Fractured Mirrors Novels & Stories

Her back was facing him, and her right arm was moving in a circular motion as if she was stirring something on the electric stove. The profoundness of his footsteps, causing the hard slapping sound of his slippers against the tiled floor alarmed her that made her turn around and face him, her eyes widened in bewilderment for a moment before they curved and imitated the shape of a crescent moon along with her lips forming into a small smile.

“I didn’t expect you to be the killer. It wasn’t enough that you killed your parents-in-law. Why did you have to kill my mother too?” I looked at the three of them. They all had the same reaction. I froze for a moment. How was that possible? A mirror was just a mirror. It showed whoever stood in front of it. How could it show my face no matter who looked into it? But their grief did not look fake. What was so strange about that mirror? How could it make my wife, my trainee, and my neighbor all believe I was the killer? “I didn’t kill your mother. It wasn’t me.”

“They have nothing on me.” “Sure, they don't. But, Rena, how exactly do you plan to handle this?” Ada asked, worry bleeding through tone. Mirena tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “The easiest way,” she replied. She merged into traffic smoothly, eyes focused ahead. “Do you know the disadvantage of a house of mirrors?” She asked and basked in the silence that followed afterwards. A smile curved her lips.. “It shatters the moment you throw a rock at it,” she continued. “Every reflection fractures. Every illusion collapses. The beauty people admired becomes something twisted and unrecognizable.”

“Lead the way.” We moved fast, sticking to the high corridors, avoiding the main halls. The observatory was crumbling, it was cracked, the stars bleeding through like silver wounds. Dust coated everything. In the center stood the mirror,tall, black-framed, its surface like still water. I stepped in front of it. “Stay back,” I said. “This might not be safe.” I pressed my palm to the glass. Fire moved through my veins. The mirror cracked. And the.... I saw the crypt.

Kael’s eyes blazed as he pulled tighter. “You’re not me,” he hissed. “Because I don’t stand alone.” He ripped. The reflection shattered into dust. The others followed. Brann’s double fell with its chest split open, Seris’s shattered in a spray of silver shards, Liora’s cracked apart in a scream of false light. The storm of mirrors imploded, fragments collapsing inward until only silence remained. The chamber reformed around them—stone walls, rune-light, scorched with cracks but whole once more. The suffocating whispers faded, leaving only the ragged sound of their breathing.

Cracks bloomed across the mirror like spreading frost, splintering the distorted face into a thousand jagged smiles. Then the glass gave way. The mirror shattered with a violent crack, raining shards into the sink, tinkling like mocking applause. Seraphine collapsed, knees buckling. She curled onto the cold tile, arms wrapping tight around herself, rocking as tremors wracked her body. Her breath came ragged, shallow, tasting of dust and copper. She pressed her forehead to her knees, tears streaking hot down her cheeks. For a moment, she thought she might disappear entirely, break apart into ash like the words on her pages, scatter, and be forgotten.

A crescent mark glowing on her brow. The other Ayla smiled. And then—she moved. Her reflection pressed its hand against the glass from the inside. Cracks spread like lightning through the surface, and a faint whisper slipped through: “It’s time to come home.” The mirror shattered. A shockwave of light threw Ayla backward into Kian’s arms. The shards didn’t fall—they hovered, circling her like a halo. Each shard reflected a different version of her face, all whispering the same word in unison:

I caught my reflection in the mirror by the entryway—and I hated what I saw. Mascara streaked down my face in messy black trails. My navy-blue dress, chosen so carefully because it was Daniel’s favorite, clung to me like a cruel joke—wrinkled, damp, stained with tears. My hair, once pinned with hope, was tangled and frizzed from the humidity. But it wasn’t the mess that destroyed me. It was my eyes. “They’re dead,” I muttered, shaking my head at my own reflection. “I don’t even know you anymore. Who are you, Elara? Who the hell are you?”

She held up an obsidian mirror, its surface rippling like liquid, revealing distorted visions of Meranthia's landscapes being engulfed in darkness and chaos. As they watched in horror, the mirror's edge expanded, its dark expanse stretching out towards them, threatening to swallow them whole. Nocturna's laughter, cold and mocking, rang out as the world around the guardians began to crumble, plunging them into the abyss of the unknown.

The first crack was mine. The second belonged to the world. The central mirror juddered, fractured image stuttering: my snarling face smeared across a dozen shards, Corvin and Selene and Jax chopped into jigsaw pieces, the shadow behind us writhing like something pinned under glass. Then, all the other mirrors joined in. Panels along the walls flickered, their previously blank surfaces igniting with random scenes—half‑rendered worlds popping on and off like bad channels.