MistNovel - Read Web Novel Stories & Fiction Online

The Witch of Mirrors stepped through a rupture in the very air itself. She did not walk so much as she materialized, as if the space beside the altar had always held her shape and was only now revealing it. The sight of her, a being of impossible angles and ancient cold, drove several of the nearby attendees to their knees in terror.
She was ancient. Not old in the way of years, but ancient in the way of mountains, of deep ocean trenches, of things that had existed long before names. Her form was draped in robes that seemed woven from living shadows, constantly shifting and reforming into new, unsettling patterns. Her face was an ageless and terrible mask of cracked porcelain, and her eyes were like shattered mirrors, each fragment reflecting a different, distorted image of everyone who dared to look at her.
When she spoke, her voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once, a sound like breaking glass. "How presumptuous."
The cathedral, which had been a cacophony of panic, fell utterly silent. Even Harry’s screams had stopped, though he remained trapped and writhing within the sphere of warring energies.
"You sought to bind what should remain separate," the Witch continued, her movements slow and deliberate as she circled the altar. She was like a shark circling its prey. "You wished to force harmony where there is meant to be division. Did you truly think the old powers would allow such a foolish transgression?"
The high priest, his face pale with shock, finally found his voice. "This union is sanctioned by both courts. It has been blessed by…"
"It has been blessed by politicians and fools," the Witch interrupted, her laugh a sharp, cutting sound. "You understand nothing of the true nature of what you attempt. You play with forces that shaped the cosmos, and you are surprised when they burn you."
She turned her terrible, fractured gaze on Amelia, and for a heart-stopping moment, Amelia felt herself reflected in those mirror-shard eyes. She saw herself split into countless fragments, each one showing a different version of who she might become, who she might have been. A queen. A hermit. A hero. A monster.
"You," the Witch said, her voice softening with a terrifying, false intimacy. "Half of light, half of shadow. You, of all people, should understand the impossibility of true integration. The two halves war within you. They always have. They always will."
"You are wrong," Amelia managed to say, though her voice shook with a fear she could not control. "I am proof that both can exist in one being. I am whole."
"Are you?" The Witch tilted her head, and her expression held something that might have been pity, which was far more frightening than her anger. "Or are you merely a cage, containing a conflict that will one day tear you apart and destroy you?"
She turned her attention back to Harry, who was still writhing in the magical cocoon. "But him? Oh, him. He is something far more dangerous than a simple hybrid. He is an impossibility."
The Witch raised one long, pale hand, and the energies surrounding Harry responded instantly, intensifying to a blinding degree. He cried out again, his back arching in an unnatural, painful way.
"Stop!" Amelia tried to move forward, to throw herself between the Witch and Harry, but her body would not obey. Some invisible force held her frozen, a helpless observer to the horror. "Leave him alone!"
"I am not the one who is hurting him, child," the Witch’s voice was almost gentle now. "He hurts himself simply by existing. Every moment, every breath he takes, is a violation of the fundamental order of things. Half angel, half demon, two warring essences forced into a single vessel through magic that should have been impossible."
Queen Eliza was on her feet now, her regal composure completely shattered. "You do not understand what you are saying! I did what was necessary. I made him whole. I purified him!"
"You made him broken." The Witch’s gaze swung to the queen, and Eliza actually flinched, stumbling back a step. "You thought you could purify him, that you could strip away the darkness and leave only the light. But essence cannot be destroyed, your majesty. It can only be suppressed. Pushed down, locked away, denied but never, ever eliminated."
Lord Cassian Dray had also risen, his expression one of grim, vindicated satisfaction. "So the rumors were true after all. The angelic court tried to perform a ritual of severance on their own prince. How desperate you must have been, Queen Eliza, to risk such dangerous and forbidden magic."
"Silence," Eliza hissed, but her voice lacked its usual sharp authority. It was thin and brittle.
The Witch continued as if they had not spoken, her focus entirely on the unfolding tragedy at the altar. "For years, the demonic half has festered inside him, compressed, tortured, longing for release. And today, with this foolish ritual, with the joining of opposite forces, you have finally given it the key to its freedom."
She turned back to Harry, and her hand moved in a complex, weaving gesture. The energies around him began to organize. They were no longer chaotic but purposeful, pulling at him, tugging him in opposite directions with methodical, relentless force.
"I will not force what must happen," the Witch said, her voice a cold whisper that carried through the entire cathedral. "I will simply allow it. I will allow the natural order to reassert itself. I will allow the false unity to crumble and reveal the terrible truth that lies beneath."
"No!" Amelia found she could move again. With a desperate cry, she lunged forward. But she was too slow, too far away.
The Witch completed her gesture.
And Harry began to tear apart.