To kill a part of yourself…You must first make it bleed.
They stood in the mirror room—Broken glass all around, but none of it truly shattered.Not the way glass is meant to.
Every fragment reflected something deeper than the surface.Not memories. Not illusions.Secrets.Unmade truths straining against the frame of reality.
The air was hot. Not with fire, but with breath. Like the room itself was alive, exhaling between heartbeats.
And Lirieth sat in the center of it all.
One leg draped over the edge of a mirror-turned-altar, tail lazily swaying like a pendulum counting down something cruel. Her form shifted between blinks—at one moment luminous and angelic, veiled in divine radiance, and in the next, jagged with void scars and eyes that knew what shouldn't be known.
The runes coiled across her skin pulsed with life, etching themselves deeper with every heartbeat. They weren't tattoos. They were declarations.
She tilted her head, watching Asher like he was a song she hadn't heard in a while.
"You want to save her, don't you?"Her voice was velvet—and rotted.
Asher didn't answer at first. His eyes were locked on a shard near his feet—where Asha's face stared back at him, mask half-formed, mouth sewn shut.
"She didn't deserve this," he said, finally. His voice was dry, tight. "None of it."
Lirieth gave a slow, mournful sigh, brushing imaginary dust off her thigh."She made her choice," she said. "You just never noticed."
Then she snapped her fingers.
And the mirror room shifted—collapsed inward like a dream waking into nightmare.All the mirrors fused.One pane.One window.
And within it:Asha.Alone.Surrounded by flame.
Asha knelt at an altar of masks—dozens, maybe hundreds.
Each mask carved from porcelain, bone, stone, and wax. Each face was familiar—echoes of people she had known, or failed to protect. Friends. Teachers. Strangers who smiled once.
But none of them had mouths. Only painted lines, cracked and fading.
They screamed without voices.
Asha was older than she should've been. Her body still that of a child, but her eyes held the weight of decades. Her fingers trembled around the bone-ash brush, bleeding from the knuckles as she drew a trembling circle in soot.
A sigil spiraled outward. Lirieth's.Flame kissed its edges like it was being fed.
"You'll give me the strength?" Asha whispered into the heat.
The flame answered—not in words, but shape.It twisted, forming a feminine silhouette made of hunger and promises.
"I will give you clarity," it said. "I will burn away the weakness."
Asha paused. "And the price?"
"You'll carry my kiss on your soul. Forever."
For a moment, the world held still.
Then she leaned forward—and kissed the flame.
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BACK TO PRESENT
Quinn turned away, swallowing down a sob."That's… that's how she summoned her? But why?"
Asher's fists were clenched so tightly that blood welled at the seams of his palms."To become something else," he said. "Someone strong enough to keep walking. No matter what she had to burn."
Quinn looked at him like he'd lost something."But she was just a kid."
Asher closed his eyes."She didn't want to be."
Lirieth stood now. Taller. Sharper. Her glow dimming into something more human—and somehow more terrifying.
"She made me in the shape of her need," she said. "The curves. The voice. The ache. I was never just a demon. I was the thing she wished would end her softness."
She stalked toward Asher.
"And now," she added, "I'm what you need too."
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BETWEEN PLEASURE AND PUNISHMENT
Asher took a step back.
Lirieth smiled, eyes half-lidded."Let me show you what she felt," she whispered, palm resting against his chest.
Then—
He was her.
Or something like it.
Flashes of emotion, too tangled to parse.A child screaming into fire.A girl kneeling before a faceless god.Chains made of guilt, winding tighter with each sob.Whispers of kisses that hurt like knives.
Pain and pleasure.Ecstasy wrapped in ash.Sorrow that tasted sweet.
The fire wanted him. No—her. It couldn't tell the difference. Not anymore.
Quinn's voice echoed far away. "Asher?! ASHER!"
But it didn't matter.
Because he felt the kiss.Not on the lips.On the soul.
And something inside him broke open.Not like glass. Like a dam.
The flames didn't consume him.
They understood him.
And then—Clarity.
He collapsed, gasping. Knees on the mirror-glass, breath ragged.Asha's feelings still wrapped around his ribs like thorns.
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FINAL VISION: THE CONTRACT
A final mirror flickered to life.
Not drawn in chalk this time.The sigil was carved directly into skin.
Asha's.
Her body a canvas of red-hot runes, etched into her arms, her back, her chest. She stood before something cloaked in perfect darkness—its shape unclear. But when it spoke, it used Lirieth's voice.
Only colder.Crueler.Divine.
"To make them feel as you did…To tear off the masks of the world…"
Asha nodded."Yes."
"Then take the name.Become it."
The flame surged behind her.
And the mask appeared—floating above her palm.
She placed it on her face.
And when she did, she didn't scream.
The fire bowed.
Asher stood slowly.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"I know what she became."
He looked at Lirieth.Then at Quinn.Then at the mirrors fracturing around them—reflecting not just reality, but intent.
"I know why the city's changing.Why the cathedral exists.She didn't summon a demon to protect herself…"
He stepped forward."She created a concept.A story."
The mirrors trembled.Shards falling like rain.
"One that burns liars alive."
And far beneath them—deeper than memory, past the cathedral's roots—
The Mask opened its eyes.
And the cathedral whispered:
"Welcome back, Maskbearer."
[End Of Chapter 38]
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Next Chapter Preview:Chapter 39 – "Bastion Protocol – The Watchers Strike Back"With Asher now aware of the truth behind Asha's pact, the final phase begins. The Watchers—ancient enforcers of divine lies—have arrived. Asher, Lirieth, and Quinn must defend the last bastion of memory before it's rewritten forever. But in the shadows, the masked figure moves—and she's no longer waiting.