Kael did not answer immediately.
The woman in the mirror was still smiling, but now that smile looked different.
It was not the confidence of Lyssara Vharen speaking through a new body, nor the arrogance of an ancient consciousness convinced it had the right to claim the young woman kneeling in the center of the room.
It was something far more confused.
There were gestures that began one way and ended another, subtle shifts in the tilt of the head, in the movement of the eyes, and even in the way the reflected fingers rested over a dress that did not exist outside the mirror.
Six lives layered over generations had been compressed until they produced an artificial continuity, and the system, incapable of recognizing that new people had appeared within it, had solved the problem by calling them all by the same name.
Lyssara.
Kael looked at Nerya.
She was breathing with difficulty, one hand pressed against her chest while lunar lines traveled along her arms and neck.
