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Chapter 23 - Reflections and Rituals

Viktor stood before the mirror, rolling up his sleeves with precise, almost reverent intention. One button at a time. Smooth. Controlled. His reflection stared back—pale, sharp, unreadable. But it wasn't alone. The shadows behind him flickered unnaturally, as though breathing. Watching.

"You're progressing well," came the velvet voice from the mirror. Thick with irony. Ancient with something more dangerous than magic. "You've twisted desire into utility. And she touched you. That means the door is open. But the maid—"

"Sabine," Viktor muttered, not bothering to hide his annoyance. "She watches. She's earned the right."

"She prays when no one listens," the Shadow Man chuckled. "She forgets this house bends to your shadow. Not hers."

Viktor sighed, folding his arms, gaze fixed on the mirror's warped shimmer. "Sabine is the least of my worries," he said firmly. "If anyone should concern you, it's Genevieve."

The room cooled at the name. His reflection shimmered slightly, and the shadows curled tighter around the walls.

"She's a drain, not just on the body. She eats emotion. Wears seduction like perfume, but it's poison to everything it touches. At first, I thought it was just her presence. Her endless performance. But then my shadow began to ache."

Viktor stared into the mirror, but his attention flicked downward—to the floor where his shadow stretched across the wood. It twitched. Then moved. It lifted a hand when he lifted his. Tilted its head the moment he did. Like a reflection with a mind of its own.

He didn't stop it. Just watched with weary amusement.

He exhaled, his voice dipping into something more reflective. "People like her—no matter the bloodline—think marriage is the strongest magic. The ultimate seal. But I've watched those bonds crack like painted glass."

Viktor's gaze dropped to the floor, to the faint shiver of his shadow as it moved in thought with him.

"Even fae and dragons married once. Not for love,but leverage. Fae queens binding themselves to drakes who could melt cities. And dragons taking fae consorts because their illusions held off invading gods. The unions looked beautiful from afar—stories carved in silver and flame—but none of them lasted. How could they?"

He clenched his jaw slightly. "Most fae can't help looking like children. Most dragons can't help looking like kings. Doesn't mean either one was meant to play house. That kind of marriage… it was never for me."

His thoughts darkened. Once, when he was still small and stupidly obedient, his father tried to marry him off to a widow twice his age. A 'strategic match,' they called it. Viktor nearly vomited at the thought. Had it not been for a recent imperial reform that raised the marriage age to fifteen, he might have been chained to a stranger in pearls and power. That law had saved him—but only barely.

"Russians always believed bloodlines needed managing," he said, like it was a curse he'd carried since birth. "Even if it meant breeding boys into bargains. Thank the gods I was born with a pole between my legs," he added with a grim smile, like the phrase was rusted iron in his mouth. "If I'd been a girl, I wouldn't have had the option to protest. They would've dressed me up like an offering—crowned in pearls and promises. Boys were currency, but girls? Girls were the receipt."

He turned slightly, addressing the flickering shadow across the wall. "You know the history, don't you? In the old courts—both human and otherwise—they married children off before they learned to lie properly. The fae used to wed off their daughters at seven. 'Too bright to burn,' they'd say. And the dragons, well... we were traded like warhorses. A bloodline for a peace treaty. A scale for a spell."

The Shadow Man didn't interrupt. Just listened. Viktor continued, his voice heavier now.

"There were exceptions, of course. I remember one tale—an elder dragoness who set her own mountain aflame rather than wed her son to a fae lord. She said, «Пусть пепел станет нашим ответом на обязанность.» (Let ash be our answer to obligation.) That's the kind of legacy I respect."

He shook his head. "They thought blood would bind. But it only bruised for majority. I got lucky. The law changed before my father could hand me over."

The Shadow Man snorted, low and dry. "You sound like that oak-hearted prince from the old stories—the one who thought duty could be buried under armor."

Then, with a darker note, he added, "Idealist thinking. You're lucky, Viktor. You got out before it cost you your soul. Not everyone does. Some don't even try."

He laughed again, but it sounded like something breaking under its own echo. "There was a king in the East—somewhere between folklore and a ruined dynasty—who slept with hundreds just to birth the perfect war-child. Called it sacrifice. Called it salvation. But his empire fell before the boy could walk. That's history for you. Blended with myth and made palatable by the victors."

Viktor's smirk sharpened. "And yet they say the boy's scream still echoes in the walls of the forbidden palace."

A low chuckle echoed through the walls, slower this time—like the laughter had to stretch itself through centuries of old pain before it reached him.

Then shadows on the wall stirred like smoke slipping through velvet. The Shadow Man's silhouette stretched across the mirror and bent at the waist in a theatrical bow. "And now, the tale you've all come for," he crooned with a magician's flair.

He snapped long fingers—his shadow split into two dancing forms. One bore wings of smoke, the other horns of ash. They mimicked a wedding dance, then a slow, suffocating collapse.

"They always think they can bind power with silk and rings," the voice slithered through the illusion, its tone gone low and chilling—like breath slipping through teeth sharpened by secrets. "You want a story? Here's one: long before the cities, fae tried to marry a dragon queen. They offered her an orchard that bloomed in snow and a thousand-year kiss. She took both, then burned their courts to cinder when they tried to cage her."

As the tale spun into the air, the shadows along the walls writhed with delight. Tiny figures emerged from the dark corners—shapes of smoke and bone dancing to the rhythm of the story. One grew tall with a crown of antlers; another sprouted wings made of paper-thin flame. They bowed, twisted, and snapped into ash the moment the word "cage" was spoken.

Viktor watched in silence. And something inside him stirred.

It wasn't hunger. It wasn't fear.

It was clarity.

He inhaled—and with that breath came strength. As though the telling itself recharged him. Magic hummed faintly along his spine, not loud, not showy—just right.

"And that's the cost, isn't it?" he said slowly. "One story for another. That's always been our deal. You give me power—I give you memory. Narrative. Something that breathes long after we're dust."

He reached into the cabinet and retrieved a cup unlike any other—black glass, rimmed with dull silver, cool to the touch. Empty at first glance. But when he held it to the candlelight, shadows swirled inside, like liquid memory caught in amber.

He poured. Nothing visibly spilled from the vessel, yet the cup filled slowly with something dark and glimmering.

Viktor raised the glass, letting the candlelight catch the edges—and without a word, his own shadow reached up, mirroring him. But instead of fading back, the shadow curled around the cup, tilted its head, and drank.

The Shadow Man let out a long, delighted exhale—satisfied, amused, and quiet for once. The shadows around the room stilled. The grin in the mirror dulled, not in malice, but in peace.

Viktor lowered the cup, breath slow, eyes fixed on the last curl of shadow vanishing into the floorboards. He felt it ripple through him—not a rush, but a settling. As if something inside had locked into place.

The weight of the moment wasn't heavy. It was grounding. He didn't feel drained. He felt… recalibrated. Restored.

The ritual was complete.

One story paid. One sip earned.

The Shadow Man said nothing, but his grin stretched wider across the mirror like ink blooming in water. The shadows bowed once more—graceful, unhurried—and dissolved into the dark like well-trained performers stepping behind a velvet curtain.

But even as they vanished, Viktor could feel them.

Waiting. Watching.

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. The silence in the room wasn't still—it had weight, like the breath held in just before a curtain rose. For a fleeting second, he felt like he was standing on a stage, eyes unseen pressing down from the dark. A storyteller not yet given his cue, but knowing it would come.

Soon, he would speak—and they would listen. For he must give them a story, as was the old agreement. Not because he was forced to, but because something ancient demanded it. A story was the toll, the bridge, the balm.

Whether dull or dazzling, a tale was still a tale. The weight of it mattered less than the act of giving it voice. He didn't have to share it—not aloud. They could, if they wished, pull it from his thoughts, sip it like water from a cracked vessel. But it wasn't the same.

Spoken stories carried power. Rhythm. Heat. Memory.

Somewhere, in the marrow of Viktor's understanding, he remembered how stories had once been law—etched not in stone, but in voice. Like the old griots of West Africa. Like the elders of the Navajo and the Haida, who sang truth into firelight so it would never be forgotten. That was what the shadows waited for. That was what they respected.

And now, he stood in that tradition. Whether he liked it or not.

The Shadow Man said nothing at first, only grinned wider across the glass.

Viktor's thoughts turned colder. "I got lucky," he muttered. "Lucky I got to choose how I gained this power. Most don't. Human or supernatural—it makes no difference. You pay either way. Some bleed. Some rot. Some carry stories so heavy they forget which ones were ever theirs."

"Sounds familiar," Viktor declared, louder now, his voice striking the air like a spell being cast. He rose from his chair, hands gesturing like a maestro guiding thunder. "But let me give you one better!"

He pointed upward, eyes gleaming with heat. "There was once a Germanic prince who believed he could outwit fate. Not with steel or gold—but with marriage. He sought to wed the daughter of the Wild Hunt—yes, that Hunt—believing if he could claim her hand, her riders would never cross his land again."

Viktor swung a leg up in the air like mounting a phantom steed, gripping an invisible rein with his left hand while raising the other high. He began to ride in place, his boots thudding gently on the wood as though pounding hooves stirred ancient dust. His voice rose in rhythm with the motion, the ghost of a war march pulsing beneath his words. The act was absurd—but also chilling. As if he wasn't playing a part, but recalling something half-remembered and holy.

He became, for a moment, the prince himself—riding into the mouth of myth, crowned in foolish pride.

Viktor's voice climbed, defiant and proud. "He offered her wine sweetened with silver, oaths carved in birch bark, and a crown of antlers wreathed in flame. The wedding was held under a blood moon."

He didn't just tell the story—he moved through it. Viktor swept across the room as if guiding a phantom hunt himself, his boots echoing on the floor with every step. He threw out his arms, tracing imaginary arches in the air, miming the circle of revelers around a fire. The candlelight caught his silhouette and cast it huge against the far wall—an ancient bard's echo, flickering and vast.

The room responded. Shadows rippled like a crowd leaning forward, eager and silent. Though the gestures might've seemed absurd in another setting, here they were sacred. The shadows adored conviction.

His hand slashed the air like a blade across memory. "But the Hunt does not yield. That night, they danced through his halls and whispered truths into his guests' ears. By morning, his bride was gone, his palace burned to salt, and his name cursed to wander mouths for centuries—unloved, untethered."

As the final word fell from his lips, Viktor stumbled backward—not from exhaustion, but from something more ancient pulling at him from within. He dropped to his knees in the center of the room, folding forward into a fetal position. Not pathetic. Not broken. Ritualistic.

The shadows held their breath.

For a moment, it was as if he were a child reborn into story. And behind him, faint and flickering only in the candlelight's curve, something shimmered—two wings, not feathered, but elemental. A rippling mirage of bone and dusk. They unfurled briefly, unseen to the naked eye unless you happened to be watching the flame itself.

Curled at the arch where candlelight bent and breath paused, were two quiet, curling words: False love.

Viktor stood tall, spine uncoiling like a drawn bow, and cracked his neck with a slow, deliberate snap. His breath calmed, his jaw tightened—not in strain, but in purpose. He raised his chin, eyes catching the edge of the candlelight, and declared like a man delivering the final line of a play meant to echo through generations: "Real legacy isn't made in beds or bound by rings. It's what survives when no one wants you to. When the fire burns out—and all that remains is your name carved into shadow."

For a heartbeat, the world seemed to still.

Then came the applause—not of hands, but of shadows. A soft chorus of echoing claps, like the hush of robes on stone. The room shifted. Guests—if they were ever truly there—vanished into smoke. And the Shadow Man reappeared, smiling wide like a host at curtain call, while Viktor stood center stage, regal in his solitude.

Shadow-formed flowers bloomed suddenly in Viktor's direction—black lilies curled in ink and flickering silver. A mock bouquet. They vanished as quickly as they appeared, as if blown away by unseen laughter.

"Nice story," the Shadow Man said with theatrical amusement. "A bit dramatic, but we do love a performer." His tone twisted then, venom hiding behind the grin. "Now if only her father had such flair. That glitter-spined thornblood could barely recite a contract without choking on his own pride."

He paused, then added, "I don't dislike owing you, Viktor." His tone shifted, crisp and clipped—like a partner winding down a quarterly report. "Your brother's contract is nearly settled. I anticipate our visits will become... less frequent."

There was a pause—curious, almost cautious. "By the way, what exactly did you promise that faebitch Genevieve? I might've listened more closely, but Ayoka—" He stopped himself.

The Shadow Man could've finished the sentence. He had the answers, after all—stored in stories like wine in sealed bottles ,but he didn't. Cause truth, to him, was never about timing. It was about spectacle. He liked the drama of it—the slow burn, the theater of restraint. The Shadow Man had been a thousand things across lifetimes, but always—always—he was a witness first. A sentinel cloaked in shadow and smoke. A collector of stories, yes, but also of the tension that clung to unspoken truths, of the weight that sagged between sentences left unfinished.

In older folklore, some said he was the echo behind the throne of forgotten kings. Others claimed he once danced with witches in the Black Forest, trading laughter for names. Whatever he truly was, he now stood still—lingering in that quiet, indulgent silence, as if savoring the moment before the curtain dropped.

Viktor caught the hesitation. He wished the Shadow Man would finish the thought, but for once, silence was a greater show of respect. Especially where Ayoka was concerned. Some names didn't need to be spoken aloud. And the Shadow Man had already seen more than most. Viktor had made a deal with him—a binding one, cloaked in secrecy and shadow. To press further would be to test the boundaries of that pact. And with beings like this, such pressure came with a price. The silence was not just respect—it was a warning. A hush carried down from ancient thrones and old bargains. And Viktor, for all his blood, was not foolish enough to break a promise forged in storytelling and shadowblood.

"She wants me to draw her like some gilded heirloom," Viktor muttered, reaching for a small wooden case near his desk. "Naked. Shining. 'Like a French girl,' she said."

He cracked the box open with a reverent breath. Inside: a row of antique vials—pigments ground from obsidian beetle shells, volcanic ash, sapphire dust, and a rare ochre mined only once a century beneath the Carpathians. Paints laced with stories. With curses. With blood. The kind of color that didn't just stain—it remembered.

"She's more Russian than you are," the voice teased from the mirror's edge, curling around his shoulder like a shawl of fog.

"She's more Baba Yaga than anyone," Viktor murmured with a shiver as he lifted a brush, its bristles dyed from the fur of a shadowcat—a creature born during eclipses.

He turned slowly, theatrically, facing the flame-lit room like it was a stage. If she wanted performance, he'd give her one. His fingers danced with ritual precision as he dipped the brush and swirled it into pigment. This wasn't art—it was invocation. A warning veiled in beauty.

Viktor sat and lit the lamp with a slow, ceremonial hand. "Baba Yaga's blood gave her a gift for darkness. Not grace."

The flame flared in the glass chimney of the lamp—and with it, the shadows seemed to swirl with intent. The Shadow Man speaks now; he moved. His silhouette lengthened, arms stretching unnaturally across the far wall as if drawing lines in the air itself.

"She thinks darkness is something you can trap in a dress and heels," he whispers in Viktor ear, voice shifting into something almost melodic. "But true darkness… it resists caging. It remembers."

Then he moved his hand through the dancing light, sculpting it like a conductor would command music. A whisper of flame flicked toward Viktor's canvas, curling at the edge of his brushstroke.

"She doesn't understand what it costs to keep it," he continued, shadow and voice threading like a spell as he danced along the wall. "But you do. So let me help."

His words shimmered with double meaning—an offer veiled in performance, power, and old pain. "You think I move for beauty? I move for weight, Viktor. For the pressure of legacy wrapped in velvet shadows."

The air thickened with something older than dust. The Shadow Man's form warped and whirled in the candlelight, casting impossible angles across the room.

"I offer no bargains. Only accomplice to art," he crooned. "So take it, dragon—let my shadow steady your hand."

A pulse of shadow slithered up Viktor's arm—not painful, not cold—just ancient. Familiar. And with it, the line on the paper sharpened. Not just paint. Not just vision. It was memory now. It was truth.

Viktor's pencil hovered—but he wasn't sketching in the traditional sense. Not yet. The canvas before him remained blank, but it shimmered faintly, catching the candlelight like the surface of still water about to be disturbed. He wasn't painting a portrait—he was crafting a spell. A ceremonial invocation of form and truth. The pigments he'd chosen were not merely colors; they were keys, each steeped in rare folklore, activated by intent and belief. This was to be no simple rendering. This would be a mirror with memory.

His breath slowed. Hands steadied. He began with a single, deliberate stroke—not on the canvas itself, but above it, in the air, tracing a warding symbol that only revealed its meaning in shadow. Around him, the room felt as if it held its breath. The canvas began to hum. The painting would not just show her—it would reveal her. Not as she appeared, but as she truly was.

Let the masks fall. Let the magic bleed.

"She's a trap," the Shadow Man reminded him, voice slick with knowing. "Like all fae. You want a faery tale? Here's one."

He spun slowly, casting shadows across the walls like dancers on a puppet stage. "The fae once tried to conquer Africa. Sent their tricksters. Their dust. Their gold."

He paused with theatrical flourish, tipping an invisible crown on his head.

"You know what they found?"

The shadows behind him curled, a sharp intake of unseen breath.

"They found gods that remembered when the stars were born. Ones who made fire scream. One of them tried to snare an old god's daughter. She fed him his own wings."

He clicked his tongue, half-laughing. "They never tried again."

He turned toward Viktor, expression gleaming. "Anyway—this tale's on the house. Free of charge. You earned it, after all."

The shadows behind him gave a theatrical bow, like closing curtains on a show. "You were such a good performer tonight."

Viktor looked up, his gaze sharpening. When the Shadow Man offered a tale free of charge, it meant more than whimsy—it meant warning, or spell, or both. These were the moments Viktor had learned to treasure: not just performance, but prophecy. His pulse slowed as his mind catalogued every word, every image. This wasn't just shadowplay—it was a breadcrumb trail laid in myth and smoke. He paid attention. He had to.

The Shadow Man packed up Viktor's tools with a showman's flair—each brush laid like a dagger in velvet, each pigment corked with ceremonial flourish. Viktor sighed, watching the performance with weary familiarity. "Let's just hope nothing weird happens," he muttered, knowing full well that in this house, that was a doomed wish at best.

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