The heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight, sealing out the mocking, golden light of the afternoon. In the suffocating darkness of my private chambers, the silvered surface of my mirror acted as a jagged window into the borderlands. It did not show the world as it was, but as it bled.
I watched Ivy walk. She moved with a rhythm that belonged to the soil, not the palace. She navigated the wild expanse with a fluid, unconscious grace, her steps stirring the earth in ways I hadn’t felt in centuries. I felt the surge of her power—a golden, radiant frequency that hummed even through the cold glass, making my own ancient magic feel like brittle, dying embers in a hearth that had long ago gone cold.
I leaned forward, my gaze fixed on the mirror’s edge. Beside it, a small, crystalline hourglass—
