The candlelight dimmed before I touched the wick.
Shadows pooled, sliding down the walls, lengthening beyond their shapes. The chamber grew cold, though the window was sealed. My breath hung pale in the air.
Then I heard it—
A voice without sound. A whisper that pressed not against my ears, but against my bones.
Seliora.
The mirror darkened. Not with absence, but with depth—its glass rippling like water, then settling into an abyss. My reflection did not return.
Instead, the Veil reached through.
It did not need form. It was hunger, weight, inevitability. The shadow stretched toward me, not with hands but with threads, weaving around my limbs, brushing the edges of my skin as if it already owned me.
My knees locked. My body swayed forward, unbidden. A thousand Brides must have walked into this same darkness, thinking resistance impossible.
But I had seen the body fall in the hall. I had heard the servant's whisper. I had felt the gaze of others, watching, waiting.
Chains rust.
The shadow coiled tighter, pressing at my throat, demanding surrender. I forced myself still, icy as stone. I would not give it my fear.
"I am not yours," I whispered.
The Veil pulsed. The mirror shuddered, cracking faintly at its edges. The shadow swelled, swallowing the candlelight, seeking to drown me whole.
I closed my eyes and held the silence. Not denial, not supplication—defiance.
When I opened them again, the chamber was empty. The mirror's surface fractured, a hairline crack running across the glass like a wound.
The Veil had reached for me—and failed.
I stood alone in the darkness, chest heaving, the first fissure carved into its dominion.
It would come again. Stronger. Hungrier.
But so would I.