"The one who looks too long into another's soul will either fall in love or go mad."
— Carl Jung
There are moments when even I cannot tell whether Lilith is my creation or my undoing.
The night began like any other — silence, candlelight, the soft hiss of wind against glass. Yet something had shifted in her eyes. A kind of knowing. A kind of power.
She stood before the mirror, wearing the same black silk she wore the night I killed for the second time — my revenge, my rebirth. Her reflection seemed more alive than she was, as if the mirror itself wanted her more than I ever could.
"Do you know what mirrors really are, Kael?" she asked softly, tracing her fingertip along the glass.
"They don't just reflect," she whispered. "They judge."
I studied her in silence. The way her reflection lingered half a second too long when she turned away. The way her tone dripped not with seduction, but with warning.
"Are you judging me now, Lilith?" I asked.
She smiled — a slow, deliberate curve that felt like the beginning of a storm.
"No," she said. "I'm teaching you what it feels like to be watched by your own shadow."
That night, she turned my own philosophy against me.
My Doctrine of Ruin — my proud creation — became her scripture. The words I wrote to free people from moral chains, she used to bind me.
She quoted me with the precision of a scalpel.
"You said truth only exists in those strong enough to bear it."
Her voice was soft, almost tender.
"Then bear it, Kael. Bear the truth that you're becoming exactly what you despised."
Her words cut deeper than I expected. Because they were true.
I began seeing patterns — in her words, in her silence. She was weaving something.
A new game, perhaps. Or a trap.
She began inviting followers without telling me, guiding them in secret gatherings where she spoke not of me, but of us.
When I confronted her, she simply said, "Every serpent needs a mirror, Kael. How else will it know its own beauty?"
I didn't sleep that night. I couldn't.
The apartment felt wrong. The candles burned unevenly, their light casting distorted shadows.
Every mirror in the house reflected something off — her shape where she shouldn't be, her eyes watching even when she was asleep.
Or pretending to be.
Days turned to fevered hallucinations. She began testing me, just as I once tested her. Leaving fragments of my writings where they shouldn't be. Whispers in the corners of the room. Anonymous letters quoting my own words, twisted into prophecies.
It was beautiful. And horrifying.
I could feel the line blurring — between architect and experiment, between god and worshipper. Between man and monster.
One night, I found her in the study, standing before a wall covered in papers, maps, and photographs — faces of our followers, their connections traced with red string.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Her tone was calm, almost serene. "Finishing what you started."
"You're playing my game, Lilith."
She turned slowly, her eyes gleaming with that same hunger I once had.
"No, Kael. I'm perfecting it."
When she walked toward me, every step echoed with intent. Her breath ghosted over my lips as she whispered:
"Tell me… when the serpent finally sees its reflection, does it destroy it — or fall in love?"
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because in that moment, I didn't know whether I wanted to destroy her… or worship her.
She kissed me like confession — slow, consuming, and venomous.
I felt her heartbeat against mine, steady and confident.
And for the first time since all this began, I realized something that froze my blood:
She was no longer following my philosophy.
I was living hers.
"The most dangerous mirror is the one that reflects your hunger back at you." — Aurelius Kael