Where gods whisper and empires rot.
Reading Time:
The port city of Caltheron was a tapestry of contradictions—luxuries draped in velvet and horrors clothed in silence. Towering marble facades cast long shadows over alleys soaked in spilled wine and forgotten blood. Spices from distant lands perfumed the air even as rats scurried beneath the carriages of gold-gilded nobles. Beneath the banners of commerce and conquest, the city pulsed with ambition, hunger, and whispered prayers to nameless powers.
For Selena, a young courtesan raised in the gutters of the Lower Quarters, Caltheron was both a glittering dream and a golden cage. Her life was a cycle of rehearsed laughter, measured glances, and silken steps across ballrooms where power masqueraded as romance. Each day she wore a different mask, each night she offered a different version of herself—always in search of a patron who might lift her from the mire of poverty.
But the attentions she earned, however sweet, faded like perfume at dawn. She was desired, but never remembered. She was envied, but never loved.
One evening, after a particularly bitter celebration where she had been paraded like a jewel and discarded like an empty goblet, Selena wandered alone through the opulent Golden District. Her dress, once white and perfumed, was torn and stained; her sandals were dust-covered relics of the night. Tears traced silent paths down her cheeks, their salt burning in the summer wind.
She passed under balconies of gold filigree and through archways carved with ancient hymns to prosperity. The laughter of nobles echoed above, indifferent to the girl unraveling below.
It was in this liminal hour—neither night nor dawn—that she saw the figure that would change everything.
Beneath the shadow of an arched bridge carved with scenes of mythical triumphs, a woman stood. Her beauty was otherworldly, untouched by the grime of the city. Her eyes shimmered with a vibrant green, like emeralds aflame. Raven-black hair flowed as if stirred by invisible currents, and her translucent gown danced around her form like mist given shape.
“Are you lost, my sweet child?” the woman asked, her voice no louder than the hush of wind across silk.
Selena halted. The woman’s presence was disarming—not frightening, but eerily familiar, like a lullaby once sung in a forgotten cradle.
“I… I am lost,” Selena whispered, her voice hoarse with exhaustion. “Lost in everything. In this life… always chasing something I can never seem to reach.”
The woman smiled, and that smile was a secret. A secret older than Caltheron’s stones.
“Perhaps you’ve been searching in the wrong places,” she said gently, extending a graceful hand. “Come. I know a sanctuary where you may see yourself clearly.”
Selena hesitated—but only for a heartbeat. Something in her bones knew this path could not be turned from. Moved by desperation and drawn by something deeper, she followed the stranger into the narrow veins of the city.
They walked in silence through a maze of alleys that seemed to fold around them, until they arrived at a hidden courtyard bathed in moonlight. There, nestled between ancient olive trees and a fountain of silver lions, stood a small marble temple. Its walls were lined with mirrors, each reflecting the flickering torchlight into endless, dancing echoes.
“This,” the woman said, her voice hushed with reverence, “is the Temple of Larythis—Lady of Emotion, Weaver of Desire. And I am her servant.”
The temple’s air was thick with incense—sweet and bitter, a scent that clung to memory like perfume on skin. The walls, veined with silver and pearl, bore strange carvings in a flowing script that seemed to shimmer when looked at too long. Mirrors adorned every surface—arched, cracked, twisted. Some showed reflections that lingered even after the observer stepped away. Others whispered, barely audible, the echoes of emotions long departed.
Soft music, wordless and dreamlike, drifted through the chamber as if played by unseen hands. The floor was warm to the touch, a polished stone etched with spirals that pulsed faintly underfoot.
Selena felt as if she had stepped outside of time.
“In this place,” the priestess continued, “your true beauty may be revealed. Not as the world sees you, but as you might become.”
At the heart of the temple stood a grand mirror, taller than any man, its frame carved from obsidian and gilded with veins of gold and violet stones. Selena stepped toward it, drawn as if by gravity.
“Look, Selena,” said the priestess, her voice a silk whisper. “See not what is… but what could be.”
Selena stared into the mirror. At first, she saw only herself as she was—tired, worn, ordinary. But then the reflection shifted. Her skin smoothed. Her eyes became twin sapphires, clear and bright. Her hair curled into cascading waves of midnight. What looked back at her now was no longer a girl, but a goddess.
“Is this what you desire?” asked the priestess.
“Yes,” Selena breathed. “More than anything.”
The priestess turned toward her, her face aglow with torchlight. “My name,” she said, “is Elyra. I was once as you are—hungry for more, aching from never being enough.”
Selena swallowed hard, her voice uncertain. “What… happens if I accept this gift?”
Elyra tilted her head, smile never faltering. “Then Larythis will see you. Truly. She will shape what is already within you. She does not give power—she reveals it.”
Selena’s eyes drifted back to the mirror. That radiant, perfect version of herself stared back with confidence she had never felt but always yearned for.
She thought of her life—the life before tonight.
Noblemen’s laughter echoing in her ears as they passed her on to each other like a shared jewel. The taste of wine gone sour on her lips. The whispered promises of affection that vanished with the morning. The rooms scented with sweat and spice, the masks she wore with each new client—wild, tender, cruel—whatever they wanted.
Her body had been currency. Her charm, a weapon. Yet despite her skill in pleasure, despite her beauty and wit, she was never the one chosen. Never the one kept. Always the illusion, never the dream.
She’d watched other courtesans—less talented, less devoted—rise above her. Watched them draped in silk, escorted in carriages, given rings and deeds and names. She saw their jewels and their gardens and their freedom. And in the solitude of her rented room, between silk sheets bought on borrowed coin, she would weep in silence, wondering why not me?
“I gave everything,” she whispered aloud now, her voice raw. “And still, it was never enough.”
Elyra stepped behind her, placing cool hands on her shoulders. “Then give it to her. Give it to Larythis.”
From the folds of her gown, the priestess produced a silver dagger. Its blade shimmered unnaturally, like light dancing on water.
Selena hesitated.
“I’m not… I don’t worship demons,” she said, though the words rang hollow.
Elyra chuckled softly. “Who said anything about demons? Larythis is no monster. She is truth. The truth of what lies beneath your skin, behind your eyes, beneath every sigh and scream. She is hunger made divine.”
Selena took the dagger. Its hilt molded to her palm like it had been waiting for her.
“Offer your desire,” said Elyra. “Let it be known. Let it shape you.”
With trembling fingers, Selena cut a shallow line across her palm. The pain was sharp but fleeting—almost pleasing. As the blood touched the mirror’s surface, the golden frame pulsed with light, and a wave of warmth rushed through her body.
The world blurred. The mirror shimmered like liquid gold. Her knees gave way, and the chamber spun.
Selena collapsed into Elyra’s arms, gasping. She felt her skin tighten, then soften. Her breath deepened. Her spine arched with unfamiliar grace. It was as if she were being remade from within.
She saw herself reflected, not in one mirror, but in a thousand—each one showing a different version of her: the child scraping coins in the market, the girl weeping in moonlight, the courtesan biting back shame, the goddess rising in ecstasy.
And behind all of them… eyes. Emerald eyes watching. Loving. Claiming.
In a flash of violet flame, Selena saw her. The Lady.
Larythis.
She stood behind the mirrors, beyond the veils of the world, bathed in starlight and shadows. Her skin shimmered violet and opal. Her lips curved in divine amusement. She said nothing, but Selena heard her voice in every corner of her mind.
“You are mine.”
Caltheron did not change overnight.
But it felt as if it had.
Wherever Selena went, silence followed—then whispers, then gasps. She no longer had to fight for attention; it flooded her like sunlight through a shattered windowpane. Nobles paused their conversations to look her way. Servants froze mid-step. The laughter of the city stilled as she passed, like an invisible tide that bent the world around her.
In the first week, she was invited to a dozen salons. In the second, she received gifts from five different merchant princes—perfumes brewed in Altharion, silk imported from the floating markets of Zehrat, and even a necklace said to have belonged to a queen of the Southlands.
They all came with the same note, written in different hands:
“For the jewel that outshines them all.”
Selena wore them briefly, then cast them aside.
She began to glide through the world like a dream in motion. Her skin seemed to catch fire beneath candlelight. Her voice could make a grown man weep or a room fall into silence. Her touch sparked longing, and her absence birthed despair.
But none of it was enough.
Wine, once her escape, now tasted like spoiled fruit. The laughter of guests felt forced. The hands on her skin—greedy, trembling, worshipful—meant nothing.
She drank more. Stronger. Imported spirits said to be laced with rare herbs from beyond the eastern border. She inhaled powders crushed from crimson lotus petals that burned her throat and turned her dreams into screaming stars. She lay with those who ruled fleets and ruined families, just to feel the hunger in their eyes.
And still, it was never enough.
“I need more,” she whispered one night, curled in silk sheets soaked with sweat and perfume. “I was promised more.”
She began to frequent darker places—underground taverns where masked nobles sought secret pleasures, houses with no names and no rules. Her reputation only grew. They said she was the muse of Caltheron’s madness, the spark behind a dozen duels, the reason a governor abandoned his post.
Selena knew what they said. And part of her adored it.
“Let them worship,” she told herself, reclining in a bath filled with crushed violets and heated milk. “Let them burn.”
But a shadow had begun to form. She noticed it in the eyes of her admirers—how their joy turned to need, and their need to desperation. One strangled his wife after glimpsing Selena kiss another man. Another carved her name into his skin with broken glass.
Her presence stirred not only love and lust, but obsession. Violence. Madness.
She felt it growing inside her too.
“Why do I still feel hollow?” she asked Elyra during one of her rare visits to the temple. “I have everything now.”
Elyra only smiled.
“You were not made to be filled,” the priestess said, running a finger across the mirror’s surface. “You were made to reflect. The more they give you, the more they need. And the more you reflect, the more she sees.”
Selena stared at her reflection. It was stunning. But behind the beauty, she began to notice something else—a tremor in the hand, a flicker of something hungry in the eyes. A faint distortion.
The mirror never lied.
The golden glow that had once followed her now cast long, devouring shadows.
There was no corner of Caltheron where Selena’s name had not been whispered. Poets sang her praises, masked nobles begged for her gaze, and commoners wept at the chance of catching her scent in the air.
But her allure had become… unpredictable.
A single glance could now stir uncontrollable longing. Touches left burn marks—metaphoric or real, none could say. Some collapsed into convulsions after nights with her. Others, unable to cope with the hunger she awakened, took their own lives in silence.
And Selena felt it—the hunger inside her growing too.
At first, she blamed the wine. Then the opium. Then the priests of Ralthor who spoke of curses woven through pleasure. But none could offer relief. Each time she indulged, the craving only grew stronger, darker, emptier.
“I should stop,” she murmured to herself one morning, her fingers trembling as she reached for a silver vial of dream-smoke.
“I can’t,” she added, almost laughing—a desperate sound.
Her skin pulsed with heat when others looked at her. Her breath quickened when desire surrounded her in the rooms of velvet and incense. Yet with every peak of pleasure came a hollowing ache, as though something inside her was being carved away—scooped out, replaced by fire.
She began to dread sleep.
Each night, her dreams were mirrors—endless, shifting. Reflections that stared back with too many eyes. Sometimes she saw herself walking through a hall of lovers who fell dead at her feet, their mouths open in silent ecstasy. Other times, she dreamt of Elyra watching from the corner, smiling as Selena writhed in a bed of roses that turned to glass.
And always, from behind the mirror, a voice:
“More…”
Selena stopped attending the grand feasts. Her skin burned in sunlight. Her reflection flickered. At times, it no longer mimicked her movements. Once, she saw her mirror-self blink long after she had.
In one of the noble villas, a young woman fell in love with her. Purely. Selflessly. She brought her flowers, played the harp by moonlight, and whispered stories by candlelight.
Selena tried to love her back.
But one night, overwhelmed by a surge of desire not her own, Selena kissed her—and the girl collapsed, body shaking with fever. She never recovered.
That night, Selena screamed into her pillow until her throat bled.
“Please… someone help me,” she gasped into the silence. “I can’t stop…”
She returned to the temple—but Elyra was gone. Only the great mirror remained, cold and waiting.
“Take it back,” she begged. “Take it all back. I don’t want this anymore.”
There was no answer. Only her reflection, smiling faintly. And behind her own image… Larythis, watching through emerald eyes.
Selena awoke in darkness.
Not the darkness of night—but the kind that lives beneath the skin, behind the eyes. A place where light had no name.
Her breath was shallow, her heart pounding. She hadn’t eaten in days, nor drunk. The wine made her sick. The perfumes stung her nostrils. The touch of others, once her only comfort, now felt like glass beneath her skin.
She stared at her reflection in the silver washbasin. Her eyes were too bright, gleaming like emeralds licked by fire. Her lips too red, as if always freshly kissed—or freshly fed.
“Why am I still empty?” she whispered. “Why am I still… starving?”
The answer came not as a voice, but a sensation.
She was alone in her chamber when it struck. A servant boy brought her letters—gifts from distant nobles begging for her favor. He bowed and turned to leave, but she stopped him. Her hand touched his wrist—barely.
And something shifted.
He gasped. His body trembled. His eyes rolled back, and a shiver coursed through him like cold lightning.
Selena recoiled.
“What… was that?”
The boy collapsed, breathing shallow, eyes wide in rapture.
“I felt… everything,” he whispered.
Selena fled the room, but the tremor followed. Her skin tingled. Her heart raced. Her hunger sharpened. It wasn’t for food. Nor drink. Nor lust.
It was for them. For their heat, their emotions, their life.
And when she fed—even if just a little—she felt whole.
For a moment.
The days blurred.
Selena stopped attending events. People came to her now—drawn like moths to her flame. And she let them. Their desire filled her veins like wine. But it never lasted. She needed more.
She began to take from them slowly: a whisper, a kiss, a touch. Then—more. A hand resting too long on a chest. A breath shared too closely. And when they collapsed, shaking and smiling and ruined, she watched with wide eyes.
“I didn’t mean to,” she told herself.
But she always came back.
She stopped sleeping. Her body began to change—first imperceptibly. Her skin lost its warmth, glowing faintly in candlelight. Her nails sharpened. Her voice could coax even the most stoic men to tears.
One night, a noble came to her chamber bearing a rose forged from rubies. He knelt, shaking with adoration.
“Take my name,” he begged. “Take my lands. My soul, if you wish.”
She smiled. And kissed him.
When the sun rose, only ash remained.
Selena stared at her hands. They pulsed with violet light. Her fingers shook—not from fear, but from hunger.
“I need more.”
She ran.
Back to the temple. Back to the mirror.
It no longer showed her face.
Instead, it revealed a creature of terrible beauty. Eyes of emerald flame. Lips curved in endless hunger. Hair of shadow. Skin like liquid moonlight. Wings, at times. Claws, sometimes. A shape that changed with the desires of those who looked.
Selena fell to her knees.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Let me die. Let me end.”
But the mirror did not grant mercy. It only shimmered with her reflection—now shifting endlessly. Woman. Flame. Smoke. Beast. Desire incarnate.
And behind it, as always… Larythis.
Watching. Smiling.
“You wished to feel alive,” the goddess whispered. “Now you feed to remember what life once felt like.”
“You are no longer mine. You are your own hunger.”
That night, Selena’s body cracked.
Her skin peeled like silk. Her eyes burned. Her mouth opened and did not close for hours—as if screaming without sound. Her form dissolved, piece by piece, into mirrors and shadow.
When the dawn came, there was no trace of her in the temple.
Only a scent of rosewater and ash.
The Legend Remains
Selena vanished, as so many do, consumed by the very hunger they once believed would set them free.
Her name faded from ledgers and letters, but not from memory. In the whispering alleys of Caltheron, they still speak of her. Of eyes that shimmered like emerald fire. Of a touch that blessed—and ruined. Of a beauty too sharp to be mortal.
Some say she still lingers in mirrors, watching through the reflections of those who crave too much. Others claim she visits dreams, veiled in silk and shadow, offering pleasure so deep it leaves only emptiness behind.
But it is not in temples or courts that her legacy truly lives.
It lives in song.
At twilight, in the smoky corners of taverns where hearts run hot and tongues run loose, her story is sung. Bards pass it from mouth to mouth, turning her tragedy into melody. Sometimes as a warning. Sometimes as a seduction. Always as a mirror.
A mirror of desire.
Of loss.
Of longing too deep to escape.
And when the fire is low and the crowd is drunk on laughter or tears, the bard leans close to the strings and begins:
Ballad of the Mirror Rose
(as sung in the taverns of Caltheron and beyond)
In Caltheron’s golden-blooded halls,
Where laughter weeps and pleasure calls,
A girl with tears behind her eyes
Danced beneath a painted sky.
She wore desire like perfume sweet,
And kissed the wine from nobles’ feet.
Yet no man stayed, no love would bloom—
Her heart a cage, her soul a room.
O mirror rose, O mirror flame,
They gave her gold, but not a name.
She asked for love, they gave her lust—
And turned her joy to bitter dust.
One night a lady dressed in mist
Spoke words like silk, with eyes that hissed:
“Come find the face behind your veil,
And drink from fire what love won’t tell.”
They walked through glass and temple gate,
Where shadows bloom and mirrors wait.
She bled a drop upon the frame—
And rose anew, no more the same.
O mirror rose, O mirror fire,
She fed on touch, on need, desire.
But every kiss, and every moan—
Carved deeper hunger in her bone.
Her name was sung, her skin adored,
But hearts around her split and tore.
She tasted men like vintage wine,
Then left them pale by morning’s shine.
She begged the gods to lift the flame—
But found her shape no more the same.
Her voice turned sweet, her soul turned black,
There was no road that led her back.
O mirror rose, O mirror shade,
She lost herself the night she prayed.
Now those who seek her feel the sting—
Of longing born from shadowed wings.
So heed this song, ye hearts that burn,
For love that never will return.
Beware the kiss too deep, too warm—
It may not come in human form.
Some pleasures bloom and some destroy—
Some lovers dance, and some are toys.
The mirror waits with rose and flame…
But never shows you quite the same.
O mirror rose, beware the fire…
She lives within your own desire.
Chronicles of Astravara 
Leave a comment