Chapter 27
The Second Trial
Midnight.
“The mirrors are strange,” Vivian whispers, breaking the silence first. “When I danced with him, I thought… I thought I saw something moving inside them. Watching.”
“They’re cursed,” Cassy says softly. “You can feel it.”
Mariel frowns, her gaze darting toward the towering glass at her side. “They don’t match, if you look close. I could swear I saw mine smile without me.”
A terrible sound crashes through the keep, deep and resonant, rattling the chandeliers. Candles bow toward the mirrors as though pulled by an unseen tide. For one heartbeat, everything stills, a silence so complete that I hear what can only be the rush of my own blood.
And then—screams.
But not from the guests. From the glass.
The reflections press forward, eyes wide, mouths stretched in terror. The air shudders, vibrating with voices that don’t belong to the living. Jewels drip from the courtiers’ necks, liquefying into silver. Perfume turns sour, sharp as rot. Silk gowns unravel into smoke.
In seconds, the court dissolves around us, vanishing like mist under the sun. Only we remain—the brides—scattered across the marble like chess pieces abandoned mid-game.
Cassy clutches my arm, her nails digging deep. “What’s happening?”
The mirrors ripple like water, surfaces warping as though something beneath them is pounding to be free. One shudders, then bursts forward into a pair of silver hands that seize Elena’s arms.
She shrieks, thrashing, but her reflection drags her in, mask first. Her scream is cut short as her body melts into glass, leaving her mask clattering hollowly against the ballroom floor.
“Fight it!” Seraphina roars, lunging forward, ripping a blade from somewhere hidden in her skirts. She slashes at the hands, but the sleek steel only sinks into liquid glass. The mirror yawns wide, swallowing her whole with a rush of black water.
Mariel stumbles back, sobbing, but another panel behind her gleams like a predator’s eye. Her reflection presses forward—smiling despite her screams—and snatches her by the shoulders. She gasps my name as she’s pulled under, her voice echoing even after she vanishes.
Vivian collapses to her knees, clutching her head. Her reflection crawls out like a shadow, its pale hands tangling in her hair. She screams in sheer terror before she, too, is dragged into silence.
Cassy’s grip on me slips. “Fire—” she cries, but her mirror finds her before I can react. Hands seize her waist, yanking her back. She claws at the marble, slippers scraping on the floor, before she disappears with a sob that echoes in every shard of glass.
And then there’s only me.
The hall groans, its grandeur twisting. Chandeliers drip into molten silver, music fracturing into whispers that crawl across my skin.
My own reflection moves independently now, tilting her head when I don’t, smiling when I scowl.
Her mask is gone. The scales across her gown are sharper, darker than reality, as though she’s been forged into something I can’t bear to face.
I glance around, pulse hammering. Every mirror is alive, restless, waiting to claim me. But one calls stronger than the rest—the mirror by the refreshment table. The same one where I glimpsed a shadowed figure during the dance.
It glimmers now, liquid silver rippling like water in moonlight. The faint outline of a woman waits within. Her features mimic mine, only with a sharper edge.
Every instinct screams at me to run, but I hear Keiren’s voice echo in memory: Old as time and just as true, only in facing the truth will you find your way through.
I force the breath into my lungs. My slippers slide across the marble, slow at first, then steadier. The mirror hums as I draw near, vibrating with anticipation.
“I will not be dragged in,” I whisper, though my throat tightens. “I choose to go.”
I lift my chin, step forward, and let the silver swallow me whole.
The glass closes over me like water, swallowing sound and air until I can’t tell where I end and the mirror begins. Cold seeps into my bones. My breath fogs in silvery mist.
I fall forward—and land on warm earth.
Not marble. Not glass.
Soil, soft beneath my palms. Sunlight pours over me, golden and real, not the cold silver of the Onyx Keep.
Roses climb trellises, heavy with bloom, their petals velvet-soft, untouched by frost or shadow.
Bees hum lazily through lavender. A fountain sings somewhere nearby, its sound threading straight through my bones.
Home.
The word hits me so hard, my knees give out.
“Selene.”
I know the voice before I see her.
She’s kneeling among the roses, hands gentle as prayer as she brushes dew from a bloom. She looks the way she did in my earliest memories—whole, unbroken, alive. No sickness. No grief carved into her face.
“Mom.”
The sound tears out of me.
She rises, and suddenly I’m in her arms, breathless, clinging, inhaling rosewater and bread dough and warm wool. My sobs come fast and ugly, my body remembering before my mind can stop it.
“I missed you,” I choke. “I missed you so much.”
“I know,” she murmurs, fingers stroking my hair. “I never wanted to leave you.”
For the first time in years, the ache eases. The constant vigilance. The sharp edge inside my chest. Here, I’m not broken or cursed or chosen.
I’m just her daughter.
“You can stay,” she whispers, forehead resting against mine. “No more Trials. No more blood. No more mirrors.”
I pull back just enough to look at her. “And Kat?”
Her smile softens. “She’s safe. Laughing. She’s always safe here.”
The word here settles into me like honey.
I could have this. This life. This peace.
No more choosing pain.
My chest caves in.
“Stay,” she says again, softer now. “You don’t have to fight anymore.”
The garden breathes around us, lush and alive. This is not an illusion stitched from fear. This is mercy. And that is what makes it dangerous.
Beyond the roses, something dark stirs. Shadows press at the edges of the light. Patient. Waiting.
I shake my head, tears blurring the world. “If I stay… what happens to the others?”
Her eyes glisten. “They will fade, as all things do.”
The answer is gentle. It is also a lie by omission.
I step back, every inch tearing something loose inside me. “I love you,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“I can’t stay.”
Pain flashes across her face—but beneath it, pride.
“Then go, Selene Fairchild,” she says, pressing her lips to my brow. “Burn bright and remember, all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single flame.”
The garden fractures. The light drains away. Glass rises around me, cold and endless.
My reflection waits—no mask, no softness, all fierce lines and sharp edges. Her eyes are puffy and red, her skin pale, her lips painted black. Her gown is darker than mine, the scales as sharp as blades.
At her feet, two small dragons crouch on the mirrored floor.
One is pale golden-white, ember-soft, wings tucked tight.
Its eyes are bright, full of life. The other is a charred onyx with crimson eyes, smoke leaking from between its teeth.
It lunges at the golden dragon, claws scraping glass. They snarl and snap, vying for power.
“Which one will win?” my reflection asks.
The question catches me off guard.
I watch as the golden dragon pins the black one down, growing larger, stronger. Then, suddenly, the black dragon surges, doubling in size and overtaking it. The balance shifts again and again, each gaining ground, then losing it.
Impossible to predict.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You’ve endured much,” she continues. Her voice drops, soft with promise.
“Yes, you have suffered. Pain. Loss. Betrayal.” She steps closer, raising a long, black-nailed hand to tilt my chin until I’m forced to meet her gaze.
“I see a darkness in you. A fire that, once unleashed, will burn the world.”
I shake my head, and she lets her hand fall.
I feel it then—the sorrow, the rage, every emotion I’ve ever bottled up surging to the surface. For a heartbeat, I see it: the world burning, cities reduced to ash, myself standing at the center of it all.
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “I would never.”
She steps closer. “Wouldn’t you?” Her eyes gleam. “You’d let the world burn to protect the ones you love.” Her smile sharpens. “For Kat?”
The question strikes like a blade.
I don’t pretend to be a saint. I never have.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Good,” she says. “That’s the truth.”
The darker dragon rears, flame licking the air. The golden one shrinks back, thinner now.
“You don’t have to pretend anymore,” she murmurs. “Let me take the weight. Let me be the monster—so we can finally be safe.”
She lifts her hands. Bright red flames bloom in her palms.
Power surges through me—hot and immediate. Flames answer in my own hands, alive and hungry.
“Yes,” the darker version of me coaxes softly. “There is magic in you. Let it fuel the flames. Let it burn.”
The offer is intoxicating. Rest through destruction. Safety through dominance.
And then—
A memory crashes through me.
I’m young, standing in the kitchen, hands shaking as a plate slips from my grip and shatters against the floor. I remember the rage—the way it felt justified, righteous, unstoppable. And then the silence. The mess. The sharp sting of regret.
My mother rushed in, eyes wide—not angry, just sad.
Being angry is easy, she said gently as she knelt beside me. You can break something in seconds. But it can take forever to fix it.
Another memory follows. Kat and I shouting at each other, cruel words thrown like stones. My mother’s voice again, calm but firm: The world will give you a lifetime of reasons to be angry. But you only need one to be grateful.
I open my eyes as a tear slips down my cheek.
I look at the dragons—one bloated with rage, one starving but still breathing.
I kneel.
The dark dragon lunges, hissing and snapping, but I remain calm. Unafraid. I turn instead toward the smaller one, offering it nothing but my attention.
I’ve made my choice.
“Last chance,” she says, her voice echoing. “Now tell me—which one wins?”
“Whichever one I feed.”
She nods.
I watch as the golden dragon grows—first to the size of a wolf, then a horse—its light steady, fierce, enduring. The dark dragon shrieks, starving, clawing at nothing as it’s pinned beneath golden claws.
The golden dragon turns to me and dips its head in reverence.
I bow in return.
Then I face the darker reflection of myself. “I will starve you,” I tell her. “You will never be who I see in the mirror.”
She smiles wickedly. “We’ll see.”
The mirror fractures. Light explodes outward—not blinding, but illuminating.
When dawn bleeds pale against the stained-glass windows, we walk down the hall—me, Vivian, Cassy, Mariel, Seraphina—each of us shaken but blessedly alive. Our masks hang broken in our hands, our gowns torn and dusted with ash, the silence between us heavier than steel.
The air reeks of smoke and iron. Oarks scurry ahead, dragging chains that clink against the marble. Their small bodies strain as they haul something tall and heavy through the corridor.
A mirror.
Its surface gleams too bright in the half-light, slick as fresh blood. The goblins grunt as they heave it into place, embedding it into a waiting gap in the wall. The sound of stone grinding against stone echoes down the corridor like a closing tomb.
And then—her.
Elena’s face stares out from the silver, frozen, wide-eyed, her mouth stretched in a perpetual scream, her fingers pressed to the glass as if she’s still clawing for escape.
The hall seems to lean toward her, each mirrored pane catching her haunting reflection a hundred times over. A hundred Elenas. A hundred silent screams.
Cassy whimpers, clutching my sleeve. Mariel turns away, shaking. Vivian covers her mouth with trembling fingers. Even Seraphina—cold, proud Seraphina—takes a single step back, her mask of control slipping just enough for me to glimpse the horror in her eyes.
I force myself to look and not flinch. To burn her fate into my memory. This is what it means to fail—to die here, to disappear, to become just another accessory of this accursed palace.