Page 54 of A Taste of Silver
"Sister." His voice came from every mirror simultaneously, creating an echo that seemed to originate inside my skull. "I wondered when you'd find your way here."
"You're supposed to be dead." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact.
"Death is... negotiable... when you're caught between worlds." Vaen stepped closer to his mirror's surface, and I could see the cost of his existence etched in every line of his face. "Imade a choice. Traded my mortality to become a guardian, to keep the realms separate after what we almost unleashed."
"You stole my memories."
"I saved your life." His reflection's hands pressed against the glass. "You were burning yourself alive, Aurea. The binding with the serpent would have consumed you completely. I gave you the chance to grow up human, to choose your own path when you were old enough to understand the consequences."
"You gave me nothing." Silver fire began to dance along my arms, visible through my nightgown. "You left me broken, dependent, defenseless against people who would use me."
"I left you alive." Vaen's form solidified slightly. "Which is more than the binding would have done. I admit that the bargain was crueler than I understood. Every time your bond with Silvyr strengthened enough that you might remember, every time you looked too long in a mirror, every time you heard his voice in dreams, the magic would reset you. Sometimes after a day, sometimes after months. Melora would wake to find you confused, frightened, not knowing why you wore silver gloves or why the mirrors were covered."
The Awakening Chord swelled around us, and suddenly Silvyr was there too, appearing in a dozen different mirrors. His presence brought heat to the cold chamber, starlight to balance the crystal's harsh gleam.
"Vaen." His voice carried centuries of barely controlled anger. "Still playing guardian, I see."
"Still playing prisoner?" Vaen's reflection smiled without humor. "How's that working for you?"
"Stop." I stepped between their mirrors, my marks flaring bright enough to cast shadows. "Both of you."
The two beings who had shaped my life from opposite directions fell silent, watching me with expressions that mixed fear and hope in equal measure.
"I came here for answers, not another argument between protective men who think they know what's best for me." I turned in a slow circle, addressing all the reflections at once. "So tell me the truth. All of it. What is the Crimson One really?"
Vaen's reflection flickered, becoming less solid. "A cautionary tale. A Mirror Prince who loved his Mirrorwalker so much he murdered her to steal her power. He thought it would free him from his bonds, let him cross between realms at will."
"Instead," Silvyr continued, his voice grim, "it transformed him into something that feeds on reflections. On the very essence of what mirrors show. He's been growing stronger for decades, feeding on every forbidden mirror sold in black markets, every glimpse of the past that desperate people pay to see."
"And now he's coming for me." It wasn't a question.
"He's coming for us," Silvyr corrected. "Our bond. He wants to corrupt it, twist it into a similar kind of parasitic relationship he created with his murdered Mirrorwalker. Turn you into a conduit for his power instead of your own."
The temperature in the chamber dropped. My breath misted, and the mirrors began to fog at their edges. But it wasn't cold causing the fog, it was darkness, seeping through the reflections like oil through water.
"You shouldn't have spoken of him," Vaen said, his form beginning to fade. "Names have power in places like this. Speaking his name?—"
A laugh echoed through the chamber. Not from any of the mirrors, but from the spaces between them, the impossible gaps where reflection became something else entirely. The darkness spread faster, eating away at the crystal clarity until only shadows remained in the glass.
"The Crimson One performs," I said, pieces falling into place. "That's what you were trying to tell me, wasn't it? He doesn't justseduce or corrupt. He makes people want to be corrupted. He plays to their deepest desires and fears until they invite him in."
Vaen nodded, his reflection barely visible now. "He shows you what you want most, then asks such a small price for it. Just a little power. Just a small compromise. Just one tiny betrayal of everything you once held sacred."
The mirrors around us began to crack. Not the clean fractures I'd seen before, but ragged tears that leaked something that wasn't light or darkness but the absence of both. Through the cracks, I could see movement, something vast and crimson and patient sliding through the spaces between worlds.
"He's here," Silvyr said, his multiple reflections beginning to flicker. "In the mirrors. In the palace. He's been waiting for you to lower your guard."
Every mirror in the chamber resonated at once, a harmony that wasn't the Awakening Chord but something else, a counter-melody designed to corrupt, to twist, to transform beauty into hunger. The sound made my teeth ache and my silver marks burn.
But beneath it, I heard something else. The ghost-melody Silvyr had taught me to recognize. The true song of the mirrors, older than the Crimson One's corruption, stronger than his hunger.
I began to hum.
The sound that emerged wasn't quite human. It carried harmonics that shouldn't exist in mortal throats, frequencies that resonated with the crystal around us. The mirrors responded, their cracks beginning to seal, the darkness retreating toward the edges of perception.
"Clever little flame," Silvyr's voice carried pride and fear in equal measure. "But he's stronger than a song."
"Then we'll have to be stronger than him." I placed my palms on the nearest mirror, feeling the ghost-melody flow through me into the crystal network. "Both of us. Together."
