BLEEDING VELVET

The sky didn't mend.

It hung above them torn open, stitched with veins of lightning, bleeding light that didn't belong to this world.

Almond stood beneath it like it was her veil.

The Twin didn't offer his hand. He just watched her, as if memorizing the shape of her rage.

She followed him through the ruin's throat, through the altar's breath, through a door that wasn't a door but a wound in the world.

And on the other side—

There was nothing.

Not death. Not silence. Not even dreams.

Just a place where God wasn't watching.

They arrived in a valley swallowed by fog.

The air reeked of regret and old rain.

Rotted trees twisted up like limbs frozen in prayer.

In the center, a circle of standing stones, black as sin, wept ash from their cracks.

"This is the site," the Twin whispered. "The Third Altar waits beneath."

He handed her a key carved from somebody's rib.

"You open it."

Almond didn't flinch.

She pushed the rib into the mouth of the tallest stone.

It groaned.

And the ground split open like it was remembering birth.

The descent was made of stairs that bled.

Each step left a mark on her boots, each breath scratched her lungs.

Velda and Kairo followed in silence, carrying salt, rope, and steel. They'd stopped asking why. Now they just followed like loyal demons.

Aren brought up the rear.

But something inside him stayed too quiet.

At one point, Velda leaned toward Almond and whispered, "Are you sure this isn't a trap?"

Almond smiled, hollow and wide.

"It's always been a trap," she said. "I'm just done pretending I don't want to see who it catches."

The Third Altar was made of mirrors.

Thousands of them, stacked like bones, forming a spiral that twisted into the ground. Each mirror reflected Almond—but not quite her.

In some, she smiled like a bride.

In others, she screamed like prey.

And in the worst ones…

She kissed the Prophet.

Kairo muttered behind her, "This is wrong. These reflections aren't just memories. They're offerings."

"Then let them bleed," Almond whispered.

"The altar reflects your possible selves," the Twin murmured. "Every version that could have been. Every version he might have chosen."

Almond touched the nearest mirror.

It cracked.

Then shattered.

"I'm not a possibility," she said. "I'm the end."

The mirrors groaned.

One by one, they opened.

And out stepped her reflections.

Not ghosts.

Not illusions.

But real, breathing Almonds.

One wore a crown.

One wore chains.

One held a child.

One held a severed head.

They circled her like vultures in silk.

And then they attacked.

The fight wasn't fair.

But Almond didn't fight fair.

She broke her crowned self's neck.

She stabbed the mother through her belly.

She burned the chained one alive.

And the version that held the head?

She smiled.

"I hoped you'd win," she whispered. "Because I'm the part you buried, not the one you erased."

Almond took her hand.

And they became one.

When she rose from the altar, her eyes glowed like the sky had crawled inside them.

The Twin fell to his knees.

Kairo looked away.

Velda whispered, "She's not ours anymore."

Aren said nothing.

Because he was crying.

And the mirrors behind them—

Reflected no one.

Then one cracked.

Just one.

And from behind it, a voice said, "You're not done."

A hand pushed through the glass. Slender. Female. Familiar.

Almond didn't flinch.

"Let her come," she said.

Velda's voice trembled. "Who... who is that?"

Almond's eyes burned like midnight.

"That's the me who never got touched. Never got loved. Never bled for anyone but herself."

The hand gripped the edge of the mirror and pulled itself forward.

And the real Almond… smiled.