The Five Realms

Chapter 52: Beanca IX

Chapter 52: The Dream of Flame and Flight

She was flying.

Not on Emeraldsa. Not as a passenger. As herself.

Wind screamed past her ears, sharp and familiar, not cold but exhilarating—the exact texture of freedom. Feathers stretched wide from her sides. Her eyes—sharp, ringed in gold—saw farther than sight should allow. Down below, Dragon City shimmered beneath the moonlight: towers like fingers stretching skyward, dragons curled in their keeps, the Grove whispering beneath layers of song and memory.

She dove.

The city blurred.

This was the Mirror Veil. She knew that now—not just because of the sky, but because of the way it bent when she turned her head. Every flap of her wings rippled time. Every breath disturbed the stillness of stories untold.

She'd been here before.

But not like this.

Not inside it.

Not steering it.

Three gates loomed ahead, carved from glass and smoke and memory.

The first: a corridor of mirrors, each one showing her a different version of herself. Happy. Hungry. Merciless. Afraid. She passed through without stopping. She no longer feared the question of who she could be.

The second: a room of whispers. Names, dates, dead languages spoken by the roots of long-fallen trees. Each one begged her to listen, to surrender to their weight. She moved through them, head high. She could carry stories. She already had.

The third: a cliff with no bottom. A voice said, "You must leap without knowing."

And she laughed.

She leapt.

And became the hawk again—soaring.

Through sky. Through memory. Through the shape of herself.

She saw a glimpse of something then. Beyond the Mirror. Not shadow. Not fire. A great tree rising into the dark. But its leaves were made of wings.

And it was burning.

Not with destruction.

With choice.

—

Beanca sat up in bed, gasping softly.

Sunlight streamed through the high windows of House 25, gold and pink and pale green. The sheets were half-kicked away. Emeraldsa stirred on the roof above, her heartbeat thudding faintly through the stone like a distant drum.

Her Icarus Watch pulsed once, green-white, before dimming.

Beanca pressed a hand to her sternum.

Her body was still human. Still heavy. But something inside her was... lighter. Not empty. Alive.

The Mirror Veil hadn't just tested her.

It had accepted her.

Outside her door, Chyna's voice called, "Wakey-wakey, Birdbrain! Birthday girl doesn't get to sleep through pancakes!"

Beanca rolled her eyes.

But she was smiling.

Because the dream wasn't just a dream.

It was a remembering.

And today, she was sixteen.

By the first week of September, the city no longer felt foreign.