The moon bled again that night. From the jagged cliffs of Thalyssra, its fractured face glowed crimson, spilling over the waves in veins of scarlet foam. Shadows clung to her cloak, whispering. Feed us… rise… take… She pressed a hand against her chest, forcing the hunger back. She walked the cemetery alone, boots crunching against wet earth, silver eyes catching shapes that weren't there. Every gravestone seemed alive, trembling under the pull of her presence.
She paused before a broken angel statue. Its hollow eyes followed her. The whispers swelled, promising power if only she'd release them.
"Not tonight," she muttered.
A faint light drew her attention. Lantern glow, steady, warm. Seliora. Her auburn hair glimmered under the blood-red moon. "You shouldn't be here," she said. "The curse grows stronger every night."
Her lips twisted. "It never left, sister. It was born with us."
The cemetery smelled of damp earth and salt. Lantern in hand, Seliora moved carefully among the graves. She had always been the balance to Nysera, the healer where death followed. Her robes glimmered white and gold, brushing graves with faint light. Even in this cursed night, flowers leaned toward her.
She knelt beside a small grave, brushing moss from the stone. The air softened as her magic whispered through the roots and soil. Life bent toward her, ever fragile, ever obedient.
But tonight, she felt unease. Something watched. Something familiar. A shadow darker than any she had seen stretched across the stones, separate from Nysera.
A whisper, carried by the wind: Not with you… with me.
Her heart stilled.
From the far wall of the cemetery, where ivy choked broken stone, a figure emerged from the shadows. Cloak tattered, hair streaked white, one green eye glowing, the other fractured silver. The island remembered her, even if her sisters tried to forget. Ten years buried. Ten years shaping into this: the Mirror, neither healer nor reaper, but corruption incarnate.
They looked at her and called her name, trembling: "Orryn…"
She raised a hand, letting a rotted flower crumble into ash. Power twisted around her fingers, stealing life from the living and mocking death. She felt the prophecy burn inside her. Three cannot endure. One must fall.
And she would make it so.
She stepped closer, moonlight catching the black veins along her arms. "Life. Death. Ruin," she whispered, each word like a strike. "The prophecy is awake. Only one of us will see the dawn."
The wind stilled. Even the dead seemed to pause.
Her silver eyes caught movement among the graves. Nysera's chest thudded. Seliora's breath hitched. The earth beneath their feet split, veins of light spreading like fire across cracked soil.
The dead clawed at the surface, skeletal hands grasping for warmth that had long left the world. Shadows coiled at Nysera's heels, writhing, whispering. She felt the familiar tug, the power that had once made her feared across the island. And yet, she did not move to release it. Not tonight.
Seliora reached out instinctively, her hand brushing Nysera's arm. The warmth of her touch calmed the restless energy, drawing the shadows back into the soil. For a moment, the sisters stood united, breathing in tandem, caught between the pull of life and death.
Orryn's smile widened, just slightly, enough to make it cruel. She walked around them, careful, deliberate, as though savoring the fear that radiated from each sister. Her gaze flicked to the cracked angel statue, to the moon above, to the tombstones that had long held secrets too dark to name.
"I have watched from the shadows," she said, her voice carrying across the cemetery like ice sliding over stone. "I have waited while you both played at being gods. Life, Death… fools. The prophecy has always belonged to me."
Nysera's hand went to the hilt at her waist, though no sword hung there. Magic was enough. She could feel the dark currents swirling, ready to obey her call, yet something about Orryn's presence made them hesitate, as if the dead themselves feared this new power.
Seliora's lantern flickered. The glow of her robes dimmed against the red moonlight, but her voice remained steady. "Orryn, this is not the way. You cannot let the curse twist you. There is still… still something left inside you. You can be saved."
Orryn laughed. It was soft at first, then sharp, echoing unnaturally in the tombyard. "Saved?" she repeated. "I have been buried, forgotten, denied. I have watched as the world bent for the living and the dead bowed to you. And now you speak to me of salvation?"
Her hand swept through the air. The rotted flower in her palm dissolved into ash, swirling around her like black smoke. Where it touched the soil, the grass shriveled and the flowers wilted. Where it hovered, the shadows coiled tighter, writhing like serpents.
Nysera swallowed hard. She could not recall the last time she had felt fear like this—not from the dead, not from the cultists, not from the countless battles she had won. But Orryn was different. She was of their blood, their flesh and bone, yet entirely alien. A Mirror twisted and dark, reflecting everything Nysera feared about herself.
The moon pulsed, crimson veins stretching wider across the sky. The prophecy, whispered through generations, seemed to resonate from the earth itself: One must fall.
Orryn's fractured silver eye gleamed as she stepped between the sisters. "Choose," she said. "Decide who will live… who will die… who will break the island's chains. Or leave it to me."
Seliora's hand found Nysera's again, a silent promise. "We face this together," she said.
Orryn tilted her head, considering them with that cold, mirrored gaze. "Together? Fools. Thalyssra does not survive three. One will fall. One always falls."
The wind howled as if agreeing. The cliffs groaned. Somewhere in the village below, the chapel bells tolled again, marking the rise of the curse that had lain dormant for a decade.
And for the first time since she had returned, Orryn felt… power. Not just from magic, but from being remembered. From being feared. From being the one the prophecy truly spoke of.
Nysera's silver eyes met Seliora's green, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. The battle was no longer about life or death—it was about survival, about protecting the bonds they had nearly lost, about defying fate itself.
The sisters drew closer, shadows and light mingling at their feet. Orryn stepped back, the Mirror poised, the rotted flower ash drifting around her like a dark halo. The blood-red moon glimmered overhead.
"Let the night choose," Orryn whispered.
The ground beneath their feet cracked again. The dead stirred. And the prophecy began.