mirabelle already discovered they had left? Could she have sent pursuers this quickly? Or was this something else—something connected to the mirror, to Morana, to what had happened to Lord Aldric Veyne?
She looked at her wrist. The Sleeping Eye symbol was still there. But now, for the first time, she felt it… warm. As if something inside it had begun to move.
They arrived in Thornwood as the sun was nearly setting. The village was small, with only a few dozen wooden houses around a square with a well in the center. The horse post was at the edge of the village, a two-story building with stables behind it and oil lamps already lit in the windows.
The post owner, an old man with one arm missing named Garrick, clearly knew Kaelan well. He greeted them with unusual enthusiasm for a villager usually wary of strangers.
"Sir Kaelan! It's been a while. Last time you passed through here, you were still Lady Celine's personal guard—" He stopped, glanced at Rowena, then smiled faintly. "Ah. So this is her."
"I need a room for two," Kaelan said. "And fresh horses for tomorrow morning. Our horses need rest."
"Of course, of course. Room upstairs at the very end. View of the forest, away from the noise." Garrick looked around carefully. "Someone chasing you?"
"Not sure yet. Maybe."
Garrick nodded in understanding. "I'll keep watch tonight. If anything strange happens, I'll sound the alarm."
They went upstairs. The room Garrick gave them was large enough for two, with two separate beds, a small table, and a window facing the dark forest outside the village. Kaelan checked every corner of the room, making sure nothing was suspicious, then locked the door and hung a small bell on the handle.
"Early warning," he explained when he saw Rowena's look.
Rowena sat on the bed near the window, removing her boots with relief. Her feet ached after a day of jolting in the carriage.
"Kael," she said, "what do you know about the Shadow Guild? You said they specialize in unusual matters."
Kaelan sat on the opposite bed, placing his sword across his lap. "The Shadow Guild is a mercenary organization that operates outside royal law. They recognize no authority except money and contracts. But they have their own code—they don't accept contracts to kill children, nothing involving high-class demons, and no suicide missions without complete information."
"They sound like professionals."
"Too professional. That's why they're dangerous. They're not like ordinary criminals who can be bought with gold. They have hierarchy, training, and resources that might even be better than the royal military in some ways." He paused, thinking. "But what worries me is that they were talking about a 'gate' that will open. And that woman looked straight at you."
"You think it has something to do with Morana?"
"I don't know. But I don't like coincidences. We left Verlaine to find answers, and on the first day of our journey we meet people talking about something opening in one week. Either it's coincidence, or… someone arranged this meeting."
Rowena bit her lip. "You think Morana?"
"Or something else." Kaelan stood and walked to the window, staring out with eyes that never stopped moving. "I'll take watch tonight. You sleep first."
"Kael, you need rest too."
"I'm used to it. As a knight, three hours of sleep a day is enough."
Rowena wanted to argue, but from Kaelan's face she knew it was useless. The man had made up his mind, and nothing could change it when it came to her safety.
"Fine," she said. "But at least sleep on the bed. I'm not going anywhere."
Kaelan smiled faintly. "All right, Lady—Rowena. I'll sleep. But only if you promise to wake me if anything strange happens."
"I promise."
They both lay on their respective beds. The oil lamp on the table was extinguished, leaving only the moonlight from the window. The two moons over Thornwood shone brighter than they did in Verlaine, perhaps because the village was farther from the palace's light pollution.
Rowena stared at the dark wooden ceiling and listened to Kaelan's breathing on the next bed. It was steady, but she knew he wasn't sleeping. He was just lying there with his eyes closed, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
"Kael," she whispered.
"Yes?"
"Do you believe in fate?"
He didn't answer for a moment. "I don't know. But I believe in promises. I promised Celine ten years ago that I would protect her. That promise didn't end just because she… left. I suppose that's a kind of fate too."
Rowena smiled in the dark. "You're a strange man, Kaelan Veyne. A knight who believes in promises more than fate."
"I also believe in you."
The words came out plainly, without embellishment, without ceremony. But somehow, in the small room in Thornwood village with the two moons shining through the window, those words felt warmer than any campfire.
"Maybe I should start believing in myself too," Rowena murmured, half to herself.
She closed her eyes.
She dreamed.
In her dream, she stood on a rocky cliff overlooking a vast sea. But the sea was not blue—it was pitch black, shimmering with red light from within, like blood flowing beneath the surface. The sky above had no moons, only stars shining in colors she had never seen in the real world—emerald green, deep purple, liquid gold.
She was not alone.
Beside her stood the woman with silver-white hair—Morana. But this time Morana was not smiling. Her face was serious, her black eyes gazing at the sea below with an unreadable expression.
"You came again," Morana said. Her voice was softer this time, more human.
"You called me," Rowena replied. She didn't ask—she knew. There was a thread connecting them, and that thread was being pulled.
"Correct." Morana turned to her. "I called you because our time is growing short. Someone is searching for the gate, Rowena. Someone wants to open it before its time. And if they succeed, it won't be just your kingdom that will be destroyed."
"What is that gate?"
Morana extended her hand toward the black sea. On its surface, shadows moved—not waves, but something denser, more alive. A figure.
"The gate to the Second Layer. The place where I was imprisoned. The place where things older than me sleep. For thousands of years, the gate has remained locked by the blood of the de Montfort family—every generation, one of the twin children is sacrificed to keep the key intact. But now, the balance is disturbed. Celine is dead, yet her body still lives. The key is cracked."
Rowena felt her wrist throb. The Sleeping Eye symbol felt hot.
"And me? What is my role in all this?"
Morana looked at her with eyes that suddenly became deeper, older, heavier than the entire sea below them.
"You are the key, Rowena. Not Celine. Not me. But you. A soul that came from outside, unbound by this family's curse, one who can choose. You can repair the key and keep it closed. Or you can open it."
"Why would I want to open it?"
"Because inside the Second Layer lie answers to every question you have never asked. There is truth about why you were born in another world. There is truth about why you, I, and Celine were split into three. There is truth about… death itself."
Morana took Rowena's hand. This time her touch was not as cold as before. Still cold, but there was warmth within it, like ice beginning to melt.
"But there is a price to pay. If you open the gate, this world will change. Not everyone will survive. Including the people you love."
Rowena imagined Kaelan. His serious face, his awkward smile, his unbreakable promise.
"What will happen to me if I choose not to open it?"
"You will live as Rowena Ashworth in Celine de Montfort's body. You will face family intrigues, perhaps become the duchy's heir, marry the man you choose, and die as an ordinary human. Celine's soul will remain inside you, like a shadow that never fades. And I will stay here, in the First Layer, waiting for the next generation that will open the gate."
"It sounds like there is no good choice."
"There is never a good choice for people like us, Rowena. Only choices that are less bad."
Morana released her hand. In Rowena's palm, the Anima Triformis symbol glowed red, then turned to gold.
"You have time until the gate is found by those who seek it. I don't know how long. But I know they are close. The three hunters you met today are only the beginning."
Rowena tensed. "They were sent for me?"
"For you. For me. For the key you carry. They don't know what they're looking for, only that someone is paying a high price to find 'the woman whose eyes have seen the mirror.'"
Morana began to fade, her body turning into white mist slowly blown by the wind toward the black sea.
"Wake up, Rowena. Wake up and don't let them find you before you are ready. Because if they capture you before you open that sleeping eye… no one can save you. Not even I."
Rowena woke with cold sweat covering her body.
Outside, the sky was still dark. The two moons had shifted, marking that midnight had passed. Kaelan was still on the next bed, but he was already sitting up, gripping his sword, staring toward the window.
"What is it?" he asked, his voice sharp and alert.
Rowena needed a few seconds to steady her breathing. "I dreamed. Morana—the woman in the mirror—she spoke to me. She said someone is searching for the gate, and they are close. The three hunters we saw at the inn… they are part of it."
Kaelan immediately stood and walked to the window. He parted the curtain slightly and peered out.
"We have to go. Now."
"But our horses are still tired—"
"It doesn't matter. We'll take fresh horses and continue on horseback, not by carriage. The carriage is too slow and too easy to track."
Rowena didn't argue. Within minutes they were ready. Orin was woken quickly—the old man didn't complain, only nodded and began preparing the horses efficiently.
They were about to leave the room when the small bell on the door handle rang.
Not because they had touched it.
The bell rang on its own.
Kaelan instantly pulled Rowena behind him, sword already drawn. "Stay quiet," he whispered. "Don't move."
From behind the door came the sound of footsteps. Not one person. Three. And from the rhythm, Rowena knew these were not ordinary footsteps. They were the steps of people deliberately trying to be silent, but not silent enough to fool a knight's ears like Kaelan's.
"Quick, to the window," Kaelan whispered.
Rowena ran to the window and opened it. Below was the flat roof of the stable, about three meters down. Beyond the stable fence, the dark forest stretched out.
"Jump," Kaelan ordered.
Rowena didn't think twice. She jumped, landing on the stable roof with bent knees—a technique she had learned from one of her archaeological expeditions where she had to leap from a collapsing fortress wall. Celine's body was lighter and more flexible than her old one, and she landed fairly steadily.
Kaelan followed a second later, landing beside her with a silence impossible for a man his size. Above them, they heard the door to the room being kicked open violently.
"Run!"
They jumped from the roof to the ground and immediately sprinted toward the forest. Behind them came shouts and pursuing footsteps.
Orin was no longer at the stable. The old man might have fled first—or perhaps he had been part of the trap. Rowena had no time to think about it. Her legs moved as fast as they could, guided by Kaelan running ahead, his hand gripping her wrist tightly.
They plunged into the forest just as the moon hid behind the clouds. Darkness enveloped them, and Rowena could only rely on Kaelan's voice and the grip of his hand to know the direction.
Behind them, torchlight began to flicker between the trees.
"They have dogs," Kaelan hissed. "I can hear them."
Rowena felt despair creeping in. They couldn't outrun hunting dogs. And in this dark forest, they would be easy to find.
But then she felt something on her wrist. The Sleeping Eye symbol grew hot—not ordinary heat, but a deep heat that spread from her wrist through her arm, into her chest, into her head.
And suddenly, she saw.
Not with her physical eyes. But with something else. She saw the forest as a map of light—every tree, every bush, every stone, all glowing with a faint light. She saw invisible paths between the trees, narrow passages that ordinary humans could not pass. She saw three red points of light in the distance—the hunters chasing them.
And she saw something else. In the middle of the forest, about five hundred meters to the west, there was a pulsing blue point of light like a heartbeat.
"There," she whispered without thinking. "That way."
Kaelan didn't ask questions. He followed the direction Rowena indicated, helping her through bushes and protruding roots.
They ran. Rowena could feel energy flowing through her body—not from exhaustion, but from something else, something that had just opened inside her. The sleeping eye had begun to open.
The blue point of light grew closer. Now Rowena could see what it was: an ancient, massive tree with a hollow trunk like the mouth of a cave. And inside that hollow, a pale blue light pulsed.
"Go in," Rowena ordered.
Kaelan hesitated for a moment—entering a dark hollow in a tree was not a smart idea—but the sound of the hunting dogs was getting closer. He went in first, pulling Rowena after him.
The tree hollow was deeper than it appeared from outside. They crawled in, feeling the damp wooden walls around them, until suddenly the passage widened into a small chamber. In the center was a round stone glowing with pale blue light, and embedded in that stone…
A mirror.
A small mirror, the size of a palm, with a frame of intertwined tree roots. Its surface reflected nothing—only deep blue that moved slowly, like still water in a pond.
Rowena reached for it without thinking. The moment her hand touched the mirror's frame, the blue light spread throughout the chamber, and outside, the sound of the hunting dogs suddenly stopped.
Silence.
Kaelan peered out. "They… they're gone. As if we were never here."
He looked at Rowena, who was holding the small mirror with trembling hands. On her wrist, the Sleeping Eye symbol had changed: the eye was now open.
"This mirror," Rowena said, her voice hoarse, "is one of them. One of the mirrors connecting this world to the Second Layer. But this… this is small. Like a fragment."
She looked at her own reflection in the blue surface. But what she saw was not Celine's face.
What she saw were three faces shifting: Celine with golden-blonde hair and pale blue eyes; Morana with silver-white hair and pitch-black eyes; and the third… the third was herself. Rowena Ashworth from Oxford, with messy brown hair and round glasses that always slipped down her nose.
Three faces in one mirror.
"Anima Triformis," she whispered. "The Three-Form Soul."
She closed her eyes and felt the three parts pulsing inside her: the fragile and lonely Celine, the ancient and hungry Morana, and herself—Rowena—the rational, fearful, rebellious one who, strangely, was the strongest of the three.
When she opened her eyes again, the face in the mirror was only one: Celine's face. But in her eyes, for the first time, there was something that was neither Celine, nor Morana, nor the original Rowena.
But a combination of all three.
"I understand now," she said softly. "I am not the key. I am the key, the lock, and the door all at once. I am the place where the three parts meet."
She looked at Kaelan, who stared back at her with an expression caught between awe and fear.
"And I have just opened the sleeping eye, Kael. Now they can see me. All of them. Morana. The hunters. And… something else. Something older."
Outside, the wind changed direction. The leaves rustled with an unnatural sound, like whispers from a thousand mouths at once.
And from the distance, from the direction of Verlaine, a red light flared in the night sky—not lightning, not fire, but something older, deeper, hungrier.
The gate was beginning to open.