Chapter 6 — The Mirror Coast
1500 Words
The fall between worlds was not like falling through air.
It was like drowning in light.
Eirena clutched Kael’s hand as they tumbled through the void. The remnants of the Shattered Bridge disintegrated around them crystals of starlight scattering like snow. Sound warped, space folded, and for a breathless moment there was no up or down, only motion and memory.
When they hit the ground, the impact stole their breath. The world around them shimmered, unstable, as if deciding whether it wanted to exist. Kael groaned, pushing himself upright.
“Still alive,” he muttered. “That’s progress.”
Eirena sat beside him, her eyes scanning the horizon. “We made it. The Mirror Coast.”
Kael followed her gaze and forgot to breathe.
The landscape was impossibly still. A vast expanse of glass stretched in every direction, reflecting the sky above. But the reflection was wrong. Where the real sky shimmered with pale dawn, the mirrored one glowed dark and fractured, full of constellations he didn’t recognize.
Every step they took rippled the surface beneath their feet. The air was thick with the hum of unseen voices echoes of things that might have been.
“What is this place?” Kael asked.
“The space between worlds,” Eirena said softly. “A realm of reflection. Every truth that dies in one world is mirrored here until it fades completely.”
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
“It’s where memories go when the Crown rewrites them.”
Kael frowned. “The Crown rewrites memories?”
Eirena nodded, kneeling beside the glass. Beneath the surface, he saw shadows moving people, cities, fragments of light. “Every time my mother reshapes the stars, pieces of reality are lost. This is where they come to rest.”
He stared into the reflection. For an instant, he saw his own face older, scarred, eyes hollow. Then it vanished.
“I don’t like this,” he muttered.
“Neither do I,” Eirena said, rising. “But the next thorn lies here. Somewhere beneath the mirror.”
They walked for hours, following the faint pulse of the shard embedded in Eirena’s chest. The ground shifted color as they moved from silver to deep indigo to the palest blue. The mirrored sky above changed with it, replaying scenes from a history neither of them remembered:
the first fae war, the crowning of Isolde, the burning of mortal cities swallowed by light.
Kael watched one reflection too long and saw himself again this time kneeling before a throne of crystal, sword broken, Eirena standing behind him with her eyes turned to flame.
He looked away quickly. “Tell me that’s not the future.”
“Reflections don’t show what will happen,” Eirena said quietly. “Only what might. The Mirror Coast feeds on possibility.”
“That’s comforting.”
She smiled faintly, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “We should keep moving.”
They reached a ridge overlooking what looked like a city made entirely of glass. Towers rose from the mirrored plain, each one humming with faint blue light. The air buzzed with energy.
“This must be it,” Eirena said. “The Heart of Reflection. The thorn will be inside.”
Kael studied the shimmering city below. “You’re sure this isn’t another illusion?”
“Everything here is an illusion,” she said. “But some illusions still have truth buried inside.”
They descended the ridge cautiously. As they entered the city, the reflections changed again mirrors rippling to life as they passed. Kael flinched as one showed him standing alone beneath a sky of ash. Another showed Eirena sitting on a throne, her eyes cold, a crown of thorns upon her head.
He stopped. “Eirena… look.”
She turned, and for a heartbeat, the reflection didn’t mirror her. The version in the glass smiled a cruel, knowing curve of lips.
“You can’t save him,” the reflection whispered.
Eirena’s blood went cold. “What did you say?”
The mirrored version tilted its head. “You know how this ends. You become what she was. It’s the only way the stars survive.”
Eirena stepped closer, her pulse quickening. “You’re not real.”
“Not yet,” the reflection said and shattered into light.
Kael reached her side, gripping her shoulder. “Hey. Whatever that was, it’s gone.”
She nodded, though her hands trembled. “The Coast reflects more than memory. It reflects fear. It’s trying to turn us against ourselves.”
“Then we give it nothing to work with.”
“That’s easier said than done.”
They continued deeper into the city until they reached the central square—a vast platform suspended over a pit of endless black. In its center stood a single obelisk of dark glass, faintly glowing.
Eirena’s breath caught. “That’s it. The second thorn.”
The shard hovered inside the obelisk, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat. As she stepped closer, the air grew heavy, like water thickening around her.
Kael started to follow, but she raised a hand. “Stay back. The thorn reacts to bloodlines.”
“You’re not doing this alone.”
“Kael, please. If it senses a mortal presence, it might.”
Before she could finish, the thorn flared violently. The mirrored ground beneath her rippled, and from its depths emerged shapes figures made of light and shadow, each bearing her face.
Kael drew his dagger. “Clones. Of course.”
“They’re fragments,” Eirena said through gritted teeth. “Pieces of what the Crown erased.”
The first fragment lunged, blade of mirrored light slashing through the air. Eirena dodged, summoning her bow and firing an arrow of starlight that shattered the reflection. But two more took its place.
Kael joined the fight, his dagger leaving trails of blue flame as it cut through the illusions. Each one dissolved into mist, but for every fallen reflection, another appeared. The air rang with the sound of shattering glass.
“They won’t stop!” Kael shouted.
“They can’t stop,” Eirena gasped. “They’re what I used to be.”
He looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”
“When I was a child, my mother tested me split parts of my essence to shape the perfect heir. Those fragments should’ve been destroyed when I escaped the palace. But they were stored here.”
“So these are?”
“Pieces of my soul,” she said bitterly. “The ones that obeyed her.”
Kael met her gaze. “Then take them back.”
Eirena hesitated. “If I do, I might become her again.”
He grabbed her hand. “Or you might become whole.”
She looked into his eyes and the bond between them pulsed once, steady and bright. Without another word, she turned toward the obelisk.
The fragments circled her, whispering in unison.
“You can’t escape what you were.”
“I don’t want to escape,” she said, voice trembling. “I want to remember.”
She reached out and touched the obelisk. Light erupted outward, consuming the city in brilliance. Kael shielded his eyes as the world around them dissolved.
When the glow faded, the fragments were gone. The obelisk had vanished, and in Eirena’s hand rested the second thorn a shard of black glass shot through with veins of silver.
But her eyes… her eyes had changed.
They glowed faintly with twin colors gold and silver, light and shadow intertwined.
Kael approached slowly. “Eirena?”
“I’m fine,” she said softly, though her voice carried a new depth, almost echoing. “The thorn showed me everything she took. The lives erased, the worlds unmade.”
He touched her shoulder gently. “And?”
“And I understand now.” She looked up at the mirrored sky, where unfamiliar constellations burned. “The Crown isn’t just a weapon. It’s a prison for the stars themselves.”
Kael frowned. “A prison?”
“She bound them to her will. The light you see at night isn’t free it’s chained magic, forced to burn in her pattern. Every time a star dies, it’s one breaking free.”
“So you’re trying to finish what they started.”
Eirena nodded slowly. “To unbind them, we have to destroy the Crown completely. But that means tearing apart the very fabric of both realms.”
Kael gave a grim smile. “Guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
She laughed softly. “You already did.”
They left the city behind, the mirrored landscape beginning to fade into mist. Eirena glanced back once and saw her reflection watching from the distance smiling, proud, and heartbreakingly sad.
As they reached the edge of the Coast, a doorway of light unfolded before them, flickering.
Kael raised an eyebrow. “That our exit?”
“Yes.”
- Writer
