Hira opened her eyes.
The mirrors no longer showed mere reflections—they pulsed like open wounds in reality, bleeding memory and future into the now. She saw herself in them, yes, but not as versions to be compared. They were truths she had yet to earn, fates she hadn't yet deserved.
In one, she stood crowned in flame, her hands dripping with light that looked like blood. Her eyes glowed with the knowledge of a thousand cycles, but her mouth was stitched shut by regret.
In another, she knelt in a crater where a city once lived, arms cradling the broken shell of a child she recognized but could not name. Around her, phantoms screamed—but she did not move.
And in the last, she was nothing at all. A hollow shape of skin and shadow, wandering through a palace of mirrors with no exit, no name, no past. The void whispered through her steps. She was forgotten even by the pattern.
Hira clutched her chest as the weight of all that could be settled into her bones.
