26. Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Six
Evandra
I felt the suffering of the kind of chill that seeps into your bones and scrapes at your soul. The air clung to my skin like damp velvet—heavy, silent, suffocating. When I blinked, the darkness peeled back slowly, revealing the chamber.
Cobblestone walls encased me, slick with age and shadow.
Ornate golden frames hung in crooked rows, each housing a painting of catastrophe.
Soldiers drowning in blood. Cities burning.
Creatures towering above broken bodies. The oil-shined brushstrokes shimmered as if moving—like they were mid-scream, mid-collapse, eternally caught in a loop of destruction.
Desks cluttered with parchments and ancient tomes filled the space, their paper edges curling and yellowing with age.
Strange artifacts—glinting metals, jagged crystals, and bone-carved totems lay scattered across the surfaces.
The air was thick with the scent of old ink and damp stone.
I turned slowly; each step was muffled as if the room itself absorbed sound.
For some inexplicable reason, it felt as though the room was alive—watching me, studying me.
A pull, faint and insistent, tugged at my senses, drawing my attention to the left.
My breath caught. There, standing alone in the gloom, was a mirror.
It was massive, at least six feet tall, its thick silver frame twisting and writhing into the shape of a serpent.
The serpent’s scaled body coiled along the edges, its head poised at the top with its mouth open, fangs bared.
But it was the glass itself that made my stomach churn.
The mirror was black—not just dark, but a void that seemed to drink in the faint light of the candles flickering in the chamber.
The flames bent toward it, their glow diminishing as they neared its surface, as though the mirror were consuming them.
I couldn’t look away. The longer my gaze lingered, the more the air grew heavy and suffocating.
A primal dread began to build in my chest, clawing at my sanity.
The mirror wasn’t just dark—it was wrong.
It exuded an ancient malice, an intelligence that felt older than the stones around me.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching me, appraising me.
I took one step forward. Then another. And then a face lunged out from the void.
It slammed against the glass in silence—a shrieking maw of rotted flesh and hollow eyes, its mouth a wound that stretched too far, too wide.
The skin peeled and wept shadows as though the creature was made of nightmare and ash.
I stumbled backward with a cry—but the mirror held me. I felt it reach for me. Not physically—but through something deeper. Through the Rift. It knew me. Then, the world shattered like glass, and I was yanked back into my body with force.
I gasped violently as the vision spat me out. Air surged into my lungs like fire. My chest heaved. My entire body trembled as if I’d been plunged into icy water. The pain in my skull throbbed in tandem with the pounding of my heart. Drake’s hands were on me—firm, steady, grounding.
“A mirror,” I choked out, clutching at the damp fabric of his shirt. My head ached. My skin prickled with residual fear. Only then did I realize I was dripping wet, the cold tile leeching what little warmth remained in me.
“You’re hurt,” he said, one hand cradling my scalp as he checked for injury.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t think so. I—I laid myself down.
The vision started to hit while I was still standing.
” Drake crossed the room swiftly, returning with my robe.
His movements were fluid, but I saw it—tension in his jaw.
Worry in his brow. As he wrapped the robe around me and helped me to the bed, the cold slowly began to recede. But the memory of that mirror didn’t.
“What did you see?” he asked, his tone both cautious and curious.
“It was… pure evil, Drake,” my voice cracked as I struggled to find the words. My fingers twisted in the hem of my robe. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The room—the place—where the mirror was… It felt alive. Dark. And the mirror, Gods, it saw me. I swear it saw me.”
He furrowed his brow, his protective nature flaring visibly. “What do you mean it saw you?”
“I don’t know how else to describe it. It wasn’t just enchanted—it was malevolent, Drake.
There was a face… twisted and terrible. It was only for a moment, but I can still feel its presence,” my hands trembled in my lap, and I pressed them together to still them.
“What do you know about magic items? Artifacts from before The Change?”
He shook his head, his expression grim. “Not much. They were all pretty much destroyed. Anything imbued with Rift energy is contraband now. There maybe something about it in the records. Ness would know.”
Desperate for answers, I stood and rushed to the books lining the shelves of my chamber, my eyes darting across their spines. Fiction. Romance. Tales of adventure I’d already devoured in my youth. Nothing that could explain the overwhelming darkness I’d seen.
Frustrated, I let out a sigh and returned to Drake’s side, my shoulders slumping.
“The room around the mirror was so dark, Drake. It was suffocating, like it wasn’t meant to exist. And the mirror—it was staring at me.
It felt… alive,” my voice cracked, and I dropped my gaze to my hands.
“Gods, what am I doing? I feel like I’m wielding a magic so much bigger than I can comprehend.
So much bigger than me.” I couldn’t hold back the panic any longer.
Tears blurred my vision, spilling down my cheeks as my hands shook.
Drake’s hand, warm and steady, rested on my knee.
“We’ll ask Ness about it tomorrow,” he said firmly, his voice soothing and certain. “We’ll find answers, Eva. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
His words held a gravity that pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts.
I met his eyes and saw the same protectiveness that had made me feel safe since the moment I met him.
It reminded me of Papa, of the way he shielded me from the world’s harshness.
The thought sent a fresh wave of tears cascading down my cheeks.
“What’s wrong?” Drake asked urgently, brushing a tear from my face with his thumb.
“I-I guess it’s all finally sinking in,” I stammered.
“I’ve left everything I’ve ever known—my home, my father, my entire life —to risk it all.
I’m terrified, Drake. This world is… insane!
I miss my inn. My kitchen. My garden. It was easy.
I was all so easy ,” the words tumbled out between sobs, raw and unfiltered.
Drake pulled me into his arms without hesitation, enveloping me in his warmth.
His muscular arm wrapped securely around my shoulders as I buried my face in his chest, my tears soaking into his soft linen shirt.
His free hand stroked my arm in slow, comforting motions, and his lips pressed a soft kiss to the top of my head.
I cried until the ache in my chest began to ease, my sobs softening into sniffles.
My breaths slowed, and I wrapped an arm around his waist, clinging to him like an anchor in a storm.
“Sorry.” I muffled as I wiped my nose. “Thank you. For everything,” I whispered, my voice thick with emotion.
“Always,” he replied simply, his tone carrying a depth that made my heart swell.
He held me a while longer, his presence a balm to my frayed nerves.
Eventually, he helped me settle into bed.
I reached for my old, familiar pillow, the scent of home still lingering in its fabric.
It carried me back to my little attic room, to the days when life was simple, and the weight of the world didn’t rest on my shoulders.
Drake stayed close, his steady breathing lulling me into calm. I pushed the terrible face in the mirror out of my mind and let the safety of his presence wrap around me like a shield. In his arms, I finally drifted into a deep sleep.
I was back in that room. Godsdamnit.
The same damp chill sank into my skin, coiling around my ribs. The air pressed against me, thick and wet. War paintings screamed silently from their golden frames. The mirror waited, coiled in silver serpents, its black surface still consuming every flicker of light.
But this time, I wasn’t alone.
Three figures loomed—two monstrous, misshapen men flanking a table, where a third stood hunched over a parchment covered in twisting glyphs. His skin was gray. Gaunt. Cloaked in shadow. Though, he didn’t move like a man. He moved like something decayed that was somehow still thinking.
Vyper. The name formed in my throat before I even recognized him. Then his head snapped up.
“She’s here,” he hissed. My blood turned to ice. His lifeless eyes swept the chamber, searching—seeing.
“Sire?” one of the wretches rasped.
“The Seer,” his smile stretched too broad, too sharp. He turned toward me, reaching with long, gnarled fingers?—-
I gasped awake, bolting upright. The room tilted around me in the dark. My heart pounded like a war drum. Something shifted beside me.
“Eva, it’s me.” Drake’s voice—calm, steady—cut through the noise in my head.
I whipped toward him, clutching the blanket. “He saw me,” I choked out. “Drake—he saw me. Vyper.”
He blinked once, and I watched the sleep vanish from his eyes. “Vyper? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” I whispered. My voice trembled like my hands. “He looked right at me. Said, ‘The Seer is here.’”
Drake sat up, pressing a firm hand to my back. “We need to tell Julian.”
He was already moving, conjuring a small flame in his palm. Shadows leaped across the room.
I rose, legs unsteady, tugging on my robe with shaking fingers. My breath caught in my throat again—not from fear this time, but from how real it had felt. The chill of that chamber still clung to my skin like a curse.