‘Ex nihilo nihil fit.’

The room held its breath, stone faces staring down with dour disapproval as Julian and 'M' stood poised at the edge of chaos. Charging past the terminal figures, Julian's eyes skimmed over their judgmental expressions, a chill pulling his focus, dragging him to purpose. With the shadow of doubt looming, they rushed through the collections room, each footfall echoing more desperately than the last.

“I’m telling you, ‘M,’ I know I’ve seen it!” Julian's voice was tinged with urgency. His words stumbled, revealing cracks in his confidence. "She told us we only have ten minutes till they close," he added quickly, his gaze shifting nervously. Behind them, the swinging door to her station creaked, the sound vibrating back and forth, as she went to gather the last books on the tables. Shadows stretched across the floor as the lights dimmed, going into a warning glow. Julian felt a knot in his stomach, knowing he needed to find the answers before it was too late. ‘M’ was counting on him. He had to find the tome.

Their footfalls echoed through the vault. That’s how Julian felt as they raced through the library, its throat full of text, dark, silent, and beckoning to share its secrets. The mix of ink and leather assaulted him as they headed to the history section, prepared to dig up ghosts of the past, the frost lingering on his fingers.

‘M’ had shown Julian the photograph, the emblem, lightly there, and how it came to be in her possession. Julian now understood their connection and why they relied on each other. At first, he felt shock, perhaps a fear that he was vulnerable to the mirroring, his mind too open. In truth, it was his heart needing to be held. After the explanation, he realized he had called her and that she had received it, which pulled her into the chair next to him at orientation. Using confusion and subterfuge, ‘M’ and Julian became the pair to whom the call was heeded. She was the glass– he the ripple, and the result was the reflection. Together, a mirror.

‘This is not punishment, it’s preservation.’

The volume slammed to the table, looking large in his hands, heavy and worn. Its surface, fractured from time, showed a history of reverence in its etched lines. Julian squeezed the catch plate; it sounded out a cry of protest, then settled with a sigh. The paper, parchment from a gilded age, wafted the past, inscribed by leaders; the ink was their voice, the letters patterns for instituting their dogma.

This was the story of the ‘Hexic’ and the rules that governed them. Julian knew some of the history, comic books in hand, and his afternoons as a child were filled with images of the ‘Hexic’ as a hero, doing things to help mankind.

A convergence, unexplained and unimagined. Energies shifted, alignments changed, as the elements of Earth merged with humankind. Each individual unique. Each ‘Hexic’ birth defining. Julian felt a sudden, sharp taste of ozone on his tongue, as if the atmosphere itself had turned electric. A ringing filled his ears, high-pitched and echoing, as if the essence of the world was vibrating at a new frequency. These were the sensations of the cosmic shift, grounding the abstract in immediate, undeniable reality.

This is not punishment, it’s preservation.’

As time raced forward, confusion, resentment, and fear rocked through the world. In a particularly telling moment in elementals class, Professor Shim paused while discussing the principle of balance. She dropped a fleeting remark about how 'two of a kind could disrupt the universal equilibrium.' Her words lingered without explanation, weaving themselves into the fabric of Julian and M's thoughts.

Julian could remember an old newsreel that captured this predicament—a day when the capital city's central plaza was crawling with protesters. The air was thick with chants and shouts; 'Powers for all!' echoed off the walls as news cameras captured the scene, magnifying the unrest. Contrasting voices clashed. Amidst the uproar, the randomness of it broke through their understanding. 'How is it fair?' some asked, as they struggled with the new reality. 'How can we make this equal?' Some defended the new order as a necessary measure. Others demanded answers and justice, their banners flapping in the wind. Rules had to be established to help contain those who, in others' eyes, could do anything, make their own lives better, who, in time, could see themselves as Gods.

‘This is not punishment, it’s preservation.’

Lifting the cover, the spine sounded a notable crack; Julian’s and ‘M’s eyes opened a bit wider, peering into the secrets of their world. The parchment crackled like ghosts, its aged surface, scuffs and abrasions, held images, sketches, and text all rendered by skillful hands.

Julian felt as if the illuminated manuscript breathed. Fear returned his frost. He felt the familiar tingle as his fingertips crossed the ancient pages. Mirroring him, ‘M’ shuddered alongside, as her eyes scanned as well. Page after page fell, words and drawings, all taken in, not necessarily understood. The elements, rendered as symbols in heavy-handed ink, radiated from the pale surface of the skins.

Fire and air were represented in a delta, its point skyward, indicating the realm above, rendered as an orb and radial beams. Air, with clouds and swirls, indicated movement, a counter to the anger of fire. Earth and water, a nabla, its point opposite, showed these elements that ground all life. Mountain peaks strong. Waves arcing like hands containing all.

Below the four, a fifth, not named but implied. All triangles of the previous, laid over each other, empty and mirrored, the lines crossing. The points rest together. A translation below the symbol read:

‘Temor Dei.’

Fear the Gods.

The words contained in the banner that ran the bottom of the crest of Divergent Academy. Julian’s and ‘M’ brightened, a note of recognition sounding. Julian raised his eyes from the text, staring at ‘M,’ clarity forming like ice on a window. Realization kept him in silence as they continued to read. Apprehension crept through ‘M,’ her silver frames rattled behind her eyes, as if all the ghosts from past mirroring recognized it. ‘Why aren’t we taught this?’ flickered, as they flipped to the next page.

The symbol they were looking for.

The full image was more frightening.

A tremor coursed through 'M' as she edged closer to Julian, seeking comfort and warmth. She felt his temperature drop; his eyes seemed to glaze over as if touched by frost, signaling the depth of his fear. Her breath hitched in response, the cold embedding itself like a magnet between them, knitting their anxieties. This is what he'd seen in a text, smaller, less menacing, and just the eye.

A flash. Julian’s memory flickered quicker than he could process. The eye flickering, a pinpoint of light off metal at a collar. Flash. Professors walking by, a red jacket behind them. Flash. Recognition. Their acus ornatus showed allegiance to the academy. Flash a hand retreating from a book.

‘Tremor Dei’

A shudder ran through Julain as he studied this full image before them. ‘M’ too startled, gazing at the symbol. Not just with it, but with the fact that so much had been ripped from the photograph she found. Who had removed it, and what were they trying to hide?

The eye, floating in the top portion of the rectangle of black, beams radiating, hovered in a background of stars. It floated above a fractured range of mountains, representing calm, order, and spiritual enlightenment. ‘M’ only felt its ominous presence as her heart ceased to beat, followed by an enfolding silence, her silver frames vibrating, falling brittly silent.

Beneath the eye lay what neither had seen before, what caused their deep apprehension. They both knew the ‘Doctrines,’ which all Divergent Academy students were required to memorize. Each doctrine was set by an event, and the students only told what happened. When and how unclear, but since; the doctrines were framed to one simple alignment. Divergence must remain singular.

Across the bottom, a banner stretched, its ripples rendered as velvet. The letters vibrated with contrast, forceful and fearful, styled like daggers ripping the cloth.

‘Nullum duo potest.’

Julian’s frost crackled louder.

Both Julian and ‘M’ absorbed what it implied as the rest of the doctrines flashed behind their eyes, the primary accolade ever present. They understood now, it had been, and always would be, about non-duplication. Julian met ‘M’s eyes and felt the power of the Latin phrase. A shudder went through them.

One power.

One body.

One mind.

‘Nullum duo potest.’

Raising their eyes, pain, fear, and apprehension reflected back from the other.

Flash. A hand trailing the spines in the library. Flash. A red plaid jacket. Flash. The frost blooming across the leather bindings. Flash. Hair of night as the boy walked through the door. Julian fractured; frost sparkled on his fingertips. 'M' felt it, shuddered seeing him as his mirror, and reached for him.

Across the polished floor, a faint crack as the frost spider-webbed from the aged book, creeping along its surface, blooming and curling, reaching into long-forgotten corners, leaving an echo that permeated the silence.

‘No two can exist.’