The room was thick with breathless dark. The kind that pressed against her skin and whispered too close to her ear.
Zina didn't move.
The mirror pulsed behind her like a heartbeat—steady, patient, watching.
Kain was gone.
Not faded. Not dissolved.
Just… absent.
Like he'd never stood there at all.
---
Zina turned to the mirror.
The cloth still covered it, but now it was glowing from underneath—soft silver light, like moonlight bleeding through linen. It pulsed with every beat of her heart.
Or was it the other way around?
Her legs moved on their own.
She stopped inches away, hand lifted.
"No," she whispered to herself. "Don't."
But her fingers didn't listen.
She peeled the cloth back.
At first, she only saw herself.
Her face. Her eyes. Her breath fogging the glass.
But then the mirror exhaled.
And the reflection changed.
She was no longer alone.
A girl stood beside her in the mirror. Younger. Wearing a white gown. Her face was familiar—and terrifying.
It was Zina.
But not Zina.
Her eyes were pure black. Her mouth stretched in a smile too wide for her face.
The girl tilted her head.
Then knocked from inside the mirror.
Once.
Twice.
On the third knock, the glass rippled.
Zina stumbled back.
The sigil on her palm seared to life—hot, glowing, burning through her skin like a brand.
She cried out, clutching it. But the pain only sharpened the vision.
The reflection Zina stepped forward, through the mirror.
And then—Zina blinked—
She wasn't in her room anymore.
🕯️ The Vision
She stood in a vast hall—lined with broken mirrors and floating candles.
The walls bled ink.
Whispers curled like smoke from the floor.
At the far end stood a throne made of bones.
And on it sat a version of herself.
Pale.
Smiling.
Crowned in flame.
"You're the first and the last," the mirrored Zina said, her voice like wind over glass.
"You broke the name. You opened the door."
"What door?"
"The one memory can't close."
Zina turned—and behind her, faces formed in the mirrors.
Brides.
Twelve of them.
Each more faded than the last.
Eyes closed. Mouths sewn shut.
Their sigils glowed in silent agony.
"You're the thirteenth," said the crowned Zina.
"The final seal."
"No," Zina whispered. "I'm not like them. I didn't die here. I'm not dead."
The reflection smiled wider.
"Not yet."
🕯️ Back in the Room
Zina woke gasping.
The cloth was back over the mirror.
The candle had relit.
But the sigil on her palm had changed.
Where once there was one ring, there were now two—interlocking.
A bond.
Not yet complete.
Not yet broken.
There was a note on her bed.
Unmarked. Written in black ink:
> "The mirror remembers what you try to forget.
Next time you look—she'll be waiting."