The fire was alive.
It whispered his name.
Lucien staggered through the flames, choking on the smell of blood and burning roses. The pyre roared higher, but the woman bound to it did not scream. Her eyes were violet—bright, defiant, familiar.
"Aradia…"
The name escaped before he could stop it. The dream always began this way — with guilt he could not explain and a woman he could never forget.
Her lips moved, and though the fire drowned her words, he somehow heard them inside his skull:
When I return, your soul will remember every flame.
Lucien jolted awake.
His breath tore through his chest; sweat drenched his sheets. The room swam in darkness except for the faint glow of dying embers in the hearth.
He pressed a trembling hand over his heart. It burned.
When he pulled his palm away, there was a faint red mark — the same one the physicians couldn't explain.
The curse mark.
He dragged himself from bed and poured a glass of water, trying to steady his pulse. The water trembled in the cup — not from his shaking hand, but from something unseen. The surface rippled in rhythm with his heartbeat.
And then the reflection changed.
For a blink, he saw her — pale skin, silver hair, violet eyes — staring back from the water. She smiled softly, almost pitying him.
Lucien crushed the cup. Glass shattered, blood mixing with water on the floor.
He stood frozen until the chamberlain knocked on the door.
"Your Majesty?"
Lucien didn't answer immediately. The voice of the woman still echoed in his mind, sweet and venomous: your soul will remember.
"Enter," he said finally.
The old man bowed. "A nightmare again, sire?"
Lucien's jaw clenched. "Send for High Priest Coren. Now."
By dawn, incense filled the emperor's private hall.
Coren stood at the foot of the throne, a thin man draped in white robes stitched with gold sigils.
"You've seen her again," the priest murmured, studying the fatigue under Lucien's eyes.
"I don't see her. I feel her," Lucien replied, voice low and hoarse. "Each time I close my eyes, I smell the smoke. I hear her voice."
"The curse persists," Coren said gravely. "The Pyre's Shadow — a prophecy from the witch trials. When the witch returns, the flame that bound her will haunt the bloodline of her killer."
Lucien's knuckles whitened. "Superstition."
Coren's gaze didn't waver. "And yet your heart burns every dawn. Perhaps, Majesty, superstition bleeds deeper than you admit."
Lucien turned away, staring at the grand mirror behind the altar. A gift from a forgotten queen, its surface shimmered like water under moonlight.
"Break it," he said suddenly.
The priest blinked. "Sire?"
"Every mirror in this palace. Break them all."
Coren hesitated. "If I may — it is not the mirrors that bind the curse. They merely reflect it. Destroying them may only anger what lingers."
Lucien's reflection flickered. For a heartbeat, it smiled at him — though he hadn't moved.
"Do it anyway," he ordered, voice sharp. "Let her rage. I'd rather face her ghost than my dreams."
While the palace priests scrambled to cover mirrors and douse candles, somewhere far below — in the servants' wing — Aradia stirred.
The echo of his dream pulsed faintly through her chest. Her soul vibrated, matching the rhythm of his pain.
She clutched the edge of her bed, panting, as heat spread beneath her skin. Her fingers glowed faintly, silver under the darkness.
"Stop," she whispered, pressing her hand over her heart. "I told you I'd return, not that I'd share your pain."
But the curse didn't listen. It had its own memory — a tether forged in blood and betrayal.
Aradia stumbled to the small basin near her bed and stared into it. Her reflection shimmered, flickering between her current body and her old one. The witch with white hair and ash-streaked eyes looked back at her with something like sorrow.
"He dreams again," the reflection whispered. "And the palace dreams with him."
A sudden knock at the door startled her.
"New maid!" a voice barked. "The head servant demands all mirrors in the lower wing covered before dawn. Orders from the Emperor."
Aradia froze.
So he remembered enough to fear his own reflection.
That was a start.
She wrapped a dark shawl around her shoulders and opened the door. The corridor was alive with motion — servants rushing with cloths, ladders, and whispered prayers. Candles flickered as if the air itself trembled.
Each mirror she passed hummed faintly. Some whispered her name.
Each time, her heart answered.
In the eastern corridor, she stopped before a tall mirror left uncovered. Dust coated its edges. Her reflection seemed smaller, dimmer — but her eyes gleamed.
"He dreams of you," a voice said softly.
Aradia turned sharply. No one was there. Only the mirror's trembling surface.
She reached out, her fingertips grazing the glass. The mirror rippled like water.
For a moment, she saw him — Emperor Lucien — asleep in his chamber, hand clutching his chest.
And as she watched, he whispered her name again.
The mirror rippled again — slow, liquid, and deliberate — until the image of the emperor sharpened like a reflection trapped under ice.
He looked so much like Kael that her breath caught.
The same eyes — gray as stormlight.
The same hands that had once reached for her across the pyre.
And now, he trembled in sleep, clutching his chest as though something burned beneath it.
Aradia's fingertips brushed the mirror. The surface was cool, yet heat bloomed beneath her skin. The mark over her heart — the same mark that mirrored his — pulsed once, twice, then steadied in rhythm.
They were breathing together.
Her reflection flickered — for a heartbeat, his breath fogged her side of the glass.
"We're still bound," she whispered. "Even after death."
The mirror answered with a faint hum, like a living thing sighing in its sleep.
She drew back. The connection weakened instantly, leaving the world cold again.
Still trembling, she wrapped her shawl tighter and backed away from the mirror.
From down the corridor came the Head Servant's sharp voice:
"Cover those mirrors, girl! His Majesty's orders!"
"Yes, Head Mistress," Aradia called, forcing her voice to sound meek. She threw a sheet over the mirror, hiding Lucien's image — though the fabric fluttered as if something behind it still breathed.
By midday, the palace had grown strangely silent.
The usual music of servants and nobles had dulled to whispers. Even the crows on the parapets refused to caw. The air was heavy, as if the palace itself listened for something.
In the emperor's hall, Lucien sat on the edge of his throne, staring at the covered mirrors. He hadn't touched his wine, hadn't moved in hours.
The chamberlain coughed delicately. "Your Majesty, the priests say the halls are cleansed. The mirrors are all shrouded."
Lucien's eyes stayed fixed on the largest one, its black cloth fluttering faintly despite the still air.
"Do you hear it?" he murmured.
The old man frowned. "Hear what, sire?"
"The sound. The heartbeat."
He rose suddenly, crossing the marble floor to the covered mirror. "It's faint. But it's there."
He pressed a hand against the cloth. Beneath it, the surface pulsed once — soft, like a heartbeat.
The chamberlain took an uneasy step back. "Shall I fetch the priest again?"
Lucien didn't answer. He slowly drew the cloth aside.
Beneath it, the mirror shimmered — not showing his reflection but a pale corridor lit by candlelight.
A woman stood in it, her back to him. Her hair was silver-white, her shoulders wrapped in dark cloth.
Lucien froze.
"Who…" His voice broke. "Who are you?"
The woman turned — and for an instant, her violet eyes met his through the glass.
The air snapped. Candles guttered. Every mirror in the room cracked with a single sound like breaking bone.
The woman vanished.
Down in the servants' quarters, Aradia fell to her knees. The shock hit her like a wave.
Her palms smoked, the sigils on her skin glowing red-hot.
"Fool," hissed a voice from the air — the faint, sardonic whisper of Caspian, the spirit bound to her grimoire. "You crossed the veil before you were ready."
Aradia gritted her teeth. "He saw me."
"Yes. And now the curse sees you too."
Caspian's laughter echoed faintly, cruel and amused. "Did you think binding your soul to his would go unnoticed? The palace remembers. The curse remembers. He remembers."
She looked up at the ceiling — through stone and smoke and time — and felt his presence like a heartbeat beneath her ribs.
"It's begun," she whispered.
In the throne hall above, guards rushed in to find the emperor standing before shattered mirrors. The chamberlain stammered questions, but Lucien said nothing.
He pressed his hand to his heart again. It still burned.
He could still feel her touch.
He turned to the High Priest, who had run in pale-faced and trembling.
"She's here," Lucien said quietly. "Somewhere in this palace."
That night, Aradia couldn't sleep.
Each time she closed her eyes, she saw him — not as the emperor, but as the prince she'd once loved. The memory came unbidden: his hand reaching for hers before the flames rose.
Her chest ached.
"Don't," she whispered into the darkness. "Don't let me pity you again."
But when she pressed her hand to her heart, the pulse that answered wasn't hers alone.
Through walls and mirrors and a hundred years of silence, his heartbeat echoed back — steady, relentless, alive.