Lura

Veilrend 51: Reflections That Should Not Be They called her Lura once. A seamstress. A sister. Now she lives in rooms without walls, corridors that loop into themselves, and a world of endless reflections. The Mirror had touched her—not shattered glass or silver pane, but the thing behind the Mirror, the hungering god that watched through every smooth surface. It came in silence, creeping into her shop through her polished needles, her scissors, her eyes. It started with the reflections. They moved wrong. Lura would lean forward, and her mirror-self would wait a second too long. Then smile. That was the first to break. Now, the Mirror spreads. It's not a thing to carry or hold—it blooms. Behind her eyes, in the silence between words, in every still puddle. And those it touches are undone. Not killed. Not corrupted. Unwoven. She hears the others. Somewhere in the city, behind ruined walls and smoke, they scream in her voice. They wear her face, twisted sideways. They crawl with a seamstress’s hands. One stitched her shadow to the floor. Another sewed her laughter into a beggar’s eyes until he clawed them out. Tonight, Lura walks barefoot. Her skin buzzes with the tension of too many selves. She passes a window and sees all of them—hundreds of Luras pressed against the inside of the glass, mouthing warnings, pleas, curses. One presses her hands to the glass. Her fingers split into threads. She is unraveling. A child turns the corner ahead. Alone. Eyes wide. Lura steps back, but her shadow doesn’t follow. It peels from her feet and crawls toward the girl. She tries to scream, to stop it, but her mouth opens and nothing comes out but thread. The child vanishes, pulled into the reflection in a puddle. Lura collapses to her knees, her hands flayed into strands of memory. Around her, the walls pulse and breathe. Reflections ripple across cobblestones and broken glass. The Mirror wants to be seen. And Lura—what’s left of her—is just another shard.