## CHAPTER 29: _"The Queen's Mirror"_
The Mirror of Sovereigns was not made—it was born.
Forged when the first king of Elira dared to look into the eyes of a dying god, it was said to hold not one reflection but *infinite versions* of a soul—every truth, every lie, every love, every betrayal.
And tonight, it called for Lysia.
---
The rebellion had reached a fragile stillness, the kind that came before war drums.
Lysia stood in the circle of elders, flames dancing around her as the Fire Tongue glyphs spiraled across the ritual stones. She could feel it again—the pull. Not from the crown, not from the Archivist, but from something older.
> "The Mirror has awakened," said Elder Vaelen. "It only does so when the cursed soul comes near."
> "You mean me," Lysia replied, dryly.
> "I mean the Queen Elira feared. The one she buried, not killed."
Arien stood just behind her, hand never far from his blade.
> "We don't have time for relics and riddles," he argued. "The Moon Vault opens in two nights. If we don't move now—"
> "We die as shadows, not flames," Lysia cut in. "But if the Mirror can show me what the curse *really* wants, we might find a way to unbind it."
Elder Vaelen opened a scroll. The map glowed briefly, then burned at the edges.
> "It's already begun," he whispered. "The Mirror is rewriting paths. You must go *now*."
---
The path to the Mirror lay beneath the Broken Basilica, hidden in the roots of what was once the Temple of Names.
Arien and Lysia descended into darkness.
Their footsteps echoed through the stone crypt, where the faces of forgotten queens were carved in sorrow.
> "Do you trust it?" Arien asked quietly.
> "I don't trust anything born of kings or gods," Lysia said. "But I trust the truth more than silence."
---
The Mirror stood alone.
It was not glass. It was liquid memory, swirling within a jagged frame of bone and blackened gold.
As Lysia stepped forward, it rippled—then stilled.
Her reflection smiled.
But it wasn't *her.*
> "Hello, Lysia," the Mirror whispered in her own voice. "I remember you differently."
> "Show me who I was."
The surface broke.
---
She saw herself as a queen.
Not loved. Not praised. *Feared.*
A tyrant born of fire and prophecy, who burned cities not for justice, but for control. She wore a crown of teeth and walked on the backs of men who worshipped her flame.
And beside her—Arien.
Not her lover. Her executioner.
> "You begged me to do it," he said in the vision. "You told me it was the only way to stop the fire."
> "And did you?"
> "No."
The vision flickered.
Now Lysia knelt before a child, her hands bleeding from the blade she'd just thrown away. She whispered a lullaby, the same one from her village—the one her real mother sang.
> "I didn't want power," she said aloud. "I wanted peace."
The Mirror changed again.
Now she stood in a future Elira, ash-covered, desolate. The rebellion had won. The palace lay in ruins.
But no one lived.
Even Arien's grave was cold.
> "Is this who I'll become?" she whispered.
> "No," the Mirror replied. "This is who you *could* be."
> "Then show me who I *must* be."
The Mirror shattered.
Not in rage.
In revelation.
Lysia turned to Arien, blood on her lips, resolve in her eyes.
> "We go to the Moon Vault. But we do it differently. We don't just rewrite the curse."
> "We rewrite the crown."
---
Outside the crypt, the sky split open.
The Archivist felt the shift.
> "So," he mused. "She's found the Mirror. Let's see what she does when it shows her *his* betrayal."
In his hands, a page unraveled—a prophecy lost to fire.
Arien Thorne.
Lysia Aelra.
Only one of their hearts would survive the curse.
And the mirror had chosen its favorite.
The question was: *Would Lysia obey fate—or fight it to the death?*