My Daughter-in-Law Stole My Face With the Eclipse Mirror and Made Me Serve Her Feast — Now the Mirror Is Screaming My Name
I was asleep on my straw mat, the single lamp extinguished, when a frantic pounding jolted me awake. The moon had long set. The air was cold, damp.
My small pantry cottage rarely saw visitors, especially not at 2:00 AM.
I pulled on a simple linen tunic and opened the door a crack. Julian stood on my doorstep, his expensive robes streaked with mud, his hair disheveled. His face was pale, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
He looked like a man hunted.
“Mother,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, “you have to make it stop.”
He clutched a heavy leather satchel, pressing it against his chest. I stepped back, letting him enter the cramped space. He moved awkwardly, his movements too large for my humble room.
“The mirror,” he choked out, “it hasn’t stopped for three days. It’s screaming your name. It’s tearing the palace apart.”
I looked at him, my gaze unwavering. The son I had nurtured for centuries, whose every whim I had catered to, now stood before me, broken and desperate.
“Five million Imperial Credits,” he blurted out, tearing open the satchel. Inside, neat bundles of treasury bonds glowed faintly in the dim light. “Five million. Yours. And I will lock Seraphina in the highest tower, away from everyone. Forever.”
He extended the satchel, his hand trembling. His eyes pleaded, searching for any flicker of the old affection, the old protectiveness.
“Just tell me what to do, Mother,” he begged. “Tell me how to make it quiet.”
He truly believed I could simply wave a hand and silence the consequences of his choices. He believed my sorrow was a switch to be flicked off, his comfort a price to be paid.
I looked at the treasury bonds, then at his desperate, pleading face. The money was meaningless. The tower was meaningless.
He wanted me to fix the shattered world he and Seraphina had created, to unbreak the things they had so carelessly destroyed.
I turned my back on him. I walked to my small, rough-hewn table, picked up a single, smooth river stone, and turned it over and over in my palm.
The silence from me was immediate, absolute.
Julian stared at my back, his arm still extended, the satchel heavy in his hand. No words, no gestures, no acknowledgment. Just my quiet refusal.
His face crumbled. He let out a soft, choked sob, then stumbled out of the cottage, the treasury bonds still clutched in his satchel, his footsteps fading into the pre-dawn chill.
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