AriaMy reflection is wrong.I notice it the way you notice a sour note in a familiar song. Not immediately, not consciously, but with a slow prickle along my spine that tells me something is out of place. I’m washing my hands in the small basin in my chambers, the water is cool and steady, when the woman in the mirror lifts her head a fraction too late.I freeze.The woman staring back at me has my face.My hair falls the same way around my shoulders. My eyes are the same shade, the same shape. Even the faint scar near my jaw is there, exactly as it should be, but she is not moving when I move.My breath catches.The heartbloom burns, a slow, deliberate pulse beneath my skin.“I told you not to touch the stones,” the reflection says.Her mouth moves perfectly in time with the words. Her voice is mine, but softened, sharpened, wrong in ways I can’t fully name.“Nyxara,” I whisper.She smiles. It’s my smile too, but it sits on her face like a stolen crown.“You say my name like it’s
Last Updated : 2026-02-17 Read more