Chapter 6: When Mirrors Dream

Arc I – The Possession Begins

Chapter 6: When Mirrors Dream

Mira woke to sunlight — but not her own.

The light was filtered through violet glass, spilling across a room that wasn’t hers. Heavy drapes embroidered with golden lilies framed the bed. Perfume — sweet, familiar — lingered in the air.

She blinked, confused. Then realized she wasn’t alone.

A woman sat before a vanity, brushing her hair — long, silver-blonde, shimmering like moonlight.

“Seraphina,” Mira breathed.

The woman in the mirror froze. Then, very slowly, she turned, meeting Mira’s eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Seraphina said softly.

Mira stepped back. “Where is ‘here’?”

“A memory,” Seraphina whispered. “One that belongs to me — not you.”

The room flickered, colors bleeding into gray. Outside the window, thunderclouds gathered, echoing the storm that had shattered the chapel mirror.

“Wait!” Mira said. “Why are you showing me this?”

Seraphina’s eyes glistened with something between sorrow and warning. “Because you need to understand him. And me. Before you make the same mistake.”

---

When Mira opened her eyes again, she was back in her own bed, heart hammering.

Adrian sat at the desk nearby, looking decidedly unamused.

“You screamed,” he said.

“I saw Seraphina.”

He stiffened. “In a dream?”

“I think so. Or maybe not. It felt real — like I was in her memory.”

His gaze sharpened. “What did you see?”

“She was brushing her hair. Talking about… mistakes.”

He looked away, jaw tightening. “My mother’s magic always left echoes. If she’s showing you something, it’s not random.”

“Echoes of what?”

“Regret.”

Mira frowned. “That’s comforting.”

---

They spent the morning trying to decipher the dream’s meaning, but the curse had other plans.

While Adrian was explaining a rune sequence, the tea kettle on the table began to float.

Mira pointed. “Um. Is your cookware supposed to do that?”

Adrian turned — and the kettle clattered back down, spilling tea across the table.

“I… might have done that,” he said.

“Telekinetic anxiety attack?”

“Possibly.”

Mira gaped. “Wait. Are you saying the curse is making you psychic now?”

He rubbed his temple. “It seems connected to emotion. Every time I hear your voice, it… reacts.”

“Reacts how?”

“Like this.”

The door slammed shut on its own.

Mira blinked. “Okay, that’s terrifyingly romantic.”

He gave her a look. “It’s not meant to be romantic.”

“It’s literally an emotional magic feedback loop! That’s the definition of romantic.”

He sighed. “You find danger far too amusing.”

“Of course I do! If I stop laughing, I’ll panic.”

He couldn’t help the faint smile that slipped through. “You’re impossible.”

“True. But adorably so.”

---

As the day wore on, the curse’s behavior worsened.

Every time Mira’s emotions spiked — whether irritation, embarrassment, or anything remotely resembling affection — something nearby moved.

At lunch, a fork flew. During a conversation, books slid off shelves. By evening, the entire chandelier trembled when she accidentally thought his eyes are unfairly pretty.

Adrian caught it just before it fell.

“You have to stop thinking,” he said, exasperated.

“I’m literally built for thinking!” she yelled back. “It’s my main hobby!”

“Then choose quieter thoughts!”

“That’s not how brains work!”

The chandelier creaked ominously above them.

Mira pointed up. “Uh, we should—”

The entire thing dropped.

Adrian threw himself forward, pulling her out of the way. They landed hard on the floor as glass and gold shattered inches from their heads.

For a moment, silence. Then Mira realized she was sprawled across his chest, her hand fisted in his shirt.

Oh no.

“Are you all right?” he asked, voice rough.

She nodded mutely.

You smell way too good for someone who just almost died.

He smirked faintly. “Thank you.”

“I said that out loud again, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. Great. Just bury me under the chandelier and call it poetic justice.”

---

Later, when they’d survived the cleanup and the awkward silence that followed, Mira found herself pacing the hall again.

Seraphina’s voice echoed faintly through her head this time—not from mirrors, but from within.

> “He saved me once, too. And that was the beginning of the end.”

Mira stopped dead. “What does that mean?”

No answer. Only the echo of rain against the glass.

---

That night, Adrian called for her. “There’s something you should see.”

He led her to a small chamber beneath the manor — a place she hadn’t known existed. Torches flickered against stone walls carved with ancient runes.

At the center was a pedestal holding a cracked crystal sphere, faintly glowing.

“This,” Adrian said, “was my mother’s conduit. Her magic. It records fragments of memory.”

He reached out, touching the surface. The sphere flared to life, projecting hazy images like smoke: a woman with silver-blonde hair — Seraphina’s mother, perhaps — holding a child.

Mira watched as the woman whispered:

> “If the bond ever awakens again, remember — the one who listens may lose more than their voice.”

Then the image shifted — a glimpse of Seraphina herself, weeping before a mirror, whispering a vow:

> “I’ll make him love me, even if it kills me.”

The vision shattered like glass.

Mira staggered back. “She… cursed herself?”

Adrian’s expression darkened. “Or cursed us.”

He turned toward her, eyes haunted. “If Seraphina made that vow with my family’s bloodline, then your possession — our bond — it’s part of her final wish.”

Mira swallowed. “You mean she wanted this?”

“To make someone love her. To make the one who listens—”

“—bound forever,” Mira finished quietly.

The air between them hummed with tension.

“So what happens,” she whispered, “if we fall in love?”

He met her gaze. “Then one of us disappears.”

---

They stood in silence, the crystal still pulsing faintly behind them.

Mira’s throat felt tight. “You can’t just say that like it’s a footnote.”

“It’s not,” he said softly. “It’s the warning my mother left me. ‘Never let the voice become your heart.’”

“Bit late for that,” Mira muttered.

He looked at her sharply.

“Relax,” she said quickly. “I’m not confessing anything.”

His expression softened. “Good. Because if you did…”

“What?”

He smiled faintly. “I might not be able to stop myself from answering.”

Her pulse skipped. “You’re impossible.”

“So you’ve said.”

---

That night, Mira dreamed again.

But this time, Seraphina wasn’t alone. Adrian was there too — younger, smiling, reaching for her hand.

“Promise me,” he said. “No matter what happens, your voice will never fade.”

Seraphina smiled sadly. “Even if it means another will bear it?”

Adrian hesitated, then nodded.

The dream cracked apart.

Mira woke gasping, the echo of Seraphina’s whisper in her ears:

> “He promised me eternity. I gave him you instead.”

---

End of Chapter 6

Next: Chapter 7 – “The Woman in the Glass”

Seraphina begins to take over again, the curse destabilizes further, and Mira must decide whether she wants to return to her world—or stay and risk becoming the voice that never fades.