His Bride, Her Revenge

Chapter 138: The Mirror of the Forgotten

The world was screaming.

Not through sound, but through sensation a deep, primal rumble beneath the skin, as if reality itself had become sentient and was trying to shake loose the truth buried beneath centuries of deception.

Cambria clutched the locket in her bloodied palm, the cracked photograph still glowing faintly with a golden light that pulsed like a heartbeat. Her own. Or the other one’s.

Lucien was still on his knees, whispering fragments of warnings she couldn’t yet piece together. The air around them had turned electric, each breath thick with the weight of memory foreign and yet familiar.

That voice still echoed inside her mind.

"Do you remember me now?"

She staggered backward, palm pressed to her temple as her vision blurred. In a blink, the throne room vanished, and she was standing in a field somewhere impossibly far, impossibly near. Wildflowers swayed in a golden breeze. A little girl laughed. Another followed her, darker-haired, quieter, but always close.

"Catch me, Cam!" the first shouted.

The second girl herself smiled, chasing after her.

Cambria jolted, and the vision shattered.

She was back in the throne room. Smoke and blood and broken stone. She exhaled slowly.

Lucien coughed, blood splattering onto the marble at his knees. "You’re waking up," he whispered. "The real you. The one they sealed away."

Cambria turned to him. "Tell me the truth, all of it. Now."

He looked up at her, agony in every line of his face. "You were the first subject. Not Evelyn. Not the twins. You. You were Subject Zero."

She froze.

"No," she said instinctively. "I was born in Vale. My mother was "

"A handler," Lucien said bitterly. "An implant. A guardian. The memories you have were designed. Constructed. Your entire life has been a containment protocol."

The locket pulsed again in her hand.

Inside her mind, the voice of the Other Cambria laughed softly.

"He’s not lying. You know this."

"Then who... what am I?"

"You’re what they feared. The perfect mind. The sovereign weapon. But you were too... alive. You loved too deeply. You dreamed. That made you dangerous. That made you human."

Lucien tried to rise but collapsed again with a cry of pain. "We tried to preserve the best parts of you. We locked the rest away. We thought... we thought Evelyn could hold the balance. But she became corrupted. The system failed."

Cambria’s voice was barely a whisper. "Then why is she in this picture?"

Lucien looked at the locket, pain flashing through his eyes. "Because she wasn’t your enemy. Not at first. She was your sister."

Silence dropped like a guillotine.

Cambria couldn’t breathe.

"Biologically?" she asked.

Lucien gave a strained nod. "You were twins. But you were split intellectually and spiritually. One consciousness was allowed to develop freely. The other was groomed, weaponized. You were the original, but Evelyn’s timeline overtook yours when the Protocols failed."

Cambria stepped back, vision swimming. "So all of this... the war... the betrayal... the throne... it was all orchestrated around a lie?"

"No," Lucien rasped. "It was orchestrated around a truth so terrible no one could be allowed to remember it."

The air shook again.

Above them, that ancient eye blinked once more, and a thunderous hum rumbled across the skies of Blackvale.

The portal still open, still alive began pulling at the air, drawing in smoke, debris, and fractured reality. Strange shadows flickered around the edges of the broken glass, humanoid but wrong. Stretching. Twitching.

Cambria turned away from Lucien, eyes fixed on the eye in the sky.

"You said there’s something else behind Project Pandora."

Lucien nodded weakly. "The Architect. The one who began the experiments long before we were born. Long before Blackvale had a name."

"And it’s waking up?"

"It’s already awake," he whispered. "But it needs a vessel to fully return."

Cambria froze. The locket burned in her hand. The voice inside her mind was no longer laughing.

"He means me."

Cambria shook her head. "No. You’re me."

"Not anymore. I’ve been separated too long. The seal is breaking. Soon, only one of us will survive."

"I won’t let you "

"You don’t have a choice. The world you’re standing in is a fracture. If I return fully, it collapses. If I die, it collapses. You want to save them, Cambria? Then you’ll have to choose which part of you lives."

Cambria screamed, hands on her skull. Pain exploded behind her eyes, white-hot and searing. She saw more visions now, unraveling like torn pages from a forgotten book

The original lab, deep underground, where she and Evelyn first opened their eyes under sterile lights.

A chamber filled with mirrors, where children were made to watch themselves until their reflections turned against them.

A dark room, cold and endless, where her mind was split and sealed.

"Cambria!" Lucien’s voice pierced through the storm.

She dropped to her knees beside him.

"You have to go," he said, gripping her wrist. "You have to find the Mirror. The one artifact the Architect fears."

"Where?"

"In the House of Origin. Deep below the Citadel. Beneath the city. We buried it centuries ago."

Cambria looked toward the window, where the sky cracked wider. Lightning danced across the clouds. Screams echoed in the distance real ones. Blackvale was falling apart.

Lucien touched her hand. "You’re the last Queen, Cambria. But you were also its first."

He reached into his coat and pressed something into her palm.

A ring. Gold, ancient, pulsing with the same energy as the locket.

"The Crown of Will," he said. "Yours by right. Use it to command the path. But beware once you start down it, you won’t return the same."

Cambria closed her fingers around it.

And in that moment, she felt the world shift.

Inside her mind, the Other stirred.

"You’re aligning with me, Cambria. You won’t be able to fight much longer."

"I don’t need to fight," Cambria replied. "I just need to remember."

Three Hours Later – The Underdepths of Blackvale

The tunnels beneath the Citadel were older than memory. Older than names. Cambria moved quickly through the dark, the ring glowing faintly on her finger, leading her forward. Each step echoed with ghosts.

Behind her, the ground shook intermittently. The skies were breaking. The Architect’s eye had opened further, casting down a crimson light that scorched anything it touched. Even time.

The Mirror was closed.

She turned one final corridor and there it stood.

A chamber made of obsidian and bone. In the center, a tall, silver-framed mirror stood untouched by dust or decay. Its surface shimmered like water, reflecting not her body, but her soul.

Cambria approached slowly.

In the mirror stood the Other Cambria.

No longer a shadow, but fully formed.

Same face. Same eyes. But darker. Colder. Smiling.

"This is where we were split," the Other said. "And this is where it ends."

Cambria looked into her own reflection. "Why now?"

"Because the Architect wants a body," the Other replied. "And I’ve been groomed for this far longer than you. I understand power. I don’t flinch from what needs to be done."

"You were sealed for a reason."

"And you were spared for the wrong ones."

Cambria stepped forward. "Then let’s settle it."

The Mirror pulsed.

Light exploded outward, pulling both versions of Cambria into a world without shape or time. They stood in a memory yet it was alive.

The Lab.

Children screamed. Lucien’s younger voice echoed in the distance. Evelyn wept in a corner. Two little girls stood in the center, both trembling. One cried. One stared coldly ahead.

The scientists chose the crying one for containment.

And left the cold one to be raised into perfection.

They chose wrong. noveldrama

Back in the mirror realm, Cambria stood face-to-face with herself.

"This isn’t about control," she said. "It’s about survival. The world can’t survive if either of us reigns alone."

The Other tilted her head. "Then what do you suggest? Co-existence? Integration? You’ll lose yourself."

"I already have," Cambria whispered. "But I won’t let the world burn just so I can remember who I am."

She held up the ring.

The Other’s eyes widened. "No "

Cambria shoved the ring into the mirror’s surface.

Light exploded.

Pain. Fire. Ice. Everything collided at once. Memories. Versions. Futures. Children screaming. Queens rising. Armies falling. A thousand lives across a thousand possibilities merging.

When Cambria awoke, she was lying on the cold stone floor of the chamber.

The Mirror was gone.

So was the ring.

So was the voice.

She sat up slowly, her hand trembling as she touched her chest. Something was different.

She could remember everything now.

Every experiment. Every lie. Every moment of truth is buried in shadows.

And most of all Evelyn’s sacrifice.

She wasn’t dead.

She was the key.

Cambria stood, eyes glowing faintly with a golden hue. Her mind was clear. Her strength returned. Her purpose sharpened like a blade.

She turned toward the exit.

And froze.

A figure stood in the doorway.

Clad in black.

Face hidden.

But in their hand was Evelyn’s locket.

The voice that came from them chilled her blood.

"Welcome back, Queen," they said. "The Architect has been waiting for you."

Cambria confronts her mirrored self, regains her full memories, and discovers Evelyn may still be alive. But now, a new enemy, possibly the Architect or its agent, has arrived, holding Evelyn’s locket, and the real battle is about to begin.