Chapter 5: The Mirror War
934 Words
Vivienne didn’t sleep.
Even as the candles dimmed and the castle fell into a hush of dreams and dust, she sat before the shattered mirror, watching fragments of herself flicker in the silver cracks.
Each shard reflected someone different.
One cried. One laughed. One bled.
In the largest piece, Seraphine still stared back, the smile on her lips frozen in a moment that never ended.
Lucien had left the room hours ago after ensuring she hadn’t been possessed—or worse, awakening to powers not even the Council understood. He had looked at her not with love, nor suspicion, but with a mixture she couldn’t name. A heartbreak that crossed centuries.
Now she was alone.
Except, of course, she wasn’t.
The mirror whispered.
“He loved me first.”
“He will always see me in you.”
“You are a ghost wearing my skin.”
Vivienne stood.
The words sank into her bones like frost.
“No,” she said. “I am not your echo.”
She turned from the mirror.
But it didn’t turn from her.
That morning, the castle felt... wrong.
Rooms she had visited yesterday were no longer where they belonged. The grand staircase split into two opposing directions, leading to identical halls with different fates. The dining hall had a heartbeat. The chandeliers dripped blood, then wax, then vanished entirely when she blinked.
She found Malric in the library, speaking to a floating book with a quill tucked behind one ear. The High Scholar looked older than usual.
“Something’s changed,” Vivienne said.
He looked up. “You broke the mirror?”
“I didn’t touch it.”
“Not physically, no. But symbolically, yes.” He closed the book. “The Mirror War has begun.”
Vivienne blinked. “What is that?”
Malric gestured for her to sit.
“In every bearer of the Mark, there comes a time when Seraphine attempts to return. Not in flesh, but in soul. Through reflection. Through memory. Through madness.”
“I’m not mad.”
“No. Not yet. But the Keep will test you now.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Because the Keep does not serve people. It serves the contract. And right now, the contract is... unstable.”
“Because I’m both daughter and vessel.”
“Because you are both blade and sheath.”
She left the library and wandered again.
This time, the castle did not allow her to walk freely.
The walls shifted. Doors closed behind her. One hallway became an endless corridor of mirrors. No exits. No shadows. Just her reflection over and over—until she noticed that one of them was smiling.
And she wasn’t.
She backed away, heart pounding.
The smile widened.
Then the reflection stepped forward, cracking through the glass like water, emerging into the hallway as if it had always belonged there.
Vivienne stared at herself.
But not quite.
The woman wore a gown made of flame and bone. Her hair longer, her eyes deeper. Her lips painted red with something too dark to be lipstick.
Seraphine.
But not.
A version of Vivienne that had embraced the curse.
“Who are you?” Vivienne whispered.
The doppelgänger smiled. “I am what you will become if you break. If you forget who you are. If you let the Keep decide your story.”
Vivienne shook her head. “I’m not her.”
“No,” the reflection said, stepping closer, “but you carry her pain. Her memories. Her blood. You fight so hard to stay ‘Vivienne’—but who was she before this?”
Vivienne didn’t answer.
Because she didn’t know.
The duel began without warning.
The hall darkened. A storm of glass and wind rose from the floor. The doppelgänger lunged.
Vivienne dodged, instinct guiding her. A blade appeared in her hand—obsidian, humming with the same runes that marked Lucien’s skin.
Each strike rang like thunder. Each parry carved a scar into reality itself.
The doppelgänger was fast. Faster than any human. But Vivienne’s rage was older than she knew.
“You are not real!” Vivienne shouted.
“I am every piece of you you’ve tried to bury!”
“I AM NOT SERAPHINE!”
The final blow came like lightning.
Vivienne drove her blade through the reflection’s chest.
The world stilled.
The mirrors cracked all at once.
And Vivienne fell.
She awoke in her bed. Again.
But this time, Lucien sat beside her.
His hand held hers, gentle and trembling.
“I saw you,” he whispered. “Fighting her. In the mirror plane. I couldn’t reach you.”
“She’s inside me,” Vivienne said.
He nodded. “She always was.”
“But she’s not me.”
“No,” he said. “You’re stronger.”
She looked at him, searching for the lie. But he didn’t flinch.
“Then why do I still feel like I’m losing myself?”
Lucien’s voice was barely audible. “Because you’re at war.”
“With Seraphine?”
“With the woman you used to be... and the one you must become.”
That night, Vivienne dreamed again.
But this time, she stood not in ash—but in light. A throne lay before her—empty.
She stepped forward, blood on her hands.
Lucien knelt at the base of the stairs.
“Take it,” he said.
“I don’t want it,” she replied.
“But if you don’t, someone else will.”
She looked up.
Above her, the stars fell like snow.
To be continued...
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