The Mirror That Burns

Chapter 15: Echo in the Body



The desert night stretched long and cold. I sat by the crumbling wall, knees pulled to my chest, the journal open on my lap.

My hands wouldn't stop trembling.

There, written in ink that had bled into the parchment with time, were the words I couldn't forget:

> "To my daughter born in light,

And her sister, born in a night of blood."

I read them again and again.

And still... I couldn't breathe.

— — —

I was eight the first time I realized something was wrong.

Before that, I thought Evelyne was just... tired. Royal. Cold, like the walls of Solmira's court were cold—something inherited, not chosen.

But then came the day I brought her a petal I'd pressed in a book.

She took it, looked at it like it was a spell she couldn't read, and said:

"You remind me of someone I failed to forget."

I didn't ask who.

But from that day on, she flinched every time I smiled.

I sat stiffly in a dining room far too grand for me, with my bowl of soup growing cold. At the far end, Queen Evelyne read in silence, her back perfectly straight. She never looked at me.

She wasn't cruel.

Just... distant. Always distant. Like she didn't know what to do with me, as if I was a gift wrapped by someone else and left at her doorstep.

Once, I'd tried calling her Mother.

She replied, "Eat your soup before it cools."

— — —

The only moment she ever broke pattern was the night before my tenth birthday. I woke from a nightmare and wandered the halls. Found her standing alone on the balcony, staring into storm clouds.

"Why are you out here?" I asked, shivering.

She didn't turn around.

"Sometimes," she said, "a mother doesn't know how to love what was never hers to begin with."

I didn't understand.

But I never forgot.

She hugged me that night. Awkward. Brief. But real.

"You weren't meant to be born here," she whispered. "But the gods help me… I'm glad you were."

Then she walked away.

And I never asked what she meant.

Now I knew.

— — —

The journal trembled in my lap as I turned the page.

> "One I kept close.

One I gave away.

But both were mine."

My throat closed.

I didn't hear Shira approach until she sat beside me, cross-legged, silent at first. She didn't speak until I looked up.

"I thought you might've guessed," she said.

"I've guessed plenty of things," I murmured. "But not this."

She folded her hands in her lap. "I knew before the journal. That first battle with the Echo—when you spoke a language you shouldn't have known. I remembered something from my mother's notes. About her children. About the one she left behind."

I stared at her, the ache in my chest growing. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you didn't even know who you were yet. And if I'd told you too soon, you would've pushed me away. "I was afraid that if I said the words, you'd hear them like another curse," Shira whispered. "Not a gift. I didn't want you to think I was another secret coming to break you."

I swallowed hard, looking down at the journal. "You still should've said something." My voice cracked. Not from anger. From hurt I hadn't realized I'd been carrying.

"You had me all along. And still made me feel like I didn't belong."

Shira didn't answer right away.

Instead, she picked up a small stone and rolled it between her fingers, staring at the shadows cast by the dying fire. Her silence wasn't empty—it was heavy. Dense with the kind of guilt that can't be buried, only carried.

Finally, she said, "The first time I saw you bleed… I knew."

I looked at her. "What do you mean?"

She smiled faintly, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"That wound from the sand-beast. Everyone else panicked. Serra shouted. Even Ronan looked shaken. But I didn't. Because you didn't."

I frowned, confused.

"It wasn't just that you stayed calm," she said. "It was the way you moved. The way you held the pain. Like it didn't scare you—but you still refused to let anyone see it."

She turned to me.

"And in that moment… I saw her."

"Her?"

She nodded. "Elaine. Our mother."

Shira's voice grew quieter. "No one else ever bled like that. Not in silence. Not like the pain was something sacred—something to protect others from. She did that. I watched her once, after the temple fire. She had burns on her hands. Didn't even flinch when they wrapped her. Just stared out the window. Silent. Unshaken."

She hesitated. "And I remembered a line in Mother's journal. A passage where she described the child she left behind. Every part of it... was you."

The fire popped behind us. Sparks danced upward like memories refusing to die.

"She did," I said, voice flat.

"But not out of hate." Shira's voice broke a little. "She was terrified."

I didn't know what to say to that.

So I said nothing.

"I used to believe I was her only daughter," she went on. "Raised with that truth like a blade in my belt. It was my purpose. Her legacy. But then I met you. And it was like something I'd always longed for had been walking beside me the whole time."

"Longing doesn't give you the right to keep something from me," I said, sharper than I meant to.

"I know."

Her voice was small. Almost childlike.

The silence stretched again. But this time it didn't crack. It settled.

"I watched you in the ruins," Shira said quietly. "With the mirror. You looked like you were drowning. And I just stood there."

"Why?"

"Because I was afraid." Her eyes met mine. "Afraid that if I pulled you away too soon, you'd never believe the truth when it came. That you'd think I was trying to force something on you."

My hands curled into fists over the journal. "You still don't get it."

"What don't I get?"

"I wasn't afraid of the mirror. I was afraid of how much it made sense." My voice shook. "Afraid that the face I saw inside wasn't Lyara's or mine. But both. Or neither."

She watched me, listening. Really listening.

"I feel her," I whispered. "Not just memories. Not just guilt. Something deeper. Like she's still in here. Like she's watching."

"She is," Shira said. No hesitation.

That made me pause.

"She's a thread you never asked to carry," she added, "but you do. Because that's what blood does. It remembers. Even when minds forget."

That hit deeper than I expected.

I looked down at the journal again. At the curve of Elaine's handwriting. The slant of each letter like a secret leaning toward the edge of truth.

"She was scared," Shira said. "Mother. When she left you with Evelyne, it wasn't because she didn't love you. It was because she thought you'd be safer inside the walls of a lie than outside the truth."

"That doesn't make it right," I muttered.

"No," she agreed. "But it makes it... understandable."

I closed the journal with trembling fingers.

"She left us both," I said.

Shira didn't argue.

She just leaned back, resting her head against the stone behind her. "But at least she left us to each other."

My throat tightened.

We were two halves of a broken map. Neither of us had the full path, not until now.

And now that we did… I wasn't sure where it would lead.

"I wanted to." Her voice cracked. "But I didn't know how."

— — —

I ran my fingers across the line again: "And her sister…"

Shira's voice softened. "I used to wonder why I cared so much about you. Why it hurt, watching you hurt. Even when you were just a stranger."

She looked at me, eyes glassy. "Now I know. Because part of me was looking for you… long before I knew your name."

I couldn't respond.

Not yet.

So instead, I closed the journal with trembling hands.

She touched my shoulder gently. "I don't know how to be a sister."

I gave her a faint smile, one that felt like it had been buried for years. "I don't know how to be one either."

She laughed—soft, tired, real. "Perfect. We'll be bad at it together."

And for the first time in what felt like forever…

I didn't feel alone in this body anymore.

— — —

➤ 

We sat side by side. 

Two sisters who had no idea how to be sisters. 

But for the first time, we weren't alone. 

And for the first time… I knew who I had to protect. 

[ → Continue to Chapter 14 ]


Tip: You can use left, right, A and D keyboard keys to browse between chapters.