The Mirror Behind the Wall

Location: The Forbidden Archive, Rosehall Palace

There are mirrors that reflect light — and those that reflect nothing at all. The one before me did neither.

It stood bound in rusted chains, an oilcloth draped like a funeral shroud over a corpse too ancient to rot. The puppet, still unmoving, simply pointed.

"Behind this," it rasped, "is your question. And perhaps your answer."

If I'd still been the girl I once was — all lace and laughter and no shadows in her smile — I might've stepped away. I might've waited for a prince or a prophecy to save me. But that girl had died the moment time stopped.

I reached for the cloth.

My hand brushed it — and the air cracked.

The sound was quiet at first. A whisper of splintering ice, distant and cold. Then louder. Cracks formed across the air itself. Invisible lines that etched across reality like spider veins on porcelain.

I tore the cloth free.

The mirror stared back.

Except… it didn't show me.

Not really.

My face was there — pale, drawn, wrong — but the reflection blinked before I did. Its lips curled into a grin I wasn't wearing. It leaned forward while I stood still. It watched me the way a wolf might eye a rabbit who'd wandered willingly into its den.

"Hello again," it said. My voice — but older. Harsher. Touched by winter and war.

The puppet didn't flinch. "She is the part you left behind. The part the curse fed."

"Who is she?" I asked.

"Who will you become?" the puppet countered. "That is the better question."

I stared into the mirror. It no longer reflected light — only intent. And that was far crueler.

The mirrored me — the Other Aurora — tilted her head. "Do you remember the day the sky turned red?"

I blinked. "What?"

"You don't, of course. You were too young. But I do. I never forgot." Her fingers brushed the glass from inside. "Because I never slept."

I backed away a step. The chill returned — not in the air, but in the bones.

The puppet turned its hollow gaze toward me. "She was left in the dream. A cast-off soul, spun from the moment you were sealed away. Time moved, but not for her. It gnawed. It grew teeth."

Other Aurora grinned.

"She's lying," I said. "This is a trick."

"Then why does she remember more than you do?" the puppet asked, almost gently. "Why does she know the names that wake you screaming?"

I clenched my fists. "This mirror—what is it?"

"A relic," the puppet said. "Older than your crown. Forged by the Seers of Elyras. It does not reflect form — it reflects fate."

I turned sharply. "Then why is it chained?"

The puppet hesitated. For the first time, it seemed to falter.

"Because fate should not be left… untethered."

I looked back at the mirror.

The version of me — the one still smiling — whispered, "Would you like to see what you did?"

And the glass went black.

A vision bloomed — slow and terrible.

The palace. Not abandoned, but filled with revelers in silver and gold. A celebration. Me, younger, dancing. Then — a drop of red in the wine. A man collapsing. Screams. The spinning of a wheel. The prick of a finger. And then—

Darkness. Endless.

The crowd asleep where they stood. A kingdom frozen in time. And me, not sleeping — splintering.

"She's lying," I breathed again. But I didn't believe it.

"She is you," the puppet said.

"I'm not her," I snapped.

"No," it said with finality. "But you might become her. If you chase the wrong thread."

The mirror's surface rippled like water, and the reflection faded — but not before the other me left a final whisper.

"Someone helped us sleep," she said. "You know his name. You've dreamed it."

I shook my head. "No, I haven't."

"You will," she whispered.

The mirror went still.

I turned to the puppet. "What is happening to me?"

"You are waking. And that is the most dangerous part."

A soft chime echoed through the archive. Faint — like a bell tolling from the bottom of a well.

Something had entered the palace.

The puppet froze.

"You are not alone anymore," it said.

I didn't need it to tell me that.

I could feel it — like a sudden storm pulling in behind the bones of the world. Heavy. Watching.

And I could feel something else.

The dreams weren't done with me yet.