Location: Rosehall Palace – Throne Hall to Inner Archives
My hands trembled as I clutched the shard of mirror.
It was cold. Too cold. Not like glass from this world, but something deeper — darker. It pulsed faintly in my palm like it had a heartbeat of its own. Each beat seemed to echo through my bones, as if trying to remember something for me. Something I had no words for.
She's awake.
That voice still rattled around my skull. Not spoken. Not heard. Thought. Whispered from behind walls that should not think, should not breathe.
I dropped the shard, but it didn't fall. It hovered in the air for a second, then spun — slow and deliberate — before slicing downward and embedding itself into the floor.
A thin line of frost spread from the point of impact.
I backed away. The room felt colder now. The vines across the floor had begun to twitch.
My chest tightened. I needed answers. I needed someone — anyone.
I turned and fled the throne room.
My footsteps echoed, but only mine. The palace had been grand once, sprawling like a blooming rose from the heart of the kingdom. I remembered bits — dancing down the stairs, laughter in the garden, my mother's hands brushing back my hair. But those memories were like broken feathers, floating without shape.
Now it was just stone and shadow.
No servants. No light. No kingdom.
I paused in the middle of the Grand Hall. The portraits along the walls seemed to follow me. Royal ancestors — kings, queens, warriors. Their painted eyes shimmered in the gloom. I could swear their expressions had changed.
Pity.Fear.Warning?
"Someone has to be alive," I murmured to no one.
The echoes answered with silence.
Then — a sound. A creak, far off, like a door slowly opening. My breath hitched. I turned sharply, following the noise. It came from the west wing — the oldest part of the palace.
The Forbidden Archive.
I hadn't gone there since I was a child. No one had. My father once told me it held books too dangerous to read, artifacts too cursed to destroy. My mother called it "the kingdom's forgotten truth." They sealed it with gold locks and red wax.
But the door was open now. And something — perhaps that cold part of me that hadn't thawed — pulled me toward it.
The corridor narrowed as I walked, ceiling lower, candles snuffed centuries ago. As I descended the spiral staircase, the walls began to change. No longer smooth marble or polished wood — now, raw stone. Cold. Wet. Carved with symbols I didn't recognize.
My fingertips brushed them as I passed. They hummed, as if remembering my touch.
At the bottom, the door yawned open. Inside, the Archive felt… wrong.
The air shimmered like heat on stone, though it was colder than anywhere else. Shelves upon shelves, rising into darkness, filled with books in strange bindings — black leather, bark, pressed flower petals. Scrolls bound in hair. Bottles filled with ink that glowed softly in the dark.
And mirrors. So many mirrors. Hung like paintings. Small hand mirrors. One as tall as a wall, wrapped in cloth and sealed with chains.
Something stirred in me. A memory.
This place knew me.
In the center of the room, a figure sat at a crooked table — hunched, unmoving.
I froze.
Was it real?
"Hello?" I whispered.
The figure turned. Slowly.
Not a person.
A puppet.
A marionette-like thing made of wood and wire, dressed in royal scribe robes, its face an intricately carved mask with no eyes — just black sockets and a painted mouth.
But it spoke.
"Princess Aurora of Lysvare," it said in a voice like dry paper scraping together. "You have returned."
My heart pounded. I swallowed hard. "Where is everyone?"
The puppet twitched, tilting its head. "Gone. To sleep. Some to rot. Some to fade."
"What happened to them?" I asked.
"You did," it replied, and something in its voice sounded almost sad. "Or rather — the curse you carry."
I took a step back, anger rising. "I didn't ask to be cursed."
"No one does. But once cursed, we all bleed," it murmured. Then it lifted a bony wooden hand and gestured toward a thick, dust-covered book on the table. "Your answers lie here."
I hesitated, then opened the book.
The pages shifted on their own. Images formed. Drawings. Diagrams. A weaving of stories. Mine.
A princess born beneath a red comet. A prophecy broken. A spindle not meant for her. A kingdom cursed to silence.
And then…
Other stories.
A girl in red who walked into a noble house with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue. A girl with glass in her blood and magic in her breath. A mirror shattered into a hundred stories.
"Others…" I whispered.
"Yes," said the puppet. "The curse is a thread in a tapestry much older than you."
I looked up sharply. "What tapestry?"
The puppet turned toward the chained mirror on the wall.
"The one behind the glass."