The Mirrors reflection

Reflections of Desire

Aiden

The Mirror World was quiet tonight. A rare stillness hung in the air, one that Aiden found unsettling. It meant something was shifting, and he could feel the pull toward Elowyn more than ever. She was the axis around which everything had begun to spin. Her presence rippled through the Dream World and the Mirror World, blurring the boundaries between them. Even now, as he lingered at the edge of her subconscious, watching her fitful sleep, the pull was undeniable.

He leaned against the frame of her dream, his fingers tracing the edges of reality where they thinned like fragile silk. He could see her in the dream world, her breath shallow, skin flushed. She was dreaming of him—no, of Felix. The artist, her friend, who thought his heart was enough to keep her safe from the shadows that followed her. He smiled at the thought. Felix had no idea what he was up against.

In the dream, Elowyn turned toward Felix, her gaze soft with affection. Aiden's chest tightened with something he didn't want to name—jealousy, perhaps, or a darker impulse he wasn't ready to confront. He should've pulled back, let the dream play out naturally. But he couldn't resist. Not now.

With a subtle twist of his power, Felix's features began to shift, blurring like wet paint on a canvas. Elowyn's dream-self blinked, confused, but as her gaze returned to Felix, it wasn't Felix anymore. It was him. Aiden.

Elowyn's lips parted, her breath catching as her dream deepened into something more primal. He stepped closer, letting the illusion take hold. She reached for him, and his hands found her waist, pulling her closer. There was something intoxicating about her, something fragile and powerful all at once. She was trembling, but not from fear.

Aiden's lips brushed her ear as he whispered, "You know it's always been me, Elowyn."

Her body responded, arching into him. The kiss they shared burned with intensity, but it wasn't tender—it was laced with desperation, with need. She wasn't the innocent girl Felix thought she was. There was darkness in her, a hunger she didn't fully understand yet. But Aiden could feel it, taste it. He wanted to awaken it, to make her see what she truly was.

But just as her hands gripped the back of his neck, something shifted in the shadows around them. A darkness deeper than his own magic stirred, and Aiden felt it before he saw it—the Mirror World pressing in.

He let go of her, stepping back. His eyes darted to the edges of the dream, where the shadows thickened unnaturally, coiling like smoke.

Kaelen.

Aiden's lips tightened into a thin line, knowing he had overstayed his welcome. With a flick of his wrist, he slipped from the dream, vanishing into the unseen spaces just before the shadows could touch him.

---

Kaelen

Aiden was gone, as he always was when Kaelen arrived. The coward. He slithered through dreams like a snake, playing at being a lover, but he was no better than the other wretches of the Mirror World. The difference was that Aiden didn't belong entirely to the Mirror. Not yet. His ties to both worlds made him slippery, hard to pin down. But Kaelen could see through him.

He stepped into Elowyn's dream, his presence making the air chill and brittle. He didn't need to move like Aiden, weaving through dreams. Kaelen was the shadow. He didn't need a reflection to pass through glass; he was the darkness behind the glass.

Elowyn stood before him, her breath still ragged, her skin flushed from the remnants of Aiden's touch. She was confused, her lips parted in shock, perhaps in disappointment, now that her dream lover had disappeared. She didn't see him yet, but Kaelen saw her clearly. He had always seen her, from the moment her birth had cracked the veil between the worlds, her bloodline seeping into the Mirror World like an unwanted stain.

And now, here she was—grown, powerful, fragile, and his.

Kaelen's form remained in the shadows as he watched her. The dream bent around him, the landscape warping as his power seeped into the crevices of her mind. The warmth that Aiden had left behind was quickly fading, replaced by the cold, oppressive chill of his presence. Elowyn's breathing quickened, but she didn't turn toward him.

"You think you can be with him?" Kaelen's voice echoed through the dream, his words a low growl that sent a shiver down her spine. Elowyn spun around, her eyes wide with alarm, searching for the source of the voice. But she couldn't see him. Not yet.

He stepped closer, the shadows parting slightly to reveal the vague outline of his figure. "What he gives you... what you felt with him," he hissed, "is nothing compared to what I can give you."

Elowyn's gaze locked onto his, her expression a mixture of fear and something else. He knew what that look was. It was the same hunger that Aiden had sensed, but unlike Aiden, Kaelen wasn't playing games. He didn't need to manipulate her emotions, because she already belonged to him—whether she knew it or not.

Kaelen reached out, his hand hovering just inches from her skin, though they were separated by a veil of shadows. "You feel it, don't you? The pull. The darkness." His voice was softer now, coaxing, almost tender. "I am the only one who can give you what you crave. Not him. Me."

The dream shifted again, darker this time, the ground beneath them cracking and distorting. Elowyn gasped as the dream world rippled, threatening to collapse around her.

"I've been waiting for you, Elowyn," Kaelen whispered, his voice like silk and venom. "You belong to me."

The shadows coiled tighter around her, and for a moment, Kaelen let his true power seep into her dream. The walls of her mind trembled as the Mirror World beckoned. But just before she could be consumed, just before she could fall completely into his grasp, Kaelen withdrew.

He had time. Elowyn would come to him willingly. Eventually.

With a final glance at her trembling form, Kaelen melted back into the darkness, leaving her alone in her fractured dream.