was a silence too still, too precise—like a breath held in the lungs of the world.
Bella stood alone, her knees pressing into cracked obsidian, her fingers trembling. Blood smeared her chin, fire curled low along her arms like waiting wolves, and the crown pulsed with a heartbeat not her own.
Then—
Drip.
A drop of crimson fell from her nose to the stone, sizzling on impact.
And behind her eyes—
The mirror formed.
A mirror inside her mind.
Its surface rippled like black mercury, framed with thorned silver, and within it, something began to move. A silhouette, pacing back and forth behind the glass.
Her.
But older. More refined. More deadly.
Lilith.
The woman inside the mirror smiled—slowly, like the pull of a dagger from soft flesh.
"Well," she purred. "You woke me."
Bella backed away mentally, shoving at the vision, trying to shake it out.
"No," she whispered aloud, clutching her temples. "Stay buried. You don't belong here anymore."
Lilith stepped closer to the glass, her voice curling like smoke.
"I've always belonged here. You were the intruder. You thought wearing my power wouldn't come with a price?"
Bella clenched her teeth.
"I'm not you."
"Oh, sweetheart." The mirror crackled. "But you will be."
Suddenly, the world around her mind cracked. The mirror split in two—and Lilith stepped through.
Not into the real world—but deeper into Bella's soul.
A shared space. A throne room, floating in the void between them.
One throne.
Two queens.
Lilith sat first.
Bella stood, breath heaving, as her shadow twisted behind her—lengthening, reshaping into Lilith's silhouette.
Lilith crossed her legs elegantly, draped in black velvet. Her silver eyes glittered like stars forged from curses.
"I know what's coming," she said softly. "You think Kael can save you. That love is enough. But what's coming—" she smiled, "—requires something crueler."
"I'll never be like you," Bella said.
"You already are," Lilith said, rising.
She placed a finger beneath Bella's chin and tilted her face up.
"Do you think you defeated Tharion because of your strength?"
Bella didn't move.
"That was mine, little girl."
The throne room trembled.
In the real world, Bella's body shook violently.
The woman in white—her guide, her watcher—rushed forward from the distance, her eyes wide with alarm.
"She's slipping!" she shouted. "Lilith is breaching the veil!"
Inside her mind, Bella screamed.
"Get out of me!"
Lilith laughed. Her voice was beautiful and horrifying.
"You invited me in the moment you said yes to power."
The crown blazed.
And Bella—
Began to vanish.
One fingertip at a time, her real self disintegrated into mist, being replaced… by her.
Bella's soul is being rewritten. Lilith isn't whispering anymore—she's taking over.
Unless someone finds her soon… Bella will be gone forever.