I kneel.
The dark dragon lunges, hissing and snapping, but I remain calm. Unafraid. I turn instead toward the smaller one, offering it nothing but my attention.
I’ve made my choice.
“Last chance,” she says, her voice echoing. “Now tell me—which one wins?”
“Whichever one I feed.”
She nods.
I watch as the golden dragon grows—first to the size of a wolf, then a horse—its light steady, fierce, enduring. The dark dragon shrieks, starving, clawing at nothing as it’s pinned beneath golden claws.
The golden dragon turns to me and dips its head in reverence.
I bow in return.
Then I face the darker reflection of myself. “I will starve you,” I tell her. “You will never be who I see in the mirror.”
She smiles wickedly. “We’ll see.”
The mirror fractures. Light explodes outward—not blinding, but illuminating.
When dawn bleeds pale against the stained-glass windows, we walk down the hall—me, Vivian, Cassy, Mariel, Seraphina—each of us shaken but blessedly alive. Our masks hang broken in our hands, our gowns torn and dusted with ash, the silence between us heavier than steel.
The air reeks of smoke and iron. Oarks scurry ahead, dragging chains that clink against the marble. Their small bodies strain as they haul something tall and heavy through the corridor.
A mirror.
Its surface gleams too bright in the half-light, slick as fresh blood. The goblins grunt as they heave it into place, embedding it into a waiting gap in the wall. The sound of stone grinding against stone echoes down the corridor like a closing tomb.
And then—her.
Elena’s face stares out from the silver, frozen, wide-eyed, her mouth stretched in a perpetual scream, her fingers pressed to the glass as if she’s still clawing for escape.
The hall seems to lean toward her, each mirrored pane catching her haunting reflection a hundred times over. A hundred Elenas. A hundred silent screams.
Cassy whimpers, clutching my sleeve. Mariel turns away, shaking. Vivian covers her mouth with trembling fingers. Even Seraphina—cold, proud Seraphina—takes a single step back, her mask of control slipping just enough for me to glimpse the horror in her eyes.
I force myself to look and not flinch. To burn her fate into my memory. This is what it means to fail—to die here, to disappear, to become just another accessory of this accursed palace.
PART TWO
FLAMES
Chapter 28
Burning
The following week passes in uneasy quiet. There are no more summons—only stillness and the echo of everything left unsaid. Eventually, a banquet is announced for the month’s end. The king will present us with gifts, tokens for the final Trial. Until then, we are left to ourselves.
Keiren does come once, but not for long, and not for explanations. He brings a small tray with a cup of bitter-smelling herbal tea and sets it beside me without ceremony. He asks how Cassy is—nothing else—and tells me that if I need anything, I am to send word to him, no matter the hour.
Then he leaves before I can decide what to say to him.
The days fill themselves regardless.
I bury myself in long baths and even longer books, trying not to count the hours. Mariel stays close, but her laughter dims more with every sunrise. Seraphina withdraws entirely; we scarcely see her apart from mealtimes.
