Morning came without light.
The storm had buried the manor in snow overnight. Ice coiled around the windows like claws, and the fireplaces spat and groaned, barely warming the halls. Larissa awoke not to sunlight but to silence—thick, watching, unnatural.
She dressed slowly, choosing a wool coat over her nightdress, boots over bare feet. Her hands trembled as she buttoned the last clasp. Her breath fogged in the still air, and for the first time since arriving, she realized the house was colder inside than it was outside.
She didn't know where she was going—only that the reflection in the conservatory hadn't been a hallucination.
It was a message.
And she needed to know why.
She wandered the upper corridor, deeper into the manor's east wing, where tapestries covered the walls and forgotten portraits gathered dust. It was here the air changed. Thicker. Slower. Like stepping into water.
At the end of the hallway stood a mirror.
She'd never seen it before.
It was tall, gilded in silver, rimmed with thorny vines carved into its frame. The glass shimmered like water.
Larissa stepped closer.
Her own reflection blinked.
She recoiled.
The mirror didn't show her now—it showed her younger. A girl of seven, barefoot in the snow, holding a small porcelain box in her hand.
Her mother's music box.
"No," Larissa whispered. "That's not real."
The girl in the mirror opened the box.
The lullaby played again.
And then the mirror cracked—just a hairline down the center. But it bled. A slow, dark red trail dripped from the fracture.
"Larissa."
She spun.
Lukyan stood in the hall, his expression unreadable.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"You've said that about half the house," she snapped. "Maybe tell me where I should be."
He moved forward slowly. "I didn't mean to lie to you. About anything."
"You didn't lie," she said bitterly. "You just let me find out everything on my own."
His eyes dropped to the mirror.
"That belonged to our mother," he said. "She used to talk to it."
Larissa swallowed hard. "Talk?"
"She believed it held her other self—the version of her who made different choices. After a while, she stopped talking out loud and just listened."
"What happened to her?"
Lukyan stared at the mirror. "She walked into it. One day. And never came back."
The silence that followed was like a wound between them.
Larissa looked at her reflection again—now it was back to normal. No child. No blood. Just her. Pale. Unblinking.
"She's calling me," Larissa whispered.
"Who?"
"The woman in the mirror. Your mother. She thinks I can replace her."
Lukyan didn't deny it.
He only said, "You don't have to answer."
She turned to him. "Then tell me why I shouldn't."
Scene Break: The Forgotten Diary
Later that day, Dimitri cornered her in the west wing.
"You're seeing her, aren't you?"
Larissa didn't answer.
He handed her a leather-bound diary. Faded. Stitched in violet thread.
"Her name was Anya Volkov," he said. "And she was the strongest of us all."
Larissa opened the diary. The handwriting was careful, elegant.Pages filled with riddles and notes—mostly about dreams. And cold.
> The cold speaks louder now.
The child comes to me in white.
The mirror is no longer silent.
I see her face where mine should be.
Larissa's blood chilled.
"What is this?" she asked.
"A descent," Dimitri said. "And a warning."
She looked up. "A warning for who?"
"For the one who replaces her."
---
Scene Break: Fire Beneath Ice
That night, Larissa returned to her room. The house was still. Dimitri had vanished again. Lukyan hadn't spoken a word since the mirror.
She placed the diary on the bed and lit a candle.
The mark on her wrist burned faintly.
She opened the diary once more.
The final page was blank.
She pressed her palm to it.
Words burned onto the paper:
> The house chose you, Larissa.
Not to destroy it… but to become it.
The Ice King's throne has always been empty.
Now the Queen arrives.