He raised his hand, and the shards lifted, spinning in a slow, glittering storm. Each fragment showed my father again—eyes full of contempt, mouth shaping blame.
“You killed the love of my life,” the vision hissed. “You killed your mother. You took her away from me.”
My chest cracked open. “I never meant to,” I whispered. “She died giving birth to me. How was that my fault? If I’d known, I would’ve traded places. I wish I’d never been born. I wish I’d known her.”
The shards hung in the air around us, catching the torchlight like suspended drops of blood. My pulse pounded in my ears.
“What if I told you her name?” Severen asked, his tone as soft as silk.
My throat tightened. “And in exchange for what?”
His grin deepened, the corners of his mouth stretching in that inhuman way I’d come to hate.
“It’s for me to decide,” he said. “Whenever I wish to decide. But for now,” he stepped closer, his shadow folding over mine, “I feel kind enough to share her name.”
He raised his hand. The shards flared, each one glowing from within, and the air rippled like heat over stone. Slowly, the fragments turned until they faced me, their surfaces alive with movement.
A woman’s face formed out of the shifting bronze—dark hair braided with gold thread, eyes as blue as the deep sea, the same cursed color I carried in my own reflection. The sight of her struck through me like recognition and grief entwined.
“My mother…” The words broke from me like a prayer.
“Her name,” Severen murmured, almost reverent, “was Marianna.”
The sound of it split something inside me. I had never heard her name spoken aloud—not once in all my years.
“Marianna,” he continued, “was a woman of grace and fire. Beautiful. Unforgettable.”
“It sounds,” I said, my voice rough, “like you knew her personally.”
Severen’s smile didn’t falter. “Tell me, Salvatore—” he said, gliding past my accusation as if it were nothing, “you killed your mother… but what about your father?”
“My father is already dead,” I rasped. “I never killed him—no matter how much I wanted to. For all the pain and misery he gave me… someone else took that from me.”
Severen tilted his head, eyes narrowing like a predator’s in torchlight. “But doesn’t it please you, just a little? Knowing he’s gone? No more lash, no more failure, no more voice to remind that you were never enough.”
“What’s the point of being happy about it,” I snapped, “if I’m rotting in your damned prison until I pass your Shadow Lord Trials?”
He chuckled softly, the sound curling through the air like smoke.
“That’s right… my prison. My trials. You walked willingly into my jaws after all, didn’t you? But let’s speak of something sweeter. The reason you were sent here.”
The torches dimmed. The air chilled.
Severen’s hand drifted through the smoke, and the mirrors stirred to life again—bronze surfaces rippling like disturbed water.
“You came here,” he said, “because of Helena. Because of the lover you murdered, with her two fuck toys as well.”
The images in the mirrors sharpened.
A dagger shook in my hands—its edge wet, still pulsing like it remembered the heartbeats it had stolen.
Helena lay at my feet.
Her dark hair fanned across the bed like a crown of ink. Her neck gouged with a cut no living body should bear. Her lips were blue. The red pooled thick beneath her.
Beside her lay the two men she’d brought into her home. Into her bed.
Their blood mixed with hers.
