The chamber was the fairest she had been given in many a year. Walls clad in pale plaster, a high-vaulted ceiling above, and cushions embroidered by hand filled the space, the air free from the stale dust of lesser quarters.
Yet it was bare of all looking-glass or polished metal. Not a single reflection dared dwell here. The very walls seemed to close about her like warding arms.
Not even a servant was permitted to linger. They came only to bathe her, to place her food in silence, and then vanish as swiftly as they had arrived.
Her grandmother had even sealed her eyelids with warm beeswax and murmured spellcraft, dimming her sight so her body might cast off the poison—an old remedy of their age.
She'd been here long enough for her head to start clearing. Clearing was the worst part. No shimmer in the corners, no silver comfort in the walls—only the echo of her own breath and the weight of her heartbeat.
The voice in her skull was a relentless, gnawing whisper, grinding at her sanity until she felt flayed raw from the inside.
Her grandmother, in what passed for mercy in that cold heart, had permitted her only the harp for company—and even that was made a humiliation. A silent servant held the magic to puppet her limbs, forcing her fingers to pluck and her body to sway as though she were nothing more than a marionette strung for someone else's amusement.
Every note was an insult. Every vibration a reminder she was no longer her own.
Was this the degradation the powerless endured each day? The caged helplessness? The enforced stillness? The stripping of choice until a person was little more than a breathing ornament?
Such confinement was forged for the weak, not for her.
She vowed—cold and certain—that soon she would break free. And when she did, they would regret teaching her what true cruelty felt like.
The sound came first—tap… tap… tap.
Her grandmother's heart was lightened to see her granddaughter's recovery progressing. She, too, knew the vices of flesh and the lure of powders, wines, and stranger draughts, for the fae were born to partake in such indulgences by right. Yet there were lines even among their kind—desire must never consume so wholly that one loses sight of oneself. Fae lived upon desire, but never to the point of ruin.
Inwardly, she recalled her own youth, and the sharp dealings she once had with Viktor's family—lessons cut from intrigue and steel. For some reason, fate had always drawn her line near to those dragons' kin, tempting her to seize dominion over their kind, yet never granting true ownership. This granddaughter—this one—had come closer than any in many generations. And perhaps, she thought with a cool, measuring breath, it was near time to let go.
Her grandmother stepped into view, the soft sweep of her nightgown whispering over the floor, cane in hand. She watched her granddaughter wander aimlessly about the chamber's empty walls, her gaze a hawk's behind that sweet, poisonous smile she'd mastered long before Genevieve was born.
«Ты выглядишь лучше, внучка. Я уж думала, что ты лишишься зрения», she said in old Russinan (You look better, granddaughter. I thought I was going to lose your eyesight.)
Genevieve spat a bitter laugh, though her throat was already tightening. She wanted to hurl the words at her grandmother, but nothing came—her voice stolen by spellwork. Forced to shape her fury with her hands, she signed sharply, lucky that her grandmother had left her ears untouched. The enchantment was only two-thirds complete: see no evil, speak no evil. She prayed the final seal—hear no evil—would never come, though she knew in her bones that the old woman would see it done.
"You took what I love most, you withered bitch—and I'm glad I'm blind so I don't have to look at your wrinkled, rotting face. Perhaps if you took a dip in the Fountain of Beauty and Youth you might almost look like me—but you never could be me. I'll get it back."
The cane struck the floor. Crack. The sound wasn't wood—it was glass, sharp and ringing. Shards of mirrors bloomed from the air itself, ringing her in, but the blow was not for the insult she'd spat—it was to drive the spell out of her body by force. As she reeled, her grandmother's lips moved in a low, rolling incantation, a cleansing rite of their age: «Отринь взор из пут будущего, свяжи сердце дыханьем настоящего; разорви цепь возможного, оставь лишь ныне для взора её», she intoned in old Russinan — (Strip the gaze from future's snare, bind the heart in present air; break the chain of what may be, leave but now for her to see.)
Each verse fell like a hammer-blow, splintering the hold of her craving and dragging her brutally into the moment.
Her grandmother summoned the mirrors herself, the cane tapping once—silver light erupting in a circle around Genevieve. She could feel their glow on her skin, warm and beckoning, and reached for them in desperate need. But each reflection shattered at her touch, dissolving into drifting sugar that clung like living frost. It melted into a cold slickness that crawled beneath her flesh.
Her hands began to tremble as the skin along her arms split in thin, dry cracks—not the soft, graceful molt she knew, but the harsh, splintering shed of a beetle forcing itself from its old shell. Flakes fell in brittle sheets, each tear stinging as though the mirrors themselves were peeling her down to raw sinew. The trick was cruel, deliberate—a promise of salvation that dissolved to nothing.
Her grandmother's voice dripped patience, like she was telling a bedtime story, even as she ordered a servant to prepare a bath. Genevieve didn't know how much more she could endure; she had been made to give pain, not to bear it. The thought curdled in her chest like bile, but her grandmother's calm never faltered.
"«Сахар когда-то был редкостью. Труднее достать, чем ты думаешь. Теперь каждый может иметь его в какой-то форме. Так же, как зеркала. Я вижу, ты завела привычку. Но зеркала приходят и уходят… настоящее — навсегда», she said in old Russinan (Sugar used to be rare. Harder to get than you'd think. Now everyone can have it in some form. Just like mirrors. I see you've picked up a habit. But mirrors will come and go… the present is forever.)"
The next cough tore out of her chest without warning. Wet, ripping, endless. Her hands flew to her mouth, and when she pulled them back, they were slick with clear, gelatinous gunk. It gleamed like molten glass—so clear she could almost see her warped reflection in it. The taste was metallic, sweet in the wrong way, and her lungs burned as more of it came.
She couldn't stop shaking. Every cough was a needle dragging her back into the present, scraping the silver out of her veins. The mirrors winked out one by one, and the craving screamed in her blood, but there was nothing to grab. Nothing to feed on.
Somewhere, under the agony of loss, a new, raw steadiness began to take root—only to be jarred when she tried to piece a fallen mirror shard back together. Her grandmother smacked her hands, seizing her face.
«Я позволю тебе увидеть твоего так называемого дракона. Что за фэйская знать без такого дракона? Но у тебя есть только до надвигающейся войны, чтобы вернуть его — или нет. Мне всё равно. Ты должна оправиться», she said in old Russinan (I will allow you to see your supposed dragon. What is a fae noble of your standing without a dragon like that? But you have until the coming war to take him back—or not. I do not care. You must recover.)
Genevieve smiled faintly—a slow, glassy curve of the lips—pushing the mirror away as though surrendering it were her idea.
In her mind, it was part of a grand bargain only she could understand. Owning a dragon like Viktor was worth more than futures, more than sanity—it was the crown jewel in a kingdom she alone could see.
Most fae obsessed over animal-form werefolk; owning a humanoid counterpart was a rare, intoxicating prestige, a glittering proof of dominance. To her, that thought shimmered like a private hallucination of power.
Even those who believed themselves untouchable still whispered about the immortals from Africa who fought back—until some of them began trading their own people like livestock, bartering flesh and blood for trinkets so cheap they'd rot in value long before the chains did, unlike mirrors that could outlast generations. Genevieve's thoughts slid past any notion of strategy, skipping to the easy, callous conclusion. Why fight them? They were deemed lesser—commodities, not equals—so why waste effort?
The logic slid over her like silk, perfectly intact inside the fever of her craving.
Her grandmother's cane cracked again, striking her hand as she caught the glint in Genevieve's eyes. Genevieve signed sharply, Why did you do that? You've already taken my voice.
Her grandmother's laugh was cruel, sharp as breaking glass.
«Но я слышу твои думы, дитя. Много есть, чему научить тебе в сем мире. Знала я, что отец твой должен был взрастить тебя по фэйскому обычаю, а не по смертному. Скоро узришь, что цвет кожи не значим… но чин, чин вовеки пребудет», she said in old Russinan of their age, her voice thick with the cadence of a bygone court. Her fingers dug into Genevieve's jaw until the bone ached, forcing her to meet those ancient eyes (But I can hear your thoughts, child. There is much I must teach you of this world. I knew your father should have raised you by fae custom, not mortal. Soon you will see that the color of skin holds no weight… but rank, rank endures forever.)