The Mirror

(Amira’s POV)

From the moment I stood frozen inside the room, I knew. Then I tried the handle. It didn’t turn.

I wasn’t a bride. I was a caged bird.

My throat tightened. My father’s empire had collapsed, my reputation had been dragged through the mud, and now even my freedom had been signed away. The robe clinging to my body, heavy with the scent of bitterness and regret, mocked me. Everything I had been—Amira Westwood, the darling of parties and magazines—ended the moment I stepped into this house.

I sank onto the bed, the sheets cool and untouched under my palms. My throat ached. My chest hurt. For a moment, I forgot to breathe.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered into the empty room. “I can’t…” and the tears came before I could stop them.

Not as the Westwood heiress who posed for cameras. Not as the spoiled princess everyone thought untouchable. I cried as a woman who had lost everything, as a daughter who had bartered her life to save her father.

I cried until my face went numb and my body shook, until I was nothing but a small sound curled on the edge of a big bed in a stranger’s house.

When the sobs slowed, I forced myself to look up.

The mirror on the opposite wall reflected a stranger back at me. Swollen eyes, blotchy cheeks, hair falling loose around a face I barely recognized.

“Have I done the right thing?” I whispered. “Have I doomed myself for nothing?”

I had chosen this cage willingly, hadn’t I? To shield my father. To carry the weight of his broken empire. But as I looked around this room, at its gilded emptiness, I wondered if I had only exchanged one prison for another.

“This place is worse than Father’s house,” I muttered. At least there, the walls carried memories of laughter. Here, every corner smelled of secrets. Every silence felt like judgment.

And I was expected to survive it while pretending to be perfect. The perfect wife to a man I did not know. The perfect smile for cameras that would dissect every flaw. The perfect mask to hide a life that no longer belonged to me.

My sketchbooks. My fashion dreams. The vow to uncover the truth behind my father’s downfall. All of it slipped like sand through my fingers.

For one terrible moment, I forgot. All that remained was a hollow ache, heavy with bitterness and sorrow.

But then something hardened inside me.

If I were to carry the Mercer name, I would carry it as armor. They might see a pawn, but I would make myself into a queen. I would play their game with the smile they demanded, but behind it, I would sharpen my claws. I would take everything back.

I looked into the mirror one last time and whispered:

“This is not the end. It’s only the beginning.”

The silence pressed close again, but this time it didn’t suffocate me. It listened. It waited.

The handle rattled once, faint and deliberate, then stilled.

I froze, my heart kicking against my ribs. The footsteps faded, leaving me alone again.