A Vow of Vengeance and Silk

The crown pulsed on its thorned pedestal like a living heart, each throb sending visible ripples through the stale air that made the candle flames gutter. Seraphine's breath came in short, sharp gasps as she stared at the queen…. no, the thing wearing the queen's perfect likeness. Every detail was meticulously recreated, from the distinctive beauty mark beneath her left eye to the way her pearl-embroidered sleeves draped just so. But the eyes gave it away. Pupils blown so wide they swallowed the irises whole, reflecting nothing but endless copies of Seraphine in the mirrored walls. The not queen smiled, revealing teeth that seemed slightly too sharp. "You feel it now, don't you?" Her voice carried that same melodic lilt, Lysara had used during court pronouncements, but underneath ran a buzzing hum that set Seraphine's teeth on edge. "That moment of perfect clarity when you understand you were never the victim in our story." The thorn in Seraphine's temple flared white-hot. Foreign memories flooded her mind with violent intensity, A younger Queen Lysara, her face streaked with tears, pressing the first circlet to a squalling infant's brow. The way the vines had twitched hungrily before sinking their thorns into tender flesh. The way the baby's cries had cut off abruptly.

The palace corridors she'd walked mere days ago now choked with emerald vines, courtiers frozen mid-scream as tendrils burst from their eyes and mouths like grotesque blossoms.

A procession of heirs stretching back through centuries, each wearing the same hollow expression as the crown drained them dry, their faces morphing one into another until they all wore Seraphine's features. She wrenched free from the visions with a gasp that tore at her throat. "You are not real." Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears - hoarse and broken.The queen's laugh was a discordant chime, the sound fracturing unnaturally in the enclosed space. "Oh, but I am. Just as real as the piece of me you carry in your pretty little skull." She reached out to tap the floating crown, making it sway gently. Her fingernails, Seraphine noticed, were perfect ovals of pearl , exactly as the real queen had worn them. "This place is merely... an echo. A memory given form by the connection between us."From beyond the mirrors came the muffled sounds of battle - the wet crunch of steel meeting bone, Kaelan's ragged breathing as he fought on alone. The queen followed Seraphine's gaze and sighed, a disturbingly human gesture.

"Such potential, wasted. The Dain boy was always my favorite." She stroked the crown's thorns with something resembling affection. "His bloodline lasted longer than most before breaking. But you..." Those black pit eyes fixed on Seraphine with terrifying focus. "You were crafted for this." The dagger's hilt pressed into Seraphine's palm, cool mother-of-pearl against her sweat-slicked skin. "Cut out the thorn. Take your rightful place." The queen gestured languidly toward a mirror where Kaelan fought desperately, his sword arm now bleeding heavily. "Or watch him die screaming like all the others." The reflection shimmered, showing Tristan's face contorted in agony as vines burst from his eye sockets. Shifted to show Pip's small body convulsing as thorns pierced his heart. Finally settled on an image of Seraphine herself kneeling before the throne, her eyes as black and empty as the queen's.The crown's whisper slithered ttought her mind, and vibrating in her bones "Choose."