The moment hung like a taut string, quivering between silence and collapse.
The nursery, once a relic of dust and neglect, now breathed like the lungs of a creature long dormant. Shadows gathered in deliberate forms, half-toys and half-mockeries of toys: a wooden horse that flexed its neck as if to drink from unseen streams, a doll with painted eyes that blinked against its porcelain.
The cradle was the epicenter.
Within it, the shard of mirror shone faintly, and upon its glassy surface Adrian saw himself—not as he was, but as he might be: older, lined with choices and failures, a mouth curled into grim determination. Behind his reflection loomed the shadow, tall and silent, a companion that promised inevitability.
The voice that had haunted his marrow spoke again:
"You are ready. You have opened the book. Now the book opens you."
Selene's hand tightened on Adrian's arm, nails sinking until he felt blood prick through his sleeve. She, who commanded men and women with glances, whose smile bent wills like reeds in wind—she was afraid. And Adrian realized that her fear was not weakness. It was revelation.
Cassia whimpered, stepping back until her shoulders pressed against the cold plaster wall. Her lips formed his name, but no sound followed. Her eyes locked not on the cradle, but on the mirror within it. She saw it too. She saw what claimed him.
The nursery air grew heavy, filled with the lullaby of unseen voices. It was no human song—it rose and fell in patterns that tugged at instincts older than speech. Each note plucked a memory, every chord tied itself around the ribcage. Adrian's breath came shallow, as though the music itself demanded he surrender each lungful as tithe.
"Enough." Selene's voice snapped, sharp as a whip. She strode forward, her crimson gown dragging across warped floorboards, and with a motion as swift as a strike, she seized the cradle.
The room reacted.
Every toy convulsed. The doll's painted smile widened until its porcelain cracked. The horse's wooden flanks split, revealing teeth where grain should be. The lullaby turned discordant, a choir breaking into screams.
And the mirror—
The mirror pulsed like a heart.
Adrian staggered forward, compelled, as if an invisible rope pulled his chest toward the shard. His reflection shifted: no longer older, but hollow-eyed, crowned with shadows that writhed like living chains. The mark on his chest burned, and he gasped, clutching it as though it clawed outward.
"Adrian!" Cassia's cry finally broke through her paralysis. She lunged, grasping his arm, trying to pull him back.
But the cradle pulled harder.
Selene slammed her hand down upon the mirror. Her palm struck its surface, and the glass rang like a bell. Instantly, the nursery howled. Windows shattered inward, glass spraying across the floor like hail. Curtains twisted into ropes, thrashing as though alive. The toys collapsed, their grotesque animation snuffed as if puppets had lost their strings.
The mirror cracked.
From the fractures, black veins spread outward, crawling across the cradle, the floorboards, the very walls of the nursery. They pulsed with a dull light, neither flame nor shadow, but something in between.
The voice boomed again:
"Foolish child. Did you think to bind me by touching my reflection? Did you think the walls would hold me when the vessel has already been marked?"
Selene's composure broke entirely. She stepped back, her face pale, her hand trembling where blood welled from the mirror's cut.
Cassia clutched Adrian tighter, tears streaking down her cheeks. "Please—don't listen—don't let it in!"
But Adrian was already listening.
Not by choice.
The voice curled around his skull, threading into the cracks of thought. It did not speak to his ears. It spoke with him, like a second tongue that had always been buried beneath his own.
"You are not theirs. You never were. Every desire you fed, every guilt you carried, every look you craved—they were offerings. And I took them. You dressed your hunger in the language of love, but hunger is mine. It has always been mine."
His knees buckled. He fell, palms hitting the fractured floor, breath ragged. The mark on his chest burned so hot he thought his skin would split open. For a moment, he thought he could see through himself—veins glowing faintly as if lit from within.
Selene bent down, her face inches from his. The mask of the lady was gone. What remained was a woman trembling, desperate, frantic.
"Adrian. Listen to me. You are not its vessel. You are mine."
The voice laughed, rumbling through the beams overhead.
"Yours? You dressed him in red desire, but you did not birth his hunger. You chained him with kisses, but chains rust. Only one chain endures—and it is mine."
The floor cracked wide. The cradle toppled, spilling the mirror shard across the boards. It skidded until it struck Adrian's hand.
The moment his skin touched it—
The world shifted.
Not the room, not the house. The world.
—
He stood in darkness. Not the soft dark of night, but the primal dark before creation, a void thick with weight and presence.
In the distance—or was it within?—a thousand whispers murmured, each speaking his name. They called him not "Adrian," but "Vessel."
He saw Selene, but not as she was. She towered, her crimson gown flowing endlessly, eyes like pits of fire. She was a queen of a realm without sky. Yet even here, even in this shape, she looked smaller than the figure beside her.
The shadow.
The one from the mirror.
It loomed, tall as the void, faceless yet filled with expression. It turned toward him, and the weight of its gaze buckled his knees.
"You will kneel."
"No," Adrian whispered. The word was weak, a flutter against a storm. "I belong to no one."
Selene's voice thundered across the void. "He belongs to me!"
The shadow laughed. Its laughter was hunger itself.
"You still believe in belonging as a choice. Poor child. Belonging is not chosen. It is taken. And I have already taken him."
Adrian clutched his chest, the mark searing like a brand. He fell forward, landing on his hands, his body trembling as if it would split apart. His blood drummed in rhythm with the void's pulse.
Cassia appeared then—fragile, small, glowing faintly like a candle defying the abyss. She fell to her knees beside him, hands warm on his face.
"Adrian, hear me. Not Selene, not that thing. Me. Remember who you are."
For a moment, the voices faltered. The void rippled, as if disturbed.
The shadow hissed.
"She is weak. She offers nothing but trembling hands. I offer eternity."
Selene reached forward, her crimson light clashing against Cassia's pale glow. Their words collided, crashing into Adrian's skull, tearing at his mind.
"Choose me."
"Choose me."
"Choose me!"
Adrian screamed. His body convulsed, the mark blazing white-hot. He thought he would split into pieces, each belonging to a different master. His own voice tore free, a raw cry:
"I CHOOSE—"
The void shattered.
—
He awoke on the nursery floor, gasping, drenched in sweat. Cassia clung to him, sobbing. Selene loomed above, her face carved in fury and desperation.
The mirror shard was gone.
But the mark on his chest still burned.
And in his mind, two voices lingered—neither silenced, both waiting.
Cassia whispered, "Adrian… what did you choose?"
He opened his mouth—
And realized he did not know.
The house groaned, settling like a beast curling around its prey. Somewhere deep within its bones, the lullaby began again.
The night was not over.