CHAPTER 6: REFLECTIONS THAT BLEEDS
PART 1: THE REFLECTION MOVES FIRST
The palace mirrors had always been beautiful.
Polished bronze. Gilded edges. Hanging between redwood pillars and cloud-carved lintels, they reflected courtly perfection—robes in motion, lanternlight against lacquered floors, the precise grace of a bow.
But that morning, as Seorin passed the long wall of mirrors outside the Western Tea Pavilion, she stopped.
Not because of what she saw.
But because of when she saw it.
She blinked.
And her reflection blinked… late.
Just half a second.
Just enough.
She stepped back.
The image followed—but slower than it should have.
She moved her hand, fast.
The mirror's hand moved too—but not fast enough.
Seorin's stomach clenched.
She leaned forward, heart pounding, studying the image.
It was her.
Exactly her.
Down to the tiniest curve of her lip. The tilt of her spine. The slight unevenness in her left earring. But the timing was wrong.
Her reflection wasn't echoing her.
It was imitating her.
Trying to keep up.
She turned sharply.
And the image vanished into smooth bronze.
No trace.
No delay.
Just her face again.
Still. Perfect.
Obedient.
---
That night, Yeonhwa came to her quietly after lights-out, hair still damp from her bath, eyes sharp.
"You weren't in your quarters at the fourth bell," she said.
"I was."
"No, my lady. I brought your tea."
Seorin frowned. "I didn't ask for tea."
"I know. You didn't answer the door."
"I was in the garden."
Yeonhwa hesitated.
Then whispered, "A guard saw you walking… twice."
Seorin's blood slowed.
"Explain."
"He said you passed him going toward the eastern wing. In red robes."
"I wasn't wearing red."
"I know. But another patrol said they saw you heading toward the servant wing. At the same time."
Seorin was silent.
"He's shaken. Thought he imagined it. But I told him not to report it."
"Good."
Yeonhwa stepped closer. "But there's more."
Seorin waited.
"The one in red never came back."
---
Later, Seorin stared at the mirror in her chamber.
She didn'
t touch it.
She didn't speak.
But she watched.
And she waited.
And the reflection…
…waited too.
---
PART 2: THE BOOK THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST
The royal archive wasn't guarded by swords.
It was guarded by silence.
Locked doors. Sealed scrolls. A ledge of dust no servant dared disturb. Knowledge was a greater threat than blades in the palace—and so it was buried, bound, and left to rot beneath centuries of reverent fear.
But Seorin had not survived this long by fearing knowledge.
She held the stolen seal tight in her sleeve—a sigil she'd pried from the back of Minister Jo's ledger, then re-inked with Yeonhwa's help. It wouldn't survive scrutiny. But she didn't need long.
She slipped through the eastern scriptorium at the shift change, passed the binding chamber, and reached the forbidden wing.
The door was locked.
She picked it.
Easily.
Inside, the air was cold.
Too cold.
The shelves here were different. Older. Uneven. Each row marked with characters no longer spoken aloud.
She searched.
Not for a title.
For a symbol.
The broken circle. The flame.
She found it five shelves in—pressed into the cracked leather of a book too thick to be useful and too small to be decorative.
It bore no title on the spine.
She opened it.
The pages whispered like something alive.
The script was handwritten. Cramped. Layered. Annotated in three different inks.
But the first page was clear.
> THE SPLIT CROWN
A Ritual Record of Dual Possession, Soul Fracture, and Memory Binding.
Seorin's blood turned to ice.
She flipped forward.
The descriptions were incomplete—whole sentences blacked out. But one section stood untouched, marked by a faded red character in the margin: "DO NOT."
It read:
> When memory is bound to blood, the vessel may split. One will carry the truth. The other will become it.
Reflection may overtake original. Original may resist. If both remember… the mirror breaks.
A smaller note beneath it.
Different hand.
> The Queen has asked questions.
Burn this before she reads it.
Seorin closed the book.
She didn't take it with her.
She memorized it.
Word for word.
And as she left the archive
, the lanterns dimmed behind her.
Like the shelves knew what she had done.
---
PART 3: THE QUEEN WITHOUT A SHADOW
The Queen walked without escort that night.
No guards. No attendants. No fanfare.
She moved through the east garden like a dream in silk—bare feet, robe half-pulled over one shoulder, hair loose and glinting in the moonlight like spilled ink.
Seorin followed at a distance.
She didn't need to hide.
The Queen didn't look back.
She stepped through the camellia arch, across the white gravel path, past the lantern basin—where a single oil lamp burned low beside the stone swan.
Seorin paused.
Watched.
And saw it.
The Queen stepped fully into the light.
And cast no shadow.
The flame flickered, steady. It danced over the gravel. Over the trunk of the pine tree beside her. Over the edge of her robe.
But the ground behind her remained untouched.
No outline.
No shape.
Just light.
Seorin's mouth went dry.
She waited until the Queen drifted forward—toward the still pond ahead—before stepping into the lantern light herself.
Her own shadow emerged instantly.
Sharp. Perfect.
Exactly where it should be.
She glanced back.
The Queen walked ahead like mist.
Not silence—absence.
Something about her was becoming unmoored.
Unreal.
Or worse—too real in a way the world could no longer bear.
Seorin's voice barely rose above a whisper:
"…You're not whole anymore."
She didn't expect a response.
She didn't get one.
The Queen paused at the pond's edge.
Knelt.
Stared into her own reflection.
And smiled.
Not at herself.
At something beneath.
---
PART 4: THE MIRROR ROOM SHATTERS
The door to the Mirror Room was already open.
That should've been impossible.
No one entered the room alone. No one left it unlocked. The rites required supervision. The space itself was sealed by tradition—rarely used, never frequented, and always watched.
Except tonight.
Seorin stepped inside.
And saw the Queen.
She stood in front of the mirror, robe pooled around her bare feet, hair hanging loose like unraveling thread. Her hands trembled at her sides. Her lips moved soundlessly.
She was whispering.
The mirror gave no answer.
Seorin stayed near the doorway, half-hidden behind the carved screen.
Watching.
Waiting.
The Queen leaned closer.
"Why do I feel you inside me?" she murmured. "Why do I remember things I never lived?"
The mirror stayed still.
She placed her palm against it.
"Let me see."
And then—without warning—she struck.
Her fist slammed into the bronze.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—harder.
The mirror groaned.
Cracked.
A thin line split across the surface.
Then another. And another.
Hairline fractures racing outward like veins of silver fire.
And in the chaos of glass and bronze and warping reflection—
Seorin saw it.
Two faces.
Not side by side.
Stacked.
One staring forward—blank, hollow-eyed, lips parted in silence.
The other just behind it.
Smiling.
Her smile.
Seorin's.
Exact.
Sharp. Crooked. Slightly cruel.
The way she had smiled before giving her first death order.
She stepped back.
A floorboard creaked beneath her.
The Queen turned.
Her eyes locked onto Seorin's across the dark.
And for one terrifying moment—
They wore the same expression.
---
PART 5: THE RULE OF ONE FACE
It started with paper.
Two scrolls. Delivered hours apart.
Both sealed with crimson wax. Both bearing the Queen's private crest—phoenix wing over flame. Both with orders that would, if enacted, undo the other.
One called for the arrest of Minister Jo.
The other promoted him.
The court didn't panic—not outwardly.
They whispered.
They speculated.
They stalled.
By dusk, the Grand Chamberlain approached Seorin with deliberate care. His hands trembled despite their formality.
"My lady," he said, "you… speak with the Queen more than most."
She said nothing.
He swallowed. "We must obey the correct order."
She tilted her head. "And you think I know which that is?"
"I believe," he said, eyes darting, "that you are the only one who would tell the truth… if the Queen herself had forgotten it."
That should have flattered her.
It didn't.
Because she had no answer.
She had seen the Queen.
Heard her call out names of people long dead. Seen her cast no shadow. Seen her reflection fracture in a mirror that wasn't supposed to crack.
Seorin could no longer say, with certainty, that the woman giving orders was the Queen she once had been.
Worse…
She could no longer say that the memory of the Queen she had once been still belonged to her.
---
That night, her chamber was silent.
The mirror remained shrouded.
She lit no candles.
But the moon cast just enough light to reveal it.
Sitting on her pillow.
A mask.
Identical to the one she had worn during the solstice masquerade.
Foxfire red.
Gold-edged.
But this one—
This one was warm.
She touched it with two fingers.
It felt like breath.
And inside, etched in ink just beneath the rim, four
words in a hand she had not used since her reign:
> There is only one.
---