The Second Trial
Midnight.
“The mirrors are strange,” Vivian whispers, breaking the silence first. “When I danced with him, I thought… I thought I saw something moving inside them. Watching.”
“They’re cursed,” Cassy says softly. “You can feel it.”
Mariel frowns, her gaze darting toward the towering glass at her side. “They don’t match, if you look close. I could swear I saw mine smile without me.”
A terrible sound crashes through the keep, deep and resonant, rattling the chandeliers. Candles bow toward the mirrors as though pulled by an unseen tide. For one heartbeat, everything stills, a silence so complete that I hear what can only be the rush of my own blood.
And then—screams.
But not from the guests. From theglass.
The reflections press forward, eyes wide, mouths stretched in terror. The air shudders, vibrating with voices that don’t belong to the living. Jewels drip from the courtiers’ necks, liquefying into silver. Perfume turns sour, sharp as rot. Silk gowns unravel into smoke.
In seconds, the court dissolves around us, vanishing like mist under the sun. Only we remain—the brides—scattered across the marble like chess pieces abandoned mid-game.
Cassy clutches my arm, her nails digging deep. “What’s happening?”
The mirrors ripple like water, surfaces warping as though something beneath them is pounding to be free. One shudders, then bursts forward into a pair of silver hands that seize Elena’s arms.
She shrieks, thrashing, but her reflection drags her in, mask first. Her scream is cut short as her body melts into glass, leaving her mask clattering hollowly against the ballroom floor.
“Fight it!” Seraphina roars, lunging forward, ripping a blade from somewhere hidden in her skirts. She slashes at the hands, but the sleek steel only sinks into liquid glass. The mirror yawns wide, swallowing her whole with a rush of black water.
Mariel stumbles back, sobbing, but another panel behind her gleams like a predator’s eye. Her reflection presses forward—smiling despite her screams—and snatches her by the shoulders. She gasps my name as she’s pulled under, her voice echoing even after she vanishes.
Vivian collapses to her knees, clutching her head. Her reflection crawls out like a shadow, its pale hands tangling in her hair. She screams in sheer terror before she, too, is dragged into silence.
Cassy’s grip on me slips. “Fire—” she cries, but her mirror finds her before I can react. Hands seize her waist, yanking her back. She claws at the marble, slippers scraping on the floor, before she disappears with a sob that echoes in every shard of glass.
And then there’s only me.
The hall groans, its grandeur twisting. Chandeliers drip into molten silver, music fracturing into whispers that crawl across my skin. My own reflection moves independently now, tilting her head when I don’t, smiling when I scowl. Her mask is gone. The scales across her gown are sharper, darker than reality, as though she’s been forged into something I can’t bear to face.
I glance around, pulse hammering. Every mirror is alive, restless, waiting to claim me. But one calls stronger than the rest—the mirror by the refreshment table. The same one where I glimpsed a shadowed figure during the dance.
It glimmers now, liquid silver rippling like water in moonlight. The faint outline of a woman waits within. Her features mimic mine, only with a sharper edge.
Every instinct screams at me to run, but I hear Keiren’s voice echo in memory:Old as time and just as true, only in facing the truth will you find your way through.
I force the breath into my lungs. My slippers slide across the marble, slow at first, then steadier. The mirror hums as I draw near, vibrating with anticipation.
“I will not be dragged in,” I whisper, though my throat tightens. “Ichooseto go.”
I lift my chin, step forward, and let the silver swallow me whole.
The glass closes over me like water, swallowing sound and air until I can’t tell where I end and the mirror begins. Cold seeps into my bones. My breath fogs in silvery mist.
I fall forward—and land on warm earth.
Not marble. Not glass.
Soil, soft beneath my palms. Sunlight pours over me, golden and real, not the cold silver of the Onyx Keep. Roses climb trellises, heavy with bloom, their petals velvet-soft, untouched by frost or shadow. Bees hum lazily through lavender. A fountain sings somewhere nearby, its sound threading straight through my bones.
Home.
