Aurenya's footsteps echoed softly across the marbled floor, the Hollow Court stretched before her, an infinite tangle of corridors that bent around space and sense, woven from forgotten oaths and broken truths. Shadows slithered along the edges of the walls, whispering her name like a warning, or a prayer.
The weight of the Hollow King's gaze pressed against her shoulders like iron chains, unseen but omnipresent. Every breath she took was borrowed. Every heartbeat felt counted. The magic that clung to this place was unnatural—neither light nor dark, but suspended in an aching in-between. It smelled of dust, ancient ink, and dried blood.
As she moved deeper into the Hollow King's dominion, the sigil on her wrist began to burn faintly—not with pain, but with memory. Her red hands, cursed by Kael's dying rage, pulsed beneath her gloves, a reminder of the blood that had soaked into her very soul. Even hidden, they felt exposed in this place, as if the Hollow Court could sense every misdeed she carried beneath her skin.
Finally, she was led to a vast chamber, round and silent as a tomb. The ceiling soared into nothingness above her, swallowed by thick shadows. A mirror stood in the center of the room—tall and monolithic, its frame carved from black obsidian etched with sigils that seemed to move when she wasn't looking directly at them. The surface of the mirror was impossibly smooth, darker than glass, like a pool of midnight water.
The Hollow King's voice curled into her ears—low, melodic, and suffocating. "This is where you must choose."
Aurenya hesitated at the edge of the mirror's reach. She could feel its pull. It wasn't merely a mirror. It was a gate, a judgment, a trap.
The surface rippled as she stepped closer, her reflection warping, twisting. Images surged to the surface like ghosts clawing for breath.
The first vision rose with terrifying clarity: Aurenya the tyrant. She wore a crown of burning gold, her eyes like twin suns. Her armor gleamed, blood-slicked and beautiful. Beneath her feet lay the ruins of the world—cities in ash, skies torn open, the bodies of those she had once loved crumpled and lifeless. Her hands, glowing red, were soaked in power and regret, the curse from Kael now a weapon she wielded without mercy. Her face held no sorrow—only control.
Aurenya recoiled.
The mirror flickered.
Now she stood as a saint—draped in white robes, radiant with divine light. Her red hands were wrapped in golden bands, symbols of penance. Crowds of the broken knelt before her as she lifted them with promises of peace. But her smile didn't reach her eyes. Behind the blessings was the same history—the same trail of blood she had buried beneath holy words. Her curse had simply been repainted as a relic of sacrifice.
A third flicker.
Aurenya saw herself as a child again—barefoot, running through a sunlit field scattered with bluebells. Laughter bubbled from her lips, echoing with innocence. Her hands were clean. Her eyes untroubled. But in the distance, storm clouds brewed, and a crimson mark crept along her arm, slow and inevitable.
The fourth image sent a chill down her spine.
She stood with Kael, their foreheads pressed together, limbs tangled in a tender embrace. The room around them was quiet, timeless. Love shimmered in their eyes, but even here—especially here—she could feel the curse pulsing between them. Her hands glowed faintly red as they rested on his skin, and he was smiling, but it didn't reach his soul. His image shimmered, as if it might vanish at any moment.
Her heart ached. Her curse—the red hands—was always there, a barrier even in love, even in dreams.
The Hollow King's voice slithered through her mind. "Choose one. Become her. Or become nothing."
Aurenya's breath came raggedly. The room spun as her heartbeat thundered in her chest. Each reflection had cut deeper than the last. She didn't know how long she stood there, staring at the mirror, her mind cracking under the weight of illusion and memory.
"None of them are real," she whispered.
"They are all real," the Hollow King replied. "Or they could be. You must choose a truth to live by."
"No," she said, stronger this time. "They're all lies. Fragments of me, distorted through your lens."
The mirror pulsed again, brighter now. The reflections returned—each one flickering faster, overlapping. Tyrant. Saint. Child. Lover. Back and forth until they blurred into one. Her hands in every version were red. Cursed. Condemned.
Aurenya stepped forward, trembling, heart pounding in her ears. She reached out. Her fingers touched the mirror's surface, and a jolt of magic shot up her arm, searing through her like fire.
Her red hands burst into light, the curse flaring in violent defiance. Every memory Kael's curse had ever etched into her mind erupted at once—his betrayal, his death, his grief. The day he had screamed her name, hand raised in rage, magic lashing through the air as the curse took hold.
"You'll never touch anyone again without remembering me."
His words echoed in her skull like thunder.
Aurenya clenched her fists, the glow of her cursed hands burning brighter. She had borne this curse for years. It had shaped her, haunted her. But it had never defined her.
With a cry of rage, she slammed her palm against the mirror.
The glass exploded in a cascade of sound and light, shards spinning like stars across the chamber. Each piece reflected a different version of her. And none of them were whole.
The sigil on her wrist cracked, a thin fracture glowing blue-white beneath her skin. Power rushed up her arm, ancient and wild.
"I'm not made," she said through gritted teeth, her voice shaking with fury and freedom. "I choose me."
The Hollow King's voice faltered for the first time. "You cannot escape who you are."
Aurenya stepped through the broken mirror, into the center of the room, glass crunching beneath her boots. Her red hands glowed fiercely now, no longer something to hide. "I'm not who you made me," she said, louder. "And I'm not who I was."
The chamber began to tremble. The sigils carved into the walls flickered, unstable. The Hollow King's presence recoiled like a shadow at dawn. Something ancient shifted—some truth deeper than magic or fate.
"You think you are free?" the Hollow King hissed. "You think you can defy destiny?"
Aurenya didn't flinch. Her voice was clear. "I don't care what fate has planned. I'm forging my own path."
Her red hands rose, glowing brighter than they ever had—red not with shame, but power. For once, the curse felt less like a cage and more like a reminder: of her past, of Kael, of the pain and love that had shaped her. She wasn't erasing it. She was rising through it.
The broken glass on the floor rose around her, suspended in a slow orbit—each shard catching the light, showing a thousand possible versions of who she could be.
The last of the sigils shattered.
Silence fell.
And then came the Hollow King's final whisper, distant and crumbling:
"We'll see, little flame. We'll see how far you burn."
The mark on her wrist pulsed, then dimmed, as if it too had heard the change in her soul.
Aurenya turned away from the wreckage. She didn't need to look back.
The future had stopped being something she feared.
Now, it was hers to create.