POV: Dual – Irena & Mara (Mirrored Intercut)
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[ IRENA ]
The mirror burned cold.
Each step she took through the crimson pane scraped memory from her skin. Her childhood peeled away first — the soft pink ballet shoes, her first kiss with Lucien in the greenhouse, the scent of cinnamon in her mother's cloak. Gone. Eaten by Mara's reflection.
The world on the other side looked like a painting that had bled too far from its frame.
Her house stood there.
So did Lucien.
So did she.
But none of them were hers.
Not anymore.
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[ MARA ]
She felt it the moment Irena crossed back.
Like a sudden gasp in a crowded room — someone important had just arrived.
Mara looked into the gilded mirror that hung above Lucien's fireplace and saw it tremble. The reflection no longer smiled back the way she trained it to.
"She's here," she whispered, fingers twitching.
Lucien, in the other room, was humming softly, slicing fruit for their late breakfast. He didn't know what was wrong. He hadn't noticed the sky outside had stopped turning.
Time was pausing. The mirror was choosing.
And she would not let it pick the girl who walked away.
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[ IRENA ]
The house welcomed her like a wound reopens.
No wards stopped her.
No locks turned.
Every room had been re-decorated — in her taste. Her preferences. Even the books on the shelves were dog-eared where she had once folded them, with margins scribbled in handwriting that looked like hers, but wasn't.
It was off.
Like seeing a childhood drawing of yourself, re-colored in someone else's rage.
She reached the mirror in the foyer — the one she used to whisper to when her mother was gone and the house was too quiet.
She touched it.
And her own reflection blinked.
Twice.
And then it smiled — a beat too late.
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[ MARA ]
"She's coming," Mara said, stepping into the hallway.
She was already wearing Irena's smile. Her laugh. Her spine-straight posture and heartbreak-ready eyes. She'd practiced this. She'd paid for it in teeth, time, and the pain of a thousand mirrored cuts.
But she wasn't ready for this.
She wasn't ready for the real girl to still look beautiful after everything.
She hated that her hands trembled.
She hated that she still loved her.
"I gave you everything," she whispered, fingernails digging into her palm. "And you still made me the villain."
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[ IRENA ]
The door opened before she could knock.
Lucien stood there, knife still in hand, an apple half-sliced in the other.
His expression flickered like a glitch — confusion, horror, awe.
"Irena?"
From behind him, Mara stepped out.
Wearing her dress. Her necklace. Her voice.
But not her soul.
"No," Mara said. "I'm Irena."
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The Mirror Decides
It began with a pulse.
The entire house shifted — every window reflected both girls now. Two Irenas. Same voice, same shape. One forged. One born.
But the mirror didn't care about birth.
The mirror cared about belief.
> Who was more convincing?
> Who had earned it?
> Who would bleed less when it broke?
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[ MARA ]
"Ask me anything," she said to Lucien, voice soft as the first night he told her he loved her.
"I remember our first secret. I remember your nightmares. I remember the watch you broke and tried to blame on the dog."
Lucien blinked, stunned.
Mara stepped forward.
"I never left you."
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[ IRENA ]
"You never had him," Irena snapped.
Her voice was cracked open, raw, beautiful in its imperfection.
"Do you remember the time we almost broke up because you kissed me and ran away crying?" she asked, looking at Lucien. "You said it didn't mean anything. You lied. And I forgave you. Because I loved you."
Lucien looked like he might collapse.
"I never told her that," he whispered.
The mirror in the hallway shuddered.
A ripple split across its surface.
A choice was forming.
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The Split
Theda appeared without knocking — of course.
She stood just inside the doorway, eyes hollow, hands full of mirror shards and dried flower crowns.
"You understand what's happening, yes?" she asked both girls.
They stared at her.
"This is not a fight for the boy. This is a fight for the name. One of you will walk away as Irena Vale. The other…" she tilted her head. "The other will fade."
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[ IRENA ]
She looked at Mara — not as a monster.
Not as a thief.
But as a girl who broke first.
"Mara," she said. "You didn't have to become me."
"I had to," Mara breathed. "I was nothing. You were everything."
"You were mine," Irena said softly.
That was the cruelest truth of all.
They had once been so close, the world thought them halves of a whole.
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The Final Naming
The mirror cracked down the center — a line between the girls.
One side reflected Irena's pain, unglamorous, unfiltered.
The other side showed Mara's perfected version — beautiful, seamless, curated to be loved.
Lucien reached toward the left.
His fingers passed through Irena's side of the glass.
He chose.
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[ MARA ]
"No."
One word.
Quiet. Final. Broken.
The mirror screamed.
Not a sound — but a shattering pressure, like being crushed beneath memory.
Mara fell to her knees.
"Not after all this. Not after I loved you."
Her voice was warping now — too high, too smooth.
Her reflection began to bleed static.
"I did this for you," she said.
But no one believed her anymore.
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[ IRENA ]
"I know," Irena whispered.
"I believe you."
And with those words—
Mara vanished.
No scream.
No flare.
Just… gone.
Like a reflection when the light shifts.
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Epilogue of the Chapter
The mirror is whole again.
Lucien drops the knife.
Theda breathes in deeply, like the storm has passed.
But Irena?
Irena touches her cheek.
It's still wet.
Still cracked.
And when she looks into the mirror again—
She sees Mara, just behind her eyes.
Waiting.
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