Chapter 32: The Mirror of Thandrel
The storm hadn't stopped—not for days now. Thunder rolled like some god's slow, simmering rage above the capital, never striking, never relenting. Rain drummed against the palace roofs like a warning no one wanted to hear.
But Elira had stopped fearing warnings.
She was one.
Her cloak was soaked straight through, heavy and cold against her skin as she walked the shadowed halls of a forgotten wing of Thandrel Palace. No lanterns. No guards. Kael had cleared the way for her without a word. He hadn't asked why. He didn't need to.
Because something had shifted inside her.
It wasn't just the fire that had exploded from her hands in the council chamber or the way her voice had cracked stone when she defied the lords. This was older. Stranger. Like her blood had begun whispering in a voice not hers, calling her toward a memory she didn't remember living.
Now, it led her here.
To an ancient, iron-bound archway, marked with a sigil that pulsed faintly beneath her fingers: two serpents devouring each other.
The original crest of House Thandrel.
Before the crowns, before the betrayals. Before the lies.
She pressed her palm to it.
The door creaked open—and with it came the scent of age and dust and silence thick enough to choke.
Inside was a vault. A round chamber held up by worn stone pillars etched in fading runes. Webs clung to forgotten statues. No light, except what filtered in through a cracked skylight, silver and ghostlike.
And in the center stood a mirror.
But not glass.
Obsidian—perfectly polished, impossibly black, framed in bone and tarnished metal. A crown shaped like a sleeping dragon curled at the top.
Elira stepped forward, breath tight in her chest.
The Mirror of Thandrel.
She barely remembered the stories. Half-whispers from a nursemaid long ago, about a mirror that didn't show what you wanted to see. Just what was real.
She waited for her reflection.
But the surface stayed black.
Then… it moved.
And what stared back at her stole the breath from her lungs.
It was her—but not. Her eyes glowed silver. A crown of fire and ash sat heavy on her brow. Shadowed wings unfurled behind her like something torn from the stars, and fire bled from her hands. Golden constellations were etched into her skin.
And beneath her feet?
Ruins.
Not a throne. A world burned.
"No," she whispered. "That's not me."
But she didn't look away.
Because part of her knew.
It wasn't a dream. Not a vision. It was a memory that had never been hers—and somehow still was. The kind of truth no prophecy could bury.
She hadn't been cursed.
She was the curse.
And it was waking up.
"Elira!"
Kael's voice cut through the quiet like a knife. She didn't turn until he was beside her, hair soaked, breathing hard. He looked at the mirror—and saw nothing.
Just black glass.
"What is this place?" he asked.
She couldn't answer. Didn't know how.
Kael stepped beside her, his voice softer. "What did it show you?"
Her fingers twitched. "A crown. Fire. Me, but… twisted. Or maybe just honest."
"You looked like a queen," he said.
She looked down. "I looked like a weapon."
He didn't flinch. "Maybe you always were. Doesn't mean you're pointed at the wrong thing."
She almost laughed. Almost.
But something inside her shifted again—sharp and strange.
The mirror pulsed.
And this time, it showed someone else.
Not her.
A man.
A king.
Dark and tall, hollow-eyed, symbols etched across his skin that matched the ones now faintly glowing on her own. He stood in silence over a field of the dead as the sky cracked open behind him, light and shadow bleeding into the world.
Kael saw it too.
"Who is that?" he asked.
Elira stared, throat dry. "The one who never died."
Kael turned to her. "He's just a myth."
"No," she said quietly. "He's real. And I think he remembers me."
The ground beneath them trembled—low and distant. A chime echoed once… twice… three times.
Alarm bells.
Kael snapped into motion. "That's the southern wall."
A guard burst into the chamber, soaked and shaking, blood streaking his torn tabard.
"Highnesses," he gasped. "The southern wall's been breached. It's the Forgotten Order. They've joined forces with the loyalists."
Elira's heart slammed in her chest.
The Forgotten Order.
Not just a rumor anymore.
She turned back to the mirror. Her reflection was gone now.
In its place: a battlefield. The same one she'd seen before.
Not in the future.
Soon.
Kael gripped her shoulder. "What do we do?"
She looked at him—really looked at him—and felt the fear settle into something steadier. Fiercer.
"We fight," she said.
"For the throne?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No. For the truth. For what's left when we tear all this down."
Outside, lightning split the sky again.
And Elira Thandrel, once a girl in chains, walked out of the dark chamber—not as a queen.
But as a reckoning.