Chapter 3: The Mirror of Heresy

Chapter 3: The Mirror of Heresy

The shards of the mirror glittered like starlight across the floor. I stood frozen, staring at the place where the reflection had been — my reflection, yet not mine. A ghost? A memory? Or something far worse?

Behind me, the castle groaned as though it too had seen the impossible.

Then came the footsteps.

Not hurried. Not loud.

But deliberate.

I turned, and there he was — the Devil himself — standing in the doorway of the music room like he’d always belonged there. Moonlight haloed his silhouette, but no light touched his face.

"You shouldn’t be here," he said.

His voice was calm, but the air trembled around him.

"I heard music," I whispered.

"No one has played in this room for centuries."

I stepped away from the broken mirror, heart pounding. "There was someone inside it... she looked like me. She knew me."

"You saw what the castle wanted you to see," he said quietly, stepping into the room. "This place remembers everything. Every soul it’s ever swallowed. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it screams."

He crouched beside the shards, and for a moment, I expected him to gather them.

Instead, he touched a single piece.

And it bled.

I gasped. Crimson welled from the glass, staining the marble like it remembered pain.

"Was she real?" I asked.

He stood slowly. "She was... important."

"To you?"

His silence was answer enough.

I stepped back. "Why do I look like her?"

His eyes met mine. For the first time, there was no coldness in them — only a terrible grief, older than stone, heavier than time.

"Because nothing ever truly leaves this place. Especially the dead."

I felt the walls press in, the air thicken like fog.

"You didn’t bring me here to save my sister, did you?" My voice trembled. "This was never about a bargain."

He took a slow step forward. "I gave you what you asked. She breathes because of you."

"But you took me because of her," I said, realization blooming like frost in my chest. "The one in the mirror. She was the reason you made the deal."

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

I fled the room before he could speak another word.

The corridors bent around me like a maze — twisting, pulsing with memory. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to move. To breathe.

To get away from him.

But the castle had other plans.

Every turn led to another corridor I didn’t recognize. Paintings followed me with their eyes. Statues turned to face me when I blinked. The chandeliers dripped wax that hissed my name.

“Elira…”

No. Not my name.

Her name.

The girl in the mirror.

I found myself in a tower — one I didn’t remember climbing. A window yawned open at the top, letting in night wind sharp as blades.

I leaned against the stone, catching my breath.

The stars outside burned red.

And below, the courtyard shifted — black roses blooming in real time, vines writhing like snakes.

“I hate this place,” I whispered.

A voice answered behind me.

“So do I.”

I turned. He was there again, this time without warning, without sound. Always just… appearing. Like a memory.

"You said nothing would harm me tonight."

"And it hasn’t."

"Then why does it feel like I’m being hunted by my own past?"

He stepped closer, slowly.

"This castle reflects," he said. "It shows truths dressed as dreams. It teaches you what you are by revealing what you were."

"And what was I?"

He paused, a long breath drawn into silence.

"You were mine."

My heart stopped.

He closed the distance between us, and this time, I didn’t back away. I couldn’t. His presence held me like gravity.

"In another life?" I whispered.

"In another death."

His hand hovered near my face, not touching — just trembling in the space between us.

"I buried her a thousand years ago," he said. "And still, the castle calls her back in pieces. Through you."

"But I’m not her," I said, voice breaking. "I don’t want to be her. I don’t want to be anyone’s echo."

He looked at me then — really looked.

"No," he said softly. "You're not her. You're worse."

I flinched.

"Worse?"

"You’re alive."

Silence stretched, broken only by the wind through the tower.

I turned away, chest aching with a storm of thoughts I couldn’t name.

"Will I become her?" I asked.

"No. But you’ll carry her shadow. You already do."

I felt it then — deep in my bones. A cold weight. A grief I’d never earned.

"She loved you, didn’t she?"

He didn’t reply.

"Did you love her?"

A breath. A blink. An eternity.

"Yes."

"And now… me?"

His eyes finally softened, like something inside him cracked.

"I don’t know," he said. "You confuse the part of me that remembers love… and the part that devours it."

I left him in the tower.

This time, he didn’t follow.

Back in my room, I curled beneath crimson sheets, my mind a tangle of questions and broken glass.

And as sleep finally dragged me down, I dreamed of fire.

Of thorns.

Of a mirror.

And the girl inside it…

Still waiting.

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