Eryshae

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Sam

Carriage

The reins felt strange in his hands. Not because they were unfamiliar, though they were, but because the creatures they guided weren't horses at all, but massive, muscled raccoons with glossy fur and twitching ears. Their striped tails flicked with each step as they pulled the carriage down the winding road, claws clicking over packed earth.

Sam sat high on the driver's perch, posture rigid, one hand on the reins, the other resting close to his thigh. He didn't need to look behind him. He could feel her there, every jolt of the wheels, every shift of her unconscious form echoing through the fibers of his being.

Vael.

Micah sat beside him. The boy was too quiet, hands tucked into his lap, the way children got when they didn't know how to name what had just happened. His mother was dead. His world undone. But he hadn't cried. Not once. Neither had Sam, even when he saw Toya's body burn. The least he could do was cut a lock of her hair and wrap it around his wrist. It was his fault really that they had left her alone with a monster.

He focused on the road ahead, lit by the last embers of a setting sun bleeding across the treetops. Each flicker of amber light brought out the green in the leaves, the gold in the dust, and the red silver on his knuckles.

Vael's blood. The creature's blood. His. Micah shifted beside him. "Will she wake up?" Sam's jaw tightened. He didn't answer right away. "She will," he said finally, low and certain. "She's stronger than anything I've ever seen." Micah nodded. His small fingers toyed with the hem of his sleeve. The boy didn't speak again.

Behind them, the carriage creaked, wheels rumbling. Inside, Vael lay wrapped in a thick wool blanket, her breathing steady but shallow. The amber flower Sam had tucked behind her ear had lost its glow. But it had burned alive when it mattered most. And Sam would make sure she made it through, all the way through, even if he had to drag the sun itself down from the sky to light her way.

The rage hadn't left him.

It simmered beneath his skin, even as the bark peeled away from his arms in splinters and the vines receded like obedient serpents. His breath came fast, wild, but his eyes never left her.

Vael.

Blood stained her side. Her emerald hair was tangled and damp with sweat. Her blade lay across the room, forgotten. And still, still, she was trying to sit up. "Don't," Sam whispered. He dropped to his knees beside her, arms moving before thought could catch up. She was weightless in them. Fragile. Fire-forged. His.

The amber in his chest pulsed once, satisfied. Not just with the kill. Not just with the thing that had worn a woman's skin and dared to harm her. No, his heart rejoiced in the protection. The defense. In the act of burning away rot.

He cradled Vael carefully, one hand supporting her back, the other cradling her knees. She winced slightly but didn't resist. Her fingers curled lightly into the fabric at his shoulder. Then footsteps. Fast. Urgent. Annie burst into the Yellow Room first, apron streaked with soot and fear on her face. Malrick followed, his cane clacking against the floor, eyes already scanning the destruction. "Gods, " Annie gasped, hand flying to her mouth.

"Is she alive?" Malrick asked sharply, his voice a rasp, cutting through the stunned quiet. Sam didn't look at them right away. His gaze was still fixed on Vael's face, her eyes fluttering, her breathing shallow but steady. He tightened his hold, drawing her closer. "She will be."

Annie started forward, skirts swishing around her ankles. "Let me see her, let me help, " A wet, gurgling sound split the air. A sliver of silver, slick and serpent-like, uncoiled from the ruined remains near the hearth. Its voice rasped out through a shredded mouth not fully formed, broken ribs twitching with false life.

"Annie," it hissed. "We had a deal." Annie's eyes widened just as the thing lunged. A shard of its twisted mass, sharp and glistening, lashed out like a needle of spite. It struck Annie low in the side with a sickening crunch, piercing deep into her abdomen. She gasped.

"Annie!" Vael cried hoarsely from Sam's arms. Sam's eyes flared, already moving. Malrick swung his cane with surprising speed and cracked the creature's flailing limb, but not before Sam got there, vines exploding from his back like whips. They wrapped the dying remnant of the creature and yanked it backward with brutal force.

It screamed, shattered, died.

For real, this time.

Sam dropped to his knees again, one arm still wrapped tightly around Vael as he reached for Annie with the other. Blood pooled quickly beneath her, bright and terrible on the polished floor.

She was breathing, barely. Malrick knelt beside them with a grunt, already pulling a pouch from beneath his coat. "Hold her steady," he said. Annie coughed. Her lips trembled, trying to shape words. "Didn't, know the, Reflection could, still move."

"You're alright," Sam murmured, voice raw. "We've got you. Just stay with us."

"You knew it?" Vael asked, weak but clear, her head pressed against Sam's shoulder. Annie didn't answer. She couldn't. Her eyes fluttered shut as Malrick worked, murmuring something low in an old language. The silver wound hissed against his touch, smoke rising from where his fingers pressed herbs into it.

Sam held both women close, his jaw clenched, heart burning like fire behind the amber in his chest. "What deal?" he asked under his breath, but no one answered.

Not yet. And in the silence that followed, the house held its breath. Malrick's fingers worked quickly, despite the fresh blood soaking through Annie's clothes. With a practiced grimace, he reached inside her inner coat lining and found something: a folded envelope, stained slightly at the edges. The parchment was worn from handling, the fibers soft from being touched too often.

Across the front, in looping, careful ink:

Lorna.

His brows knit as he opened the flap and pulled out the single sheet within. The paper was yellowed with age, one corner torn like it had been ripped hastily from a larger whole. Sam stood nearby, cradling Vael as she watched in exhausted silence, her green eyes flicking to the letter. Malrick read aloud, voice low and steady, though it trembled by the end:

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

My dearest girl,

If you're reading this, it's because I didn't keep my promise. I didn't keep you safe.

There are things I should have told you long ago. About the mirror in the library, the one no one's supposed to see. The one behind the hidden shelf where the dust doesn't settle.

I only wanted to see your father again. Just once. I thought the mirror was harmless, a relic. I didn't know it had a voice. I didn't know it listened.

What came through wasn't him.

It wore his face. It smiled when I wept. It knew your name, and it, no, I must write this.

It asked me to feed it. Not food. Not warmth. Just souls. Fractured ones. The ones no one would miss.

Greaves saw it. He saw too much. I'm sorry.

I tried to stop. I tried to forget its voice. But it whispers when I sleep now. It says it can keep you safe. That it will wear me when I'm too tired to go on.

I don't know if I'm the one writing this anymore.

If you find this, burn the mirror. Burn me, if I've gone too far.

Do not look at it.

Do not listen.

Do not trust the eyes in the glass.

They are not mine.

You were always

– so loved

– so safe

– so mine

– so hungry

– so perfect

– So–

The letter ended in a jagged ink line that bled off the edge of the paper. Malrick stared at the page, unmoving. Then he slowly folded it shut, placing it back into the envelope as if closing the lid on a coffin. "Gods," Vael whispered. "She, Annie, "

"She made a deal," Malrick said grimly. "And she paid for it." Sam's eyes drifted to Annie's still form. The wound in her side continued to bleed, but more slowly now. Whatever vestige of the creature remained had died with that final strike. But the damage was done. The words hung between them, heavy as stone:

Burn the mirror. Burn me, if I've gone too far.

Sam held Vael close, her weight nothing in his arms, though he felt every shallow breath she took like it was his own. Her blood had dried along his forearms. Her emerald hair stuck to her cheek in sweat-matted curls. She hadn't said a word since the mirror cracked and the creature screamed itself apart, but her arms were around his neck, clutching weakly, and that was enough. She was still here.

The house had gone quiet. Not safe. Just… still. Malrick walked behind them, his boots muffled on the hallway carpet, the letter clutched in his gloved hand like it might bite him if he loosened his grip. He hadn't spoken since reading it aloud. Not even when he'd picked up the cracked mirror and wrapped it in cloth like it was a blade.

The Yellow Room was gone now, just another page turned. Now the house watched.

Sam pushed open the double doors of the library with his shoulder.

It greeted them like a tomb.

Dust motes drifted in the slant of golden light from the high, uncurtained window. Tall shelves loomed on every wall, laden with forgotten books. The scent of parchment, binding glue, and old secrets clung thick in the air. The space felt colder somehow, like the creature's death had siphoned the heat from the bones of the manor.

Sam moved past the reading table, toward the alcove he remembered, where the books were arranged too neatly, where the dust never settled. Malrick's boots scuffed behind him. "I don't like it," Malrick muttered. "That letter wasn't a metaphor. She meant the mirror back here."

Sam glanced at the shelf, then lowered Vael gently into one of the deep leather chairs by the hearth. She winced but didn't cry out. Her eyes fluttered open. Still dazed. Still bleeding. "I've got you," Sam said, voice low and steady. "Just rest."

Her fingers curled weakly around his. Malrick circled the bookshelf. "The dust line's here. Just like the letter said." He reached for the book beside the clean edge, The Myriad Reflections, its spine cracked but clean, and pulled it.

A low rumble answered.

The shelf clicked and creaked, gears inside ancient wood shifting. Then, with the reluctant groan of old secrets resisting exposure, a section of the bookcase eased backward and slid aside.

Behind it: a full-length mirror.

It was simple, even plain. Oval glass framed in tarnished silver. But no dust lay on the glass. No cobwebs on the corners. The reflection shimmered faintly as if it breathed.

And in it, nothing moved but them. No watchers. No whispered names. No hunger. But Sam didn't trust stillness anymore. He turned to Malrick. "We burn it. Just like the letter said." Malrick hesitated. "It might not be that easy."

"It was never easy." Sam glanced at Vael, then back to the mirror. "Fetch what we need." Malrick gave a sharp nod and turned to go. And Sam stood guard, the Amber Heart warm in his chest, the mirror before him catching the firelight in its depths, and reflecting nothing he wanted to see.

Sam stood in the hush of the library, the mirror gleaming faintly before him like a polished wound. The room felt colder the longer he stared at it, as though the glass were leeching warmth from the air. Behind him, Vael murmured in her sleep, a soft sound like leaves rustling underfoot.

Then,

A glint at the mirror's base caught his eye.

He stepped closer. At first, he thought it was broken porcelain. Shards scattered across the floor like forgotten ornaments. But no… the shapes were wrong. Too fine. Too intricate. His breath caught.

Small bones.

Tiny ribs. A slender arm. A child's jawbone, turned slightly to the side, as if in sleep. The remains had been tucked between the wooden floorboards and the mirror's base, mostly hidden unless you were looking, unless you knew what you were seeing.

Sam crouched slowly, the Amber Heart pulsing once in his chest like a warning drum. These weren't just any bones. They were hers. Or what was left of her. His gut twisted.

Lorna.

The girl with the sad smile and quick answers. The girl who had known too much and too little all at once. The girl who had never once looked in a mirror when they passed one. He rose to his feet, the cold rising with him. A slow, angry certainty rooted in his spine.

She was never Lorna. She was always the thing behind the glass. Just then, the door groaned open. Malrick entered with an armful of firewood, a metal can of oil sloshing faintly as he walked. His eyes swept the room, and landed on the bones. He went still.

"Gods preserve..." he whispered. "Is that…?" Sam didn't look away from the mirror. "I think that's what's left of the real Lorna." Malrick swallowed hard, the lines around his eyes deepening. "Then the creature wore her. Just like the cook."

"Longer," Sam said. "Years, maybe. She said it wanted the still-winged one left alone. That's Annie's daughter."

"Meaning the deal was with Annie. Gods... that voice at the end…" Sam turned to him now, jaw tight. "We burn it. Every inch. And the bones too. If there's anything left in that mirror, " Malrick nodded grimly and unscrewed the oil can. Together, they began to douse the frame and the floor around it, flames waiting for the strike.

The oil soaked into the floorboards, darkening them like old blood. Sam stood over the bones with Vael still in his arms, her weight nothing against the iron weight in his chest. Malrick moved methodically, every gesture deliberate, as he lit the corner of an old chair and set it against the oil-slicked edge of the mirror.

For a breath, nothing happened.

Then,

The mirror screamed.

Not like a voice. Not even like a creature. It was glass, breaking inside out, a sound that tunneled through the bones of their skulls and made their teeth ache. The surface of the mirror warped and twisted, like something behind it was thrashing against the pane in blind rage.

The shriek climbed in pitch.

The silver lining of the glass began to blister, bubbling like skin too close to flame. Malrick stumbled back, covering his ears..Sam didn't move. He watched as faces flickered in the mirror, Lorna, Annie, Greaves, the cook, a hundred others, a thousand, none of them right, all of them wrong. All of them puppets.

Then the mirror shattered inward, shards folding in like a throat closing around a scream. The fire roared with sudden hunger. It leapt to the tapestries, licked the books, and climbed the walls with greedy fingers. The old wood of the Drowned Heron, dry and brittle with age, gave itself over in seconds. Flames bloomed down the hall, under the doors, racing up the staircase like a living thing.

Malrick coughed, voice rough. "We have to go, now." Sam turned without a word, shielding Vael with one arm and bounding through the growing inferno. Smoke choked the corridors. Firelight danced like demons across the walls. Behind him, the library howled like a throat full of ash and broken names.

They made it through the main hall just as the chandelier fell, crashing in a bloom of cinders and iron. Malrick kicked open the front door, and the three of them tumbled out into the yard, blinking in the sudden dark of night.

Behind them, the Drowned Heron burned. Not with the chaos of ordinary fire, but with the fury of something cleansed. Every beam, every wall, every cursed inch of it went up in blinding orange. The scream of the mirror still echoed in their bones, but it was fading now. Hollowing out.

Dying.

Sam stood in the grass, holding Vael close, his Amber Heart still glowing with slow fury beneath his shirt. Malrick, soot-streaked and panting, looked back at the blaze. "Well," he rasped, "I suppose that's one way to check out of an inn."