Chapter 14: The Poison in the Mirror

They arrived at midnight, cloaked in silence, slipping past the sentries like ghosts.

The Bloodcourt's infamous assassins — twins born of shadow and sharpened in the Queen's secret chambers beneath the palace.

They had many names.

But in the underworld, they were known only as Venna and Vale.

The Mirror Twins.

Because when one looked into the eyes of the other, they saw the death they were about to deliver.

It was Lys who first sensed something was wrong.

She stood on the northern rampart of the Aurelian stronghold, watching the flickering torches far below. Normally, the guards rotated in even shifts, their movements predictable, controlled.

But tonight... the pattern was broken.

Too many long pauses.

Too many shadows that didn't match.

She turned, just as a whisper of air sliced past her cheek.

A throwing needle.

Tipped with voidroot — a poison that killed not the body, but the magic in the blood.

She ducked low, drawing her twin daggers in one fluid motion, and sprinted for the nearest tower bell.

But before she reached it, a shape dropped in front of her — lithe, silver-haired, face veiled.

Venna.

The twin who always struck first.

Inside the stronghold, Caelan was poring over strategy reports with Serreth and Siran when the alarms failed to ring.

Because the bell cords had already been severed.

He didn't need the sound to know what was happening.

Because the candlelight beside him flickered unnaturally — drawn, not blown — toward a shadow at the far door.

Siran moved to intercept, sword drawn, but Serreth pushed him aside.

"I know that step," she said coldly.

Vale stepped into the light, hood lowered, expression empty.

"You trained with me at the mountain sanctum," Serreth said.

"You were always too soft," Vale replied.

And then they moved.

Outside, Lys clashed with Venna atop the battlements.

It was not a fight of strength — it was a dance of razor-thin reflexes, of breaths and angles and blood memory.

Their blades kissed and parted like lightning through fog.

"You think you can protect him," Venna hissed. "But you're just another pawn in his story."

"I know," Lys said — and drove her knee upward, shattering Venna's balance.

"But I'm his pawn."

And I chose it.

Inside, the war room had become a blur of motion.

Vale fought like a mirror — every strike Serreth landed was returned in kind, but reversed.

She was bleeding from her side, Vale from his lip.

Neither gave ground.

Caelan watched, calculating angles. Watching reflections — the way Vale's blade always tilted just slightly to match the dominant eye of his opponent.

He didn't fight like a killer.

He fought like a twin.

Like someone trained to mirror anyone he faced — even Serreth.

Which meant…

Caelan's eyes narrowed.

He turned and grabbed a small shard of polished metal from the desk — the corner of an old dueling medallion.

And flung it into the air.

Vale flinched.

Just a flicker.

Just long enough for Serreth to slide under his guard and slam her elbow into his throat.

He staggered back, gasping.

"You trained to reflect," Caelan said, stepping forward now. "But even mirrors crack."

He raised a crossbow — not his usual weapon, but this one loaded with a thin obsidian bolt.

Not meant to kill.

Meant to bind.

Vale didn't even try to dodge.

He simply stared at Caelan with something unreadable in his eyes.

And whispered, "You're not what she said you were."

Then the bolt struck — and the magic sealing tattoos along Vale's spine ignited, freezing his body mid-step.

On the ramparts, Venna sensed her twin's defeat.

She snarled, breaking free from Lys's hold with a burst of inner energy — something forbidden, something that made her eyes glow silver.

She leapt from the wall — but instead of fleeing, she turned midair toward the inner sanctum.

Straight for Caelan's personal chambers.

Caelan didn't hesitate.

"She's going for the records."

Serreth, breathing hard, nodded. "She's going to destroy whatever she can."

"No," Caelan said quietly.

"She's going to steal."

The inner sanctum of House Aurelian was not grand.

It was cold stone and iron vaults. A place not of pride, but of record — a history too dangerous to burn, yet too damning to parade.

Caelan had not set foot here since the night his father was buried.

Now, he ran.

Down twisting halls, through guarded passageways, past the locked gate that only a blood sigil could open.

Behind him, Serreth and Lys followed — both wounded, both breathless, but neither willing to be left behind.

Ahead of him, Venna moved like wind through cracks in stone.

She didn't need a map.

She'd been taught what to find.

At the heart of the vault, beneath layers of reinforced spell-silver, was a locked chest no larger than a bread box.

But what it contained had brought down empires.

She found it in silence, placed a gloved hand over the sigil seal, and whispered three names.

Not in her own voice — but the Queen's.

The chest unlocked.

Caelan burst in just as the lid creaked open.

"Don't move!"

Venna didn't look at him.

She held up the small bundle within: a faded scroll tied in waxen blue, and a matching signet.

The seal of House Caedis — the long-dead line that once ruled the continent, before the great civil collapse.

This wasn't just a historical piece.

It was proof.

That someone in the Aurelian line had been adopted from the Caedis bloodline.

That Caelan — and everything he stood for — wasn't who he claimed to be.

Lys stepped forward. "Drop it."

But Venna smiled beneath her veil.

"You think she sent us to kill you?" she asked Caelan. "No. She sent us to unmake you. Quietly. Without blood. By revealing what your own house buried."

She held up the scroll.

"One whisper of this in the court, and every noble in Vireon will turn their back. You won't be seen as a reformer — just another liar with stolen blood."

Caelan didn't flinch.

Instead, he stepped closer.

"You think I didn't know?" he said quietly.

Venna blinked.

Caelan's voice dropped to a whisper.

"I found it two years ago. I kept it hidden. Not because I was ashamed — but because the timing wasn't right."

He took a slow step closer.

"I've already written the speech."

Venna hesitated.

That... hadn't been in the Queen's plan.

Caelan reached into his coat and pulled out a second scroll — newer parchment, written in his own hand.

He tossed it to her.

She read.

And her expression changed.

"What is this?" Lys asked, confused.

"My claim," Caelan replied. "Reforged."

The scroll detailed a new lineage — not as heir to House Aurelian, but as heir to both Aurelian and Caedis, a unifying bloodline forged in exile.

"Let the Queen try to expose me," Caelan said. "I'll wear it like armor. The moment she admits this scroll exists, she admits there is an alternate claim to the throne — one she can't control."

He turned to Venna.

"Take that message back to her."

Venna stared at him for a long time.

Then dropped the original Caedis scroll on the floor and crushed it beneath her heel.

A puff of dust.

History, obliterated.

"You play like a king," she said, eyes cold.

"I play to win," Caelan replied.

Later, in the war room, Serreth sat beside Vale, who remained frozen under the binding spell.

Lys approached. "What'll you do with him?"

Caelan poured a glass of wine and stared out the window.

"I'll free him."

Lys blinked. "Why?"

"Because he hesitated."

He turned, eyes sharp.

"And in a game like this, hesitation is the first step toward betrayal. But it's also the first step toward doubt."

As dawn broke over Vireon, the Queen stood in her tower, clutching a single parchment delivered by Venna's hand.

It contained two lines.

"Expose me — and I rise."

"Silence me — and I rot beneath your throne."

She crushed the note in her fist.

And whispered to the shadows, "Send word to Lord Kareth. It's time we reminded Caelan Aurelian what a true royalist uprising looks like."