31. Chapter 31
T he creature lunged, its limbs striking. Ren ducked one, rolled beneath another, and leapt, blade first, right into the heart of its mirror-slick chest.
Glass exploded.
Water howled.
Faces melted.
Ren drove Ashrend deeper. The creature shrieked with a hundred mouths, a chorus of howls.
“I choose who I am!” Ren roared.
And with a final cry, she split the creature in two.
Silence fell over the bog.
And for the first time since entering that cursed bog, Ren saw her true reflection. Tired, bloodied, breathing. But whole .
The shattered remnants of the creature shimmered. Bits of mirrored flesh floated on the bog’s surface. But then something stirred in the stillness.
A tremor rippled through the water. One shard, larger than the rest, twitched, then glowed faintly with a silvery light. Ren lifted her blade .
From within the fragment, a shape began to stir. A face took form, blurred, fractured, almost human .
“ You believe this is death, ” the voice said, soft and splintered, echoing from nowhere and everywhere. “ But I do not shatter so easily. ”
“What the hell are you?”
“ I was someone once . I was given a name. I had a life. I had hands that built, a heart that bled. Until I was made into this – a prison of memory. ”
“Why did you call out to me?”
“ Because you are not like the others . I felt it the moment you fought me, how you refused to yield. Most mortals beg. Most mortals break. But you are a fighter worth sparing. There is power in you. Old power – older than this court, older than the crowns that play at ruling this land. It thrums in your blood, and I have not felt it in ages .”
The reflection leaned closer, the surface of the water trembling as though drawn toward her. “ Give me one of your most precious memories, mortal. Let me keep it, savor it, make it mine. In return… ” Its eyes glinted, dark and knowing. “ I will give you a truth from your past. ”
“What truth?” Ren whispered.
The creature’s lips curved into a faint, terrible smile. “ The truth of what really happened that night. ”
Ren’s throat tightened, her pulse drumming in her ears.
Every instinct screamed at her to walk away, but the promise of truth dug in deep.
Her fists clenched at her sides. “I know what happened. I watched them die – murdered in cold blood. And Eve—” Ren’s voice cracked, fury bleeding into it.
“She walked away without a scratch. Like she welcomed the intruders inside. As if she opened the door herself.”
Ren shook her head, taking a step back. “So don’t dangle lies and riddles in front of me. I already know the truth. She betrayed us .” She turned on her heel, but as she strode away, the water shivered again, and the creature’s voice followed her.
“Wouldn’t you really like to know what happened that night? That maybe… your sister isn’t what she seems?”
Ren froze, her breath hitching, before forcing herself to keep walking because if she looked back, she feared she might not leave at all. Then the creature inhaled, as though savoring something unseen.
“Mmm. I can taste it. That memory you keep locked away. The moment Eve looked back.”
Ren’s breath stuttered. Against her will, the image surged forward – Eve’s silhouette framed in the doorway, head turning just once. Their eyes had met, locking for a single heartbeat that felt like forever, before Eve slipped into the darkness and Ren never saw her again.
“Didn’t you see the glistening in her eyes? Was it truly cold blood she carried that night… or something more?”
The words slithered into her, coiling tight around her ribs.
Ren clenched her jaw, shaking her head as if the motion alone could scatter them.
She told herself not to listen, not to look, that to turn back was to surrender.
But her chest tightened, and before she could stop herself, her gaze flicked back.
“Fine,” she rasped, barely more than a whisper. “Take it.”
She shut her eyes, sifting through her memories. The first thing that surfaced was warm and silly; sitting cross-legged on the tavern floor with Elira, laughing through mouthfuls of chocolate, both of them half-drunk and sticky-fingered.
A low, guttural growl rippled through the creature. “ Not that one . I do not feed on scraps of fleeting joy. Give me the one you treasure most. The one that makes you you .”
Ren flinched. She pushed deeper, beyond the small comforts of the present, into a part of herself she had long buried.
And then she found it.
A dimly lit room. The rattling of her own shallow breaths as fever consumed her.
She remembered lying small and frail in bed, the world hazy and distant.
Her mother’s calloused hands gently wringing a cool cloth, Eve curled at her side, clutching her hand and whispering nonsense words to keep her awake.
Their father snoring in the next room, blessfully absent.
It had been the last time Ren could recall anyone truly caring for her.
Her chest ached as the memory unfurled, soft, fleeting, and then it was gone. She felt it pulled from her like a thread unraveling, leaving her suddenly hollow where it had once lived.
The creature let out a long, shuddering sigh. “ How fragile you mortals are… yet how bright you burn when you have someone to make life worth living. It is the cruelest and most beautiful thing about you.” Its flickering eyes met hers. “ Now… let me show you the truth of that night.”
It began to dissolve, splintering into mist, but its final words lingered like smoke in her lungs. “I was not the first they locked away. And I am not the last. Beware, the fae court is not what it seems, and friends will be the ones to bury blades deepest.”
Then the shard sank into the bog, leaving only silence.
And Ren, standing alone among the fragments, felt the burn of uncertainty flicker beneath her skin. Not a creature. Not a reflection.
A memory.
The mist shifted, revealing a shrine, half-swallowed by fen and time.
Built of black stone, it rose like a broken tooth from the earth, wrapped in ancient roots and draped with moss.
Symbols Ren didn’t recognize shimmered faintly across the stone – some half-carved, others burned as if by fire long faded.
The ground beneath her boots was more solid here. Less bog, more grave.
She stepped forward.
And the shrine responded. The mist coiled inward, wrapping her in its embrace.
Then, the world vanished.