Something's off with the mirror.
I noticed it on the third night after pacing around my borrowed room. I'm not tired, just feeling restless, the kind of restless where the air feels too heavy.
The past three days have blurred into one long, golden prison sentence. I've wandered every inch of my assigned wing, counted tiles, memorized curtain patterns, even named the birds that land outside my window (there are three regulars; I call them Sass, Silence, and Steve). I've avoided Kael like the plague, and I've refused every fancy meal with enough forks to arm a small army. Mostly, I just… wait. For what, I don't know. A sign? A crack? An escape?
Moonlight streams through the tall windows, casting silver shadows on the dark stone floors. The fire in the hearth has burned down to embers, but I don't bother to light it again.
As I stare at my reflection in the tall mirror across the room, something strange happens. For just a moment, it moves.
But I don't.
I blink hard. My heart races.
My reflection, a thing that should look like me, lingers just a breath too long before it finally matches my movements. It's like it took a second too long to catch up, as if it wasn't me at all.
I step forward.
So does she.
This time, perfectly in sync.
I lift my hand. She does the same. I press my palm against the cool glass, feeling it vibrate softly as if it's alive or at least not quite dead.
Then I notice it, tiny symbols carved into the wooden edges of the frame, mostly hidden under layers of varnish and time. They're not exactly runes or anything I recognize.
But they feel familiar.
Like something I've seen before, maybe in a dream.
Suddenly, I remember the mark on my spine from birth that the village herbalist called a "gift." A sigil. I never really believed her until now.
My stomach drops.
The mirror darkens. Not the room, just the glass, clouded like a storm brewing behind it. I hold my breath. I don't even blink.
And in the glass, I see him.
Not Kael as I know him now, cold and regal. This is a younger, softer Kael, laughing with someone else.
A woman.
Her face is blurry, just out of reach, like my mind won't let me see her. She reaches for him. He takes her hand, bare of gloves, and nothing bad happens. No tragedy. No unraveling.
Then, like a piece of glass breaking, the image shatters, it's gone in an instant, like it was never meant to be seen.
I stagger back, breathing heavily.
I couldn't sleep the rest of the night.
---
The next day, I head to the library.
No one tells me I can go, but no one stops me either. The guards follow from a distance, treating me like I'm supposed to be here, which feels even worse.
The library is a quiet, dusty place.
It smells like forgotten stories, and the weight of time hangs in the air. The shelves tower higher than I can see, books stacked like bones, scrolls tucked away where even the spiders seem to respect them.
I search for the symbol in the mirror.
Hours pass. My fingers are stained with ink, and my eyes burn.
But then I find it.
Not in a book, but on the spine of one, barely visible, the same looping mark.
When I pull it down, it's heavier than I expect, like it holds something more than just pages.
Inside, I find stories.
Not facts or history.
Dreams.
Visions.
Drawings of a kingdom before it fell into darkness. Pages about a boy marked by something he didn't choose. His name isn't mentioned, but I know who he is.
I read about a curse cast by a jealous god. About a soul doomed not for his actions, but for the potential he carried.
Kael.
And suddenly, everything clicks in my head.
The shadows that twist around him. The pain in his eyes. He looks at the world as if he's already lost it.
He didn't choose this fate.
It chose him. Like a knife meant to spill blood.
Then the visions hit.
Not dreams or hallucinations.
I might be in the east wing, in the garden of glass roses, or even in the bath but I start to see things. Quick flashes. Memories that aren't mine. I blink, and they vanish, but I feel their weight like fingerprints in my mind.
One day, I see Kael holding something small and lifeless. A child. His face is twisted with grief, and he screams silently. I drop to my knees, my chest aching as if the pain were my own.
Another time, I glimpse the woman from the mirror again. Her mouth moves, forming a name I can't hear. Her eyes are filled with fear.
And behind her stands Kael.
His hands are glowing with magic, and he looks horrified. Shadows emerge from him like wings.
Then nothing.
It always ends in nothing.
---
After a while, I find him in the observatory.
It's one of the few places in this castle that feels open—an ancient glass dome where the stars shine through. He's alone. Of course.
I step in, trying to act like I'm not nervous.
When he hears me, he turns slowly.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," he says.
"Maybe I have," I reply.
I don't sit. I stand across from him, arms crossed to keep myself steady.
"What happened to you?" I whisper.
His face doesn't change, but his eyes flash with pain.
"Be specific," he replies cautiously.
"The woman. The child. The curse. You never told me."
"Because it's not your problem."
"Well, it feels like mine now."
He exhales sharply and gazes at the stars, as if they can give him strength.
"They were my family," he admits. "The woman was my fiancée. The child—" His voice wavers for a moment. "The curse took both of them."
"How?"
"I touched them."
The room feels like it's spinning, but I'm not moving. His words break something inside me.
"You loved them," I say softly.
"I still do."
Silence stretches between us, heavy and cold.
Then he looks at me.
"You're seeing things because the castle is waking up," he explains. "It remembers the hurt. And it remembers you."
"I don't belong here."
"You do, or it wouldn't show you."
I shake my head. "I'm not ready for this."
"Neither was I."
His voice is so low I almost miss it.
And in that moment, with all the pain surrounding us, all the ghosts in the air, I sense something shift. Not him.
But me.
Maybe the curse didn't only take from him.
Maybe it's waiting to give something back.
If I can stick around long enough to take it.