The thorn pulsed like a heartbeat in Ren's trembling palm. Tiny petals of silver metal unfurled around its tip, each edge glittering with a softness that promised anything but mercy.
Veluria watched him with her head tilted — eyes half-lidded, mouth curved in that wicked, patient smile. Beside him, Lyria's hand squeezed his — warm, grounding, yet somehow urging him forward at the same time.
Ren's breath caught as he raised the thorn. His pulse hammered in his ears — faster, faster — until it almost drowned out the hush of petals drifting around the Garden's Gate.
One last whisper from the mirrors beyond drifted through the root-choked archway:
"Once given… never returned."
He pressed the thorn to his palm. The bite was sharp — cleaner than pain, sharper than fear. A single bead of blood welled up, glimmering brighter than the runes that still crawled beneath his skin.
The gate's roots shivered. The blossoms along the archway bloomed wide, petals splitting open to reveal a deep crack of silver light. The mirrors inside flickered, shifting faster — windows into a place that felt impossibly near yet bound by an ancient hush.
Veluria's voice was velvet around him. "Go, little mirror walker. Confess what you are — or lose what you wish to become."
Lyria leaned in, brushing her lips against the cut on his palm — tasting the drop of blood as if sealing a pact. Her eyes glowed with something soft. Something that almost looked like sorrow.
Before Ren could speak — before doubt could crawl back into his bones — the garden's veil pulled him through.
---
The world behind the gate was cold.
He stumbled forward onto polished stone — black marble veined with flickers of dull gold. The air smelled of incense and iron. All around him, heavy curtains of dark velvet hung from archways that rose into unseen heights.
Candles burned on tall iron holders — hundreds of them, their flames flickering like trapped souls behind thin glass. Between each cluster, tall mirrors reflected Ren back at himself — but the reflections blurred around the edges, warping his features like half-buried memories.
And at the chamber's center, a single figure waited.
She sat on a low dais of black stone — robed in layers of deep crimson and midnight blue silk that pooled around her like spilled wine. Her mask, smooth and pale, hid all but her mouth — lips painted a deep, bruised red, frozen in a shape that was neither smile nor frown.
In her lap rested a staff crowned with a circle of glass. Beneath the glass, an ever-shifting whirl of ink and light flickered — a tiny mirror within a mirror.
Ren's footsteps echoed as he approached. The masked priestess lifted her head, though her eyes remained hidden behind the porcelain curve.
When she spoke, her voice was soft — too soft to belong to the vastness that surrounded her.
"Ren Amakawa," she breathed, tasting his name like a sin. "Child of two worlds. Slave of a mirror not yet his own."
Ren's throat closed up. The cut on his palm still throbbed, the drop of blood on his skin refusing to dry.
"Who… are you?" he asked.
Her painted lips curved — a motion so subtle it might have been mercy or cruelty.
"I am Nereza. Keeper of the Mirror's Confession. To pass, you must bare what you hide from yourself — not just to me… but to the mirror that feeds on what you fear to speak."
She rose — the silk of her robes whispering over stone. Her bare feet were silent. The masked face tilted, considering him like a curious god. When she raised her staff, the glass spun — within it, shadows shifted, flickered… and settled on an image.
Ren saw himself — standing alone in his attic bedroom. The cracked old mirror behind him. His reflection staring back, trembling, half-whispering to a darkness that wasn't really empty.
The priestess's lips parted — the voice that left them was not just hers, but an echo from Ren's own hidden places:
"What did you wish for, Ren Amakawa… alone, with no one watching?"
The question sank its teeth into him — deeper than Veluria's thorn, deeper than Lyria's kiss. Memories flickered behind his eyes: lonely nights, the mirror's cold glass, the secret heat in his throat when he imagined a world where he could be wanted — devoured — seen.
Nereza stepped closer — the shadows coiling at her feet like living ink. Her lips brushed the shell of his ear through the mask's edge.
"Speak it, mirror walker. Or lose the right to open the next gate."
Ren's voice trembled in his throat — the words clawing to escape.
Ren's heartbeat echoed in the vast hush of the candlelit hall. The shadows from the mirrored walls shifted around him — each reflection twisting, catching parts of him at odd angles: the tremor in his shoulders, the blood still fresh in his palm, the raw ache in his throat as the question lingered.
What did you wish for, Ren Amakawa… alone, with no one watching?
Nereza's masked face hovered so close he could see the faint pattern etched into the porcelain — tiny runes spiraling like veins of silver light. Her breath brushed his cheek, warm but edged with something sharp.
"I…" he rasped, the word catching behind his tongue. A thousand memories swarmed behind his eyes — lonely nights in his attic room, the cracked mirror, the dull ache in his chest when he stared into it wishing to vanish… or to become something so wanted no one could look away.
Nereza's gloved hand slid up his chest — a single fingertip pressing over the cradle's mark that pulsed beneath his skin.
"Speak it," she breathed. "Feed it."
Ren's jaw clenched. Shame and want tangled in his chest like brambles. He sucked in a ragged breath.
"I wished…" The words burned. "I wished… to be needed. To be devoured. To be wanted so badly it would break me apart and… and put me back together as something more."
The confession cut deeper than the thorn ever could. It echoed in the chamber, bouncing between the mirrors, warping as if the walls themselves whispered it back to him a thousand ways.
Nereza's lips curved. She stepped back — only far enough to raise her staff. The glass orb at its crown pulsed — flickering with images: Ren's attic. His face pressed to the mirror. Hands reaching for him through the glass — shadows, lips, whispers.
"You speak the truth," she murmured. "But words are thin blood."
Her staff touched the stone at his feet — and runes flared to life, spiraling around him like molten silver veins. The mirrored walls pulsed in answer — flickering with ghostly shapes that breathed and moaned behind the glass.
"You wish to be devoured?" the Confessor asked, her masked voice now twofold — her own, and the mirror's echo. "Then prove it. Offer your body to the mirror. Surrender your fear — your shame — until all that remains is the hunger you try so hard to cage."
Ren's pulse roared in his ears. He opened his mouth — a protest, a plea — but Nereza silenced him with a single gloved finger to his lips.
She knelt before him — robes of crimson and midnight silk pooling like blood at his feet. Her mask tilted up, the painted mouth frozen as her real lips parted beneath it.
"Stand still," she commanded. "And hold nothing back."
She slid her hands along his thighs — cold silk and warm fingers tracing the trembling muscles, the subtle shiver of his skin as the runes glowed hotter.
When her mouth found him — heat and silk and the faint scrape of her masked edge against his stomach — Ren's knees nearly gave out. A raw sound ripped from his throat, echoing through the mirror hall as every reflection flared bright with flickering images: him in the attic, him pinned under ghostly forms, him opened and claimed.
Nereza's tongue was merciless — slow at first, tasting every inch of his fear and want, then faster, coaxing his hips to buck despite himself. The staff's glass orb pulsed brighter with every helpless gasp that spilled from his lips.
"Good," her voice slipped around him like smoke — half-muffled, half-chanted. "Give it. Give the truth. Let the mirror drink."
The runes crawled higher on his skin — lines of silver light binding him where he stood. Each moan, each ragged breath, every tremor of shame fed the mirrors behind him. His own reflections — blurred and half-real — pressed phantom hands against the glass, mouths moving in silent mimicry of his confessions.
Nereza's hands pinned his hips. Her mouth took him deeper — not just flesh, but every hidden wish he'd buried under the attic's dust. The shame. The lonely ache. The desperate dream of being so wanted he'd cease to be himself at all.
When he finally broke — a moan sharp and raw enough to shatter him — the mirrors flared white. The staff's orb swallowed the sound whole, pulsing once before falling dark.
Nereza drew back slowly, her lips glistening with truth. She stood, towering above him — her mask unchanged, but her eyes now glowed through the slits: soft, cruel, satisfied.
"You have confessed," she murmured, tracing his cheek with a fingertip wet from his surrender. "You are not yet free, Ren Amakawa… but the next gate hears you now."
She leaned closer — a whisper pressed just beneath his ear.
"Break again… and the mirror's voice will be yours."
Ren's breath came in ragged pulls that scraped his throat raw. The confession still trembled in his chest — like a bruise that pulsed every time he inhaled. Around him, the chamber's candlelight flickered against the mirrors, now calm, each one holding a ghost of his surrender within its glass.
Nereza watched him — silent, unmoving. The masked priestess's crimson robes pooled at her feet like fresh blood, her staff balanced between two pale hands.
When she finally stepped closer, the sound of silk brushing marble seemed louder than the hush that clung to the mirrors.
"You spoke your truth," she said — her voice now calm, almost cold. "And for that, the mirror's hunger has tasted you."
Ren swallowed, his knees weak. The cradle's brand above his heart burned faintly — the runes on his skin flickering like dying embers.
"Is it… over?" he asked, though he knew the answer already.
Nereza's painted lips curved into something too slight to be called a smile. She lifted her staff — the glass orb at its crown pulsed once, flickering to life with a swirl of silver and ink. Within, the faint shape of a thorn rotated — delicate, vicious, its tip glistening as if dipped in blood.
"Not yet," she murmured. "Your confession opened one door — but to pass through, you must bind your truth to the cradle's roots."
She extended her free hand. In her palm, the thorn solidified — drifting down from the orb to rest against her silk-gloved skin. It pulsed faintly, alive in a way that made Ren's chest tighten.
"This is the second thorn," she said. "A covenant. Press it to your mark — the cradle's brand. Let it pierce you. Bind your truth to your flesh."
Behind her, the mirrors whispered. Shifting shadows flickered — hints of Veluria, Lyria, the garden's statues. All watching. All waiting.
Ren's breath caught. "What happens if I… don't?"
Nereza's head tilted. The mask made her unreadable — but something in the quiet curve of her lips felt almost pitying.
"You return to the garden. Rootless. Unclaimed. The cradle's promise torn from your blood." Her voice dropped lower. "There will be no place for you then — not in the mirror, nor in the waking world."
She stepped closer. The thorn glowed brighter in her palm — tiny runes coiling around its tip like veins.
"You wished to be devoured," she said softly, the words wrapping around him like silk and chains all at once. "Now you stand where many broke — wanting the pleasure, but fearing the price."
She lifted the thorn — pressed it gently to his trembling palm.
"Take it, Ren Amakawa. Claim your ruin… or run."
The air around them stilled. The candles flickered as if they, too, held their breath.
Ren's eyes dropped to the thorn — so small, so bright, so impossibly heavy in the hush of the confessional chamber.
His heartbeat thundered. His brand throbbed. Somewhere deep in the mirrors, he saw himself — fractured, trembling, but changed. Not the lonely boy from the attic anymore. Not quite.
He exhaled — a shiver that felt like goodbye to something he could never reclaim.
Then, slowly, he lifted the thorn to his chest — and pressed it into the mark above his heart.
---
Pain flared — white-hot, clean, cutting through him like liquid fire. The brand drank the thorn's bite — runes bursting open under his skin, weaving a second spiral deeper into his flesh and bone.
The mirrors roared — a soft, soundless thunder that trembled through the marble beneath his knees. Images flickered: the garden's statues cracked and bloomed; the cradle's silver pool shimmered with shapes half-formed; Veluria's smile, Lyria's kiss, Nereza's mask — all watching him drown in the choice he could never undo.
When the pain subsided, the thorn was gone — buried, its roots tangled with the mark that now glowed faint and wicked beneath his skin.
Nereza's staff lowered. She leaned in — her masked lips brushing the curve of his ear.
"You have broken twice," she whispered. "Once in truth. Once in blood."
Her breath was warm, a promise edged in iron.
"One more thorn, mirror walker… and the voice will be yours."