The kingdom had slept soundly ever since the wedding. Peacetime had a lullaby to it—sweet, gentle, and deceptively dull. The dragon was gone. The curse broken. The dark forest burned to ash. Princess Elara married the prince, and the crown passed into young hands. The people cheered. The tale was over.
But no one tells you what happens after the final page.
It started with the roses.
On the first anniversary of their “happily ever after,” every flower in the palace gardens turned black overnight. The royal botanist muttered of fungal blight and soil rot, but Elara knew better. These were the same roses that had grown in the Enchanted Glen—where she’d once bartered with shadows, trading whispers for strength. The petals were soft as velvet, but the color was wrong—dead wrong.
By the third night, the whispers returned. Soft, slithering syllables curled through her bedchamber like smoke, seeping from the cracks around the ancient mirror that hung above her dresser.
“Elaraaaa…” The voice dragged itself through the dark, low and cruel.
She pressed her palm against the glass. It pulsed warmly under her skin, almost breathing.
She hadn’t told Cassian—her prince, now king—about the pact. A desperate trade from a desperate time: her voice for the strength to slay the dragon that had terrorized the realm. She’d won her voice back, yes. But magic always collects what it’s owed.
A year, the shadow had promised. One year of bliss. One year of light. Then, balance.
She thought it had been broken, forgotten. She was wrong.
“Elaraaa… you owe us.”
In a burst of frustration and fear, she tore the mirror from the wall, shattering it on the cold marble floor. The shards scattered like frozen lightning, each piece reflecting fractured shards of the room—and of herself.
Cassian found her kneeling in the wreckage, her hands bleeding from the glass.
“You’re bleeding,” he whispered, kneeling beside her.
She smiled too brightly, a fragile mask. “Just a dream.”
But dreams don’t carve messages into frost on windows. Dreams don’t whisper in the voices of the dead, calling you back into darkness.
She tried to keep smiling, ruling the kingdom as she always had. The people needed their queen—steady, kind, strong. But every reflection watched her now. Windows, silver trays, polished armor in the armory—all held eyes behind them. Judging. Waiting.
One night, the whispers changed.
Not warnings.
Not debts.
But instructions.
She found herself in the royal crypt, barefoot, her breath misting in the torchlight. Her fingers traced the cold stone of Queen Aradia’s sarcophagus—the last sorceress of their bloodline. She didn’t remember how she’d come to be there. Only the words carved deep into the marble, glowing faintly in the dark:
“Blood remembers.”
The next morning, she didn’t wake alone.
Cassian slept beside her, peaceful as ever. But in the mirror, his face stared back at her—eyes black as ink. And he was smiling.
When she blinked, it was gone.
Time itself began to twist. Days blurred, slipping through her fingers like water. Faces of courtiers melted together into masks she couldn’t read. Even her voice—once famously golden—cracked at the edges like breaking glass.
In the library, she found pages missing from every magical tome. Vanished. Erased. But only those dealing with curses that survive past their casting. Only those that mentioned names long buried beneath centuries of dust.
Then came the feast.
A celebration of unity—nobles from every corner of the realm gathered under one roof. Laughter, song, and enough wine to drown sorrow a hundred times over.
Elara stood beside Cassian, her hand resting on his arm, her crown heavier than ever. Her smile was tight, a threadbare shield against the dread growing in her chest.
And then… the chandelier trembled.
Everyone stopped.
A second tremble.
A low hum filled the hall—discordant, unnatural.
Then the mirrors shattered. Every one of them.
From the shards, they crawled.
Tall, thin figures made of broken glass and swirling shadow. No eyes. Just mouths. And those mouths smiled.
“Time to pay,” they said in a hundred borrowed voices, all terrible and hollow.
Guards drew blades. Magic flared, filling the hall with blue fire and crackling energy.
Cassian shielded her with his body.
And then she screamed.
Not because of the creatures.
But because her reflection remained.
Standing in the broken frame.
Smiling.
And then it stepped out.
The real Elara collapsed.
The other one rose.
Flesh and bone—identical. But wrong.
“Balance,” the double said, turning to the creatures. “She broke the pact. I’ll restore it.”
Cassian stared between them, heart torn. “Which—who—?”
Elara reached for him. “It’s me—!”
But the double whispered a word. And Elara vanished.
Not in light. Not in smoke.
Just… absence.
The throne room fell into silence.
And the new Elara took her place.
The kingdom never noticed.
The gardens flourished again. Roses bloomed, red and alive. Peace returned to the land, smiles to the faces of nobles and commoners alike. But sometimes, people thought the queen looked colder. Smiled less. Laughed only when she thought no one was watching.
And sometimes, late at night, if you stand by the palace gates and listen very carefully, you’ll hear a voice on the wind.
Not a ghost. Not a dream.
Just the real Elara.
Still trapped behind the glass.
Screaming.
React
