Dawn crept through the chapel’s shattered glass, washing the ashes pale. Guards found them within the hour. Ori clutching the beam, Corven half-conscious, Myrren staring at a mirror that no longer reflected her face. By order of the Queen, she was summoned before sunrise. They let her wash but not rest; the scent of honeyroot still clung to her skin. When the carriage doors shut, the bell tolled once more, its echo following her like a heartbeat refusing to die.

The Queen’s attendants led her through corridors that breathed incense and iron. The walls shimmered faintly, veins of mirrored glass inlaid with silver script that pulsed as she passed. Each pulse matched the rhythm at her wrist, the hidden beat of the spiral token. Once. Twice. Thrice.

She knew better than to touch anything. The air itself seemed flammable, heavy with myrrh and frostmint. The last pulse made her fingers ache, as if memory had teeth. Two guards halted before a sealed archway. Its door was not wood but mirrored metal, rippling like water.

“The Queen will see you,” one said.

When the door closed behind her, the temperature fell.

Queen Aelira stood before a single vast mirror that reached from floor to ceiling, its frame carved in the spiral motif of Eirden’s crown. Where light should have reflected, shadows coiled instead, thin as ink. Myrren’s nose caught it immediately: frostmint, ash, and beneath them a faint sweetness. Honeyroot.

“Come closer,” the Queen said. Her voice was soft, but every syllable carried command.

Myrren obeyed. The Queen’s reflection wavered beside her own: two women of different worlds, both too composed to breathe.

“Do you know what this is?”

“A mirror, Your Majesty.”

Aelira’s eyes narrowed. “It is a memory. The Silent Veil left it behind when prophecy was still considered science. They claimed it could record a soul’s scent.”

She brushed her gloved fingers across the surface. Silver rippled outward in perfect concentric spirals. “It remembers what we choose to forget.”

The mirror flared. Pale light swept the room, and Myrren saw another version of herself inside it. The soot gone, her hair darker, her face sharper. Cordelia’s face.

Her breath caught.

The Queen watched her reaction with clinical interest. “You recognize her.”

“I’ve seen her ghost.”

“Not a ghost,” Aelira murmured. “Inheritance.”

The word struck like poison.

Myrren stepped back, but the mirror followed her, reflection delayed, mouth whispering words she could not hear. Behind the whisper came the faint tick of something alive. Three pulses again.

The Queen smiled without warmth. “You hear it too.”

“What is it?”

“The spiral,” Aelira said. “And it remembers you.”

The mirror shuddered. In its depths, ash began to fall like snow.

The Queen’s fingers lingered against the glass. “They called this the prophecy mirror,” she said. “It shows not the future, but every attempt to escape it.” Her tone was gentle, too precise to be merciful. “Tell me, Myrren Vale. Do you believe love can save you this time?”

Myrren’s throat tightened. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do.” Aelira’s reflection moved before her body did, a trick of the mirror or something worse. “Each century has its chosen trio: Light, Shadow, and the fool who thinks devotion will change the ending. I’ve seen your pattern and Cordelia’s before you, and others before her. Always the same.”

Her gloved hand brushed the mirror again. “Bind what breaks.”

The phrase cracked the silence like glass. The surface liquefied, throwing images outward in a slow spill of light.

First came Thane, gold blazing from his palms, his expression fervent and desperate. The mirror split his light until it seared crimson, consuming the hall behind him.

Then Corven, chains of shadow lashing from his wrists, reaching for her even as they burned his skin. His eyes held both devotion and warning. Even light leaves chains.

Myrren staggered back, clutching her chest. “Stop it.”

“It cannot be stopped,” said the Queen. “The mirror responds to the truth. It records desire, not reason.”

Ash drifted from the ceiling, faint motes settling on her sleeves. She did not move to brush them away. “My son burned half of this court to protect a scentcrafter once. The ward of shadows nearly tore the palace apart. Both claimed to love her. Tell me, Myrren. What will you ruin?”

The mirror flashed again. Cordelia appeared in her workroom, mixing tonic by candlelight. Honeyroot smoke curled like a crown above her. The image flickered, and Myrren stood in her place, repeating the movement. The same vial. The same trembling hands.

“It’s not me.”

The Queen turned, eyes bright and cold. “No? Then why does it know your name?”

A faint whisper spilled from the mirror, a dozen voices at once: Myrren Vale. Myrren Vale. Myrren Vale.

She wanted to cover her ears, but the sound came from within. Her pulse beat to its rhythm. “You’ve tampered with it,” she whispered. “This isn’t a prophecy. It’s programming. You’re feeding it memories until they become the truth.”

Aelira’s smile thinned. “Belief shapes memory. I give the kingdom belief, and the spiral obeys.”

“You’re afraid,” Myrren said quietly. “Not of me, but of what happens if the spiral breaks.”

For the first time, the Queen looked away. Her reflection did not follow. It stared directly at Myrren, lips moving with her voice: “If she breaks, we all do.”

Aelira struck the mirror. The impact sent silver shattering outward, re-forming instantly. The reflection steadied, now showing Eirden’s crown melting, its gold running like molten ash.

“You see?” Aelira whispered. “Even a reflection knows better than hope.”

The honeyroot scent thickened. The spiral token at Myrren’s wrist burned once, twice, and went still.

The mirror dimmed, its surface clouding to smoke. For a breath, Myrren thought it might finally rest. Then the ash began to move.

It coiled inward, forming a spiral, and at its center, a figure took shape. Herself again, but wrong with eyes too bright, smile too still and hands dripping black light. Around that reflection the kingdom burned in silence. Towers folded inward, courtyards flooded with shadow. The crown of Eirden lay in the ashes, its jewels smoldering like dying embers.

Myrren stumbled back. “Stop. Please.”

The Queen only watched. “If you fail again,” she said quietly, “you will not hang alone. You will take the kingdom with you.”

Her voice vibrated through the floor, low and resonant. The mirror’s reflection echoed her words, delayed by a heartbeat, layering them into a prophecy’s cadence.
Fail again. Hang alone. Take the kingdom.

Myrren pressed a hand to her temple, but the phrases burrowed beneath her skin. The pulse at her wrist reignited—three beats, like a warning code.

“I’ve done nothing,” she whispered. “You’re forcing the spiral to repeat.”

“Repetition keeps the crown alive,” Aelira replied. “Break it, and the kingdom breaks with you.”

Behind the mirror’s smoke, other faces rose, Cordelia, serene; a child she did not know; Thane’s light flickering red; Corven’s shadow reaching for her through flame. They overlapped like pages pressed too close, words bleeding through paper. Each whispered a single command: Bind what breaks.

Her knees weakened. The air smelled scorched, poisoned with honeyroot and myrrh. She felt the tether tighten, dragging against her ribs as if Corven, wherever he was, had felt it too.

“You don’t understand,” she gasped. “It isn’t faith that binds it. It’s a memory. You’re rewriting lives to keep your son’s throne.”

The Queen’s gaze was like ice. “And you, little scentcrafter, are the pen.”

Light cracked across the mirror’s surface like lightning through water. Her reflection lifted its hand, palm outward. From the glass, the spiral sigil burned into her skin, fresh and red. Myrren cried out, clutching her wrist, the scent of iron flooding the air.

The Queen stepped back, unflinching. “There. Now the spiral will know where to find you.”

The mirror cleared. Only her reflection remained, pale, trembling, a crown of ash settling like snow in her hair.

Outside, the bells began to toll again, slow and endless.

Myrren met her reflection’s gaze. It smiled.

And whispered in her own voice, soft as breath, “The next loop has already begun.”