The ground screamed.
Soil split beneath their feet, spilling ash instead of earth. Fingers of bone clawed upward, grasping at the night. The cemetery writhed as if every grave had become a wound. The blood-red moon soaked its glow across every stone, every broken angel, every crack.
Nysera felt the hunger surge. Shadows leapt to her, eager, desperate. They clung to her arms, whispering promises in voices she almost recognized—the voices of those she had buried. Take us, wield us, we are yours…
She clenched her fists. She had mastered them before, but Orryn's presence frayed her control. Every corpse that rose seemed to look not at her, but at the Mirror.
Seliora's lantern flickered wildly, its flame bending toward Orryn as though drawn to her. No—not drawn, devoured. Seliora pressed her palm against the soil, forcing warmth into the ground. Grass shivered, fighting to survive, glowing faintly gold. For every root she revived, three withered in Orryn's shadow.
Her heart pounded. This wasn't balance anymore. This was being unmade.
Orryn stepped forward, ash swirling around her like a cloak. The black veins down her arms pulsed with rhythm, as though her body followed a different heartbeat than theirs. The fractured silver in her left eye reflected them both—Nysera's sharp defiance, Seliora's quiet desperation.
"Look at them," she murmured, voice low, reverent. "They rise for me. They remember their true keeper."
Nysera spat. "You call this keeping? You rot the world, sister. Even the dead deserve rest."
"Rest?" Orryn's laughter cracked the air. She raised her hand, and the skeletal hands in the earth stilled, turning to face her command. "There is no rest. Only hunger. Only chains. I break them."
She snapped her fingers.
The nearest grave burst open, soil exploding in a spray of ash and bone. A half-decayed corpse pulled itself free, hollow eyes locked on Seliora.
Seliora's chest seized. She knew that face. She knew it. "Mother…"
Nysera froze. For the first time in years, she couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Their mother's corpse shuffled forward, flowers still tangled in the hair of her broken skull.
Orryn tilted her head, smiling faintly. "Does she look peaceful to you? Your healer's hands kept her alive for nothing. Your reaper's vows could not keep her grave sealed. She belongs to me now."
Seliora's eyes burned with tears. Her hand shook as she held the lantern higher. Gold light poured against the corpse, against the withered bones, against the ruin of their mother's face. For a breath, the corpse stilled. Flowers trembled in her hair, blooming for the first time in ten years.
"Go back," Seliora whispered. Her voice cracked. "Please, go back."
The corpse staggered, torn between light and shadow. Nysera finally moved, shadows flooding from her palms, binding the corpse in a shroud of black mist. "Rest, Mother," she hissed, forcing the body back into the soil. The grave sealed with a sound like thunder.
The silence afterward was worse than the chaos.
Seliora dropped to her knees, clutching the lantern. Her breath came in broken sobs. Nysera stood rigid, staring at Orryn with fury she couldn't contain.
"You crossed a line," she said. "Even for you."
Orryn's smile faded, her gaze suddenly sharp, cold. "It was never your line to draw."
The shadows hissed louder, and for a moment Nysera felt them hesitate between her and Orryn, as if uncertain whom they belonged to. Rage burned through her veins. She would not let the Mirror take everything.
But before she could strike, Seliora rose again. Her tears still shone, but her voice was steady, a thread of steel wrapped in silk. "If the prophecy is true, then it will not be you who decides, Orryn. And it will not be tonight."
Orryn tilted her head. "You sound certain. Shall I test you?"
The earth groaned again. More graves split, skeletal fingers clawing free. But this time, Seliora did not tremble. She pressed her lantern to the soil, pouring her light outward in a wave. The grass surged, roots lashing through the earth, entangling the corpses, pulling them down. For every hand that clawed upward, vines dragged it back.
Nysera added her shadows, weaving with Seliora's roots until the graves sealed again. Together, their magic held—barely.
Orryn watched, expression unreadable. The fractured silver in her eye flickered. For a moment, just a breath, doubt shadowed her face.
Then it was gone.
"You fight well, together," she said softly. "But together cannot last. You feel it, don't you? The prophecy burns between your ribs. One of you will fall. One always falls."
She stepped backward into the shadows. The ash that swirled around her dissolved into nothing, and in the next heartbeat, she was gone.
The cemetery was still again. The moon bled overhead. Only the sound of Seliora's ragged breathing and Nysera's pounding heart filled the silence.
Seliora clutched her lantern as though it could anchor her. "She's… she's really back."
Nysera nodded once. Her fists trembled with fury. "And she's worse than the curse itself."
They turned, together, toward the broken angel statue. Its hollow eyes seemed to watch them, as though Orryn still lingered.
Neither spoke of the mother's corpse. Neither spoke of the prophecy's weight pressing against their hearts.
But both knew: the island would not survive three.