.

I didn’t run.

Not this time.

The forest closed around me like a hand. Cold. Familiar. Holding its breath.

I was still bleeding. I couldn’t tell from where anymore—maybe my knees, maybe my thoughts. The mirror shard from the priest pulsed in my pocket like a second heart. The glyph on my back hadn’t stopped glowing since I left the ruin. It wasn’t just light anymore. It was... warm.

Too warm.

He wasn’t there, not physically. But his want was. Thick as fog in my throat.

I stopped at a narrow stream, barely a ribbon of light slicing through the dark, and looked down.

My reflection stared back.

My hair was tangled. My skin was pale. My eyes were not mine.

And then, in the reflection, I saw her.

Not behind me.

Inside me.

Silne.

Not in body.

In gaze.

She blinked in the water’s shimmer. Her mouth curled, not cruel—but knowing.

Possession without touch.

“You didn’t tell me goodbye,” I said aloud.

No answer. But her smile deepened. The glyph pulsed.

Then a voice—not Silne’s—soft, breathy, male:

“That wasn’t a goodbye, Eva.”

“That was an invitation.”

I turned slowly.

And she was there.

Not in water.

In flesh.

She leaned against the twisted trunk of an old birch like it owed her a favor. Her hair was darker than I remembered—longer too, loose down her back like a threat. The blade at her hip was ceremonial, curved, almost beautiful.

Her smirk? Anything but ceremonial.

“You always stare into reflections like you're hoping they’ll lie,” she said. “Hasn’t worked yet, has it?”

I said nothing. The stream crackled softly between us. The glyph under my skin pulsed like it knew her. Maybe it did. Silne always moved like someone who’d been read into the spellbook early.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

She tilted her head.

“Don’t insult me. You’re glowing like a freshly opened altar. You think Kaelith’s the only one who left his mark?”

I stepped back. Not out of fear.

Out of knowing better.

“You’re not here for small talk.”

She pushed off the tree. The air between us shifted—warmer, tighter. Her boots didn’t make a sound as she stepped into the stream. Water curled around her ankles like it wanted her to stay.

“I saw what you saw,” she whispered. “The mirror. The priest. The chains around his wrists. Yours.”

“You weren’t there,” I said. “You couldn’t have—”

“I’m always there when you bleed something sacred.”

That made me flinch.

She noticed. She always did.

Silne crossed the last few feet between us and stopped only when I could feel the breath between our mouths.

“Do you know what happens,” she said softly, “when a glyph blooms too fast?”

“It unbinds.”

“It takes more than it gives.”

“It opens your body to things you can’t unfeel.”

She reached toward me—not roughly. Not even sensually.

Just… surely.

“And that,” she whispered, “is when I come in.”

The glyph flared.

I gasped—heat arcing down my spine like a kiss from a dagger.

Silne’s hand never touched me.

But her presence?

Her voice?

The words curling behind her tongue like spells she hadn’t said yet?

They did.

And gods help me…

I wanted them.

I didn’t trust her.

But I didn’t move.

Silne’s breath was warm against my neck.

Not lustful.

Not gentle.

Claiming.

“You don’t need to be afraid of him anymore,” she said.

“But you should be afraid of what’s waking up inside you.”

My body tensed. The glyph pulsed—once, twice—like a heartbeat rising beneath skin. And then—

Her lips touched my spine.

Right where Kaelith had marked me.

Not a kiss.

A press of mouth to power.

And gods—

The pain was instant.

Followed by pleasure that felt wrong.

Too much.

Like something inside me cracked open and screamed without sound.

“Stop,” I hissed.

But my voice was shaking.

Silne smiled against my back.

“You’re glowing.”

She bit.

Not hard.

Just enough.

My knees gave out.

The glyph flared bright enough to burn the shadows around us. I fell forward, catching myself on a stone, gasping like something had just been ripped through me.

The mirror shard cracked.

I turned—rage boiling, magic on the edge of my lips—

But Silne was already backing away, licking a smear of blood from her lower lip.

“That,” she said, “wasn’t for me.”

“That was for her.”

“Her?” I croaked, still dizzy.

Silne pointed down.

The mirror shard—cracked now—reflected a different face.

Not mine.

Not hers.

A third.

A woman with silver eyes.

And a mouth full of glyphs carved into her teeth.

And then the voice came again.

Not Kaelith’s.

Not Silne’s.

Something older.

“The collar has turned inward.”

“She is almost ready.”

☾

End of Episode 4

Next: Episode 5 - Blood in the Shape of a Name.

 

       _*"" The mirror cracked. But it still watched her back.""*_