The morning after the fire dawned like a bruise trying to heal. Vale was awake before the sun—hammer strikes clanging across the ruined bridge, women carrying buckets of clear water to wash the soot from stone, and the old bells of Saint Vera ringing slow, unsure if they were mourning or giving thanks. Smoke still hung low over the roofs, a thin ghost unwilling to leave.
Leona stood at her window watching the town rediscover itself. Every heartbeat of the River sounded louder now, as though it had claimed a voice inside the earth. The people moved like penitents, careful not to speak too loudly near the water that had burned.
But when she stepped outside, the hush changed. A murmur drifted down the street—people whispering, pointing toward the embankment. A boy shouted, "The River's got eyes!" and laughter broke into frightened silence.
Leona followed the sound. At the bend near the mill, a small crowd gathered, leaning over the railing. The water was smooth as poured glass, the current hidden beneath its surface. And there, clear as breath on a mirror, faces shimmered—dozens of them. Not reflections. Faces.
A fisherman crossed himself. "It's the drowned come back," he muttered.
"No," said an old woman, trembling. "It's the living being seen."
Leona stepped closer. The River mirrored not her own face but her mother's, faint, waiting, lips moving though no sound reached the air. Leona's breath stilled.
Mercy sees twice, the voice said—not in her ears, but behind her heartbeat.
She knelt, the cold seeping through her palms. The River's glow dimmed, leaving only ripples. A whisper rose among the people: if you looked long enough, the water would show you not who you were—but the one you'd wronged.
By noon, half of Vale had tested the rumor. Some returned weeping, others laughing, some unable to speak at all. The butcher saw his wife alive again, forgiving him with her eyes. A thief claimed the River gave him back the sound of his mother's lullaby. Even the mayor's widow fainted when she saw her husband smiling up from the depths, free of the guilt that had killed him.
The River had become a moving confessional, its surface a thousand silent absolutions.
Leona felt its pull like gravity. She wandered along the bank until she reached the old council steps—burned black, slick with moss. There she found Nia, sitting alone, hands knotted together.
"I lied," Nia said before Leona could speak. "I lied to save him."
Her voice cracked like glass. "The night your mother stood trial, I swore under oath she'd sabotaged the sluice gates. My father's job was on the line. They promised to spare him if I testified."
Leona stared at her friend. The words landed slowly, one after another, sinking into her bones.
"I've carried it for years," Nia whispered. "The River knows. It's showing me her face every time I blink."
Leona reached out, gripping her trembling hands. "Then don't run from it. Come with me."
They walked together to the riverbank. The clouds thickened overhead, pressing the light into silver bands across the water. Leona gestured. "Look."
Nia leaned over the railing. Her reflection fractured—one half the woman she was now, the other a girl in a dusty apron, handing a loaf of bread to Miriam Prescott outside the clinic door. The younger Nia smiled, unafraid.
"She forgave me before I betrayed her," Nia breathed.
"That's the first face of mercy," Leona said. "The one that remembers your kindness before your guilt."
Tears rolled down Nia's cheeks and fell into the water, making her reflection ripple into light.
Thunder rumbled far off. The River darkened, its mirror hardening to steel. Leona looked down and gasped—her own reflection had changed. Two versions of herself stared back.
On one side: the Leona shaped by vengeance, eyes rimmed in flame, ledger clutched like a weapon.
On the other: the Leona who'd knelt in the ashes, holding a lamp and whispering grace into smoke.
Between them, the River stilled, a fault line of light splitting her in two.
"Which are you?" the first Leona demanded, her reflection's lips moving without sound.
"The one who remembers," the second answered.
The air thickened; the current halted. Raindrops hung mid-fall, suspended like glass beads. Even the wind waited.
Leona felt the River's pulse under her feet, slow and deep.
"If I forgive," she whispered, "do I betray her memory?"
The water flashed white. Both reflections reached toward her—fire and calm, fury and peace—and their hands met upon the surface. The two faces merged until only one remained: Leona whole again, eyes steady, flame and mercy living side by side.
The rain resumed, gentle as breathing.
When twilight came, the town gathered by instinct. The River had turned to mirror once more, this time reflecting everyone. Hundreds of faces overlapped in the glassy current—each paired with another, the guilty beside the forgiven, the dead beside the living.
A child dropped a white lily into the water. It spun once, twice, then released a ring of light that spread across the surface, widening until it touched every reflection. The crowd gasped; some knelt, others laughed through tears.
Leona stepped onto the bridge, Nia beside her, the lamp steady in her hand. The River caught the glow and flung it downstream, a thread of gold winding toward the horizon.
"Two faces of mercy," Leona said quietly. "One to forgive. One to remember."
"And which face is ours now?" Nia asked.
Leona watched the lily drift beyond sight. "Both. Because mercy isn't weakness, it's the courage to look twice and still choose love."
The River's surface pulsed once in reply, a heartbeat of light rippling outward. Bells rang from the chapel tower, not in warning this time, but in harmony. And for the first time since the burning, Vale felt whole.
Leona looked into the water again. Her reflection smiled—not in pride, but in peace. "Thank you," she whispered. The River shimmered, catching her words and carrying them away.
Far downstream, as dusk folded over the hills, the current flared briefly like the memory of flame. Then it dimmed, leaving only starlight to move where fire had once spoken.
Mercy had found its mirror, and in that mirror, it saw every soul forgiven enough to begin again.