Thorns and Beating Hearts

Once upon a time, in the city of Thorn, there was a young man named Karsen who lived in a tower. He was not imprisoned in the spire of stone, though within it he often felt trapped. He was a Crown Prince, of a mountainous and forest filled kingdom called Alnorac. There was no looming threat of war, no curse from a warty old wizard, and yet the prince felt like there was something he was missing. He would stare into the shadowy mirror hung on the wall while pondering this, and sometimes it seemed like it stared back. And then, he found that missing thing at the festival.

The fair was a celebration of the slaying of the Wyrm of the Sonofrang Mountain. The beast had been plaguing villages throughout the land, so Karsen’s cousin assembled a group of knights and set out. The victorious party was now walking through the gates, and the swordbearer who struck the killing blow rode in at the front on his white horse. Sir Joardin was the picture of pride and honor, his shoulder length hair pulled back to reveal a smile that had many ladies of the court, and Karsen himself, weak at the knees. He watched their entrance along with the king and queen atop their podium, and when it was time to present the valiant men with their crowns of laurel, Prince Karsen awarded Sir Joardin himself.

As the festivities continued late into the night, the Prince and the Knight never left each other's sides, discussing the former’s closed off royal duties, the latters adventures, and both of their dreams for the future. While they walked through the gardens, Sir Joardin told the Prince of his birthplace, Rosevale, and posed the possibility of showing it to him one day. Karsen wasn’t quite sure what this feeling he had around the gallant man was, but from the books that he had snuck away from under the nose of the royal librarian, he believed that it was love. And then the kiss that they shared while alone made Karsen believe the knight felt it too. In the greatest stories, those in love married, and considering people married younger and younger in these times, the nine-and-ten prince felt that the two should be joined.

The next morning, Karsen went to his mother and father and inquired about a potential union between him and Sir Joardin. Their response was a laugh like that of a mockingbird. They informed the Prince that he would marry a Lady of the nobility, and that the knight would marry a commoner girl. For that is the way that things were. Distraught from the news, the Prince returned to his tower, and paced in front of the mirror. And then he stopped when he finally looked into it. Because in place of his reflection was a Woman. She had the same dark hair, though longer, the same hazel eyes, though filled with malice, and the same fair skin covering her face, though her’s was set with a vicious smile. Unlike him, where her left breast should have been her chest was torn open, revealing muscle and bone and a dark, beating heart.

After that, Karsen avoided Sir Joardin and reflective surfaces alike. The Prince could avoid the man he loved by not leaving the castle, but the woman from the mirror haunted him in anything that should have shown his own face; the underside of a spoon, stained glass in the church, the golden crown he was forced to wear for social engagements. One day, he was walking with his eyes aimed at the floor to avoid the shiny porcelain statues that lined the hallways, for even in them he could not escape her. He was so preoccupied with not looking up that he ran straight into Sir Joardin.

The Knight, after ensuring that Karsen was fine after running into his metal armor, started peppering him with questions on why he was being given such a wide birth. The Prince started stammering out responses, until he looked down at Sir Joardin’s chestplate, which shined with sunlight, and the blood drained from his face as a feminine hand reached through. Both of them looked upon the slow-moving limb with awe and horror, and then the Knight reached for his blade as the well-groomed nails painted red as blood lunged for Karsen’s throat. After striking the hand with the pommel of his sword to make it retreat, Joardin ripped off his reflective armor, took Karsen’s hand, and ran with him down the corridor to a dark alcove.

Safe from the Woman in the mirror for now, the pair gave themselves a minute to simply breathe the same air, for their hearts to not race out of fear. Once they were able to speak again, Joardin asked when the Woman had first appeared, and was both shocked and pleased after learning the harbinger of her arrival. Karsen did not know how to fight, but he did know strategy, from sitting in on War Councils and reading the journals of great generals. Whatever her end goal, she needed Karsen to get it, and short of shattering every reflective surface in the castle, she could reach them from almost anywhere. They needed her somewhere isolated, and to draw her away from her source of power, the mirror. And Karsen knew just how to proceed.

Still hand in hand with Joardin, Karsen found the nearest group of servants and instructed them to enter his tower and bring his mirror to the library, but to hang it in the deepest section, where the old tomes had gathered the most dust. After it was done, the two of them locked the library’s doors, and Karsen placed Joardin in a prime position for concealment. He then instructed him that no matter what, he must wait till the very last second to draw his sword, lest her eyes see through it and undo their trap. Picking up a lit candlestick, Karsen donned his crown and walked farther among the shelves, the shadows stretching farther around him, until he arrived at the mirror, his small flame the only source of light.

As before with the chestplate, her hand reached through into open air, and then her whole arm appeared, then did her cruel leer, then her other appendages, and then all of her was free from the mirror, and so was the beating of her dark heart, thrumming throughout the stacks. The two stared at each other for a moment, Karsen and his feminine doppelganger, and then as slick as the shadow that surely was her soul, the Woman chased after Karsen, who led her past stories of love and war, hate and politics, fear and new beginnings, her blood red nails always an inch behind. As they neared the locked entrance, the Woman slung low and slashed his thigh straight through his trousers. Karsen fell to the ground, and he used one hand to pull himself closer to the door, where he needed to be, while the other tried to staunch the bleeding. The Woman, her prey injured and hampered, took her time following after him, her bare feet walking through his trail of blood. Karsen reached the point where he could go no farther, and looked up at the thing that yearned to end his short life.

Tilting her head to one side, the Woman took a moment to observe Karsen before she went for the kill, raising one of her razored hands into the air. And there, from the secret recess in the wall where Karsen had hid from tutors, suitors, and his own parents, Joardin burst forth behind her. Unburdened from his armor, his steps were quicker then ever, and he was upon the Woman as her lethal hand rose. Jumping onto a table and leaping off it, he was in midair as he pulled his blade free. For a moment, the Woman felt a new reflection appear, and saw herself through it. And then she saw nothing as Joardin cleaved her head from her body.

Dropping the sword next to her corpse, Joardin rushed to Karsen, tearing fabric from his shirt to secure a tourniquet, then cradling him as the two processed what they had just done. When they decided that they had sat there long enough, they stood, and Karsen threw the crown that he so despised on her body. Joardin picked up the candlestick that Karsen had dropped in the fight, and threw it on the bloody mess. Whatever creature she had been, she burst into flames, and the fire melted the crown and sword until they were puddles of liquid metal.

The two walked through the castle, making their way to the stables. They stopped by the kitchens, and stuffed bread and cheese and apples into a bag. Karsen limped during the small journey, until Joardin decided to simply carry him there. They mounted Joardin’s white steed, and at a breakneck speed rode as fast as they could to the border of Thorn. After a week of travel and purrloining fresh clothes and food from smaller villages on the way, the two crested a hill, and overlooked where they had decided their new home would be, Rosevale. As this new future became real, one free of unasked for responsibilities, of Wyrms, of cursed women in mirrors, as this new future where the two of them could be together became their path forward, they kissed, and took the descending road into the city in the valley.