XLIX
The soul‑coin box in my hands felt heavier than it ever had before.
Not because the coins themselves weighed much. They were small, smooth discs of spirit‑infused metal with a distinctive soul charged shine, but because of what they meant now. What they needed to become.
I held the box against my chest for a moment, feeling the faint hum of the trapped energy inside. Each coin glowed softly, like a firefly caught in amber. Each one held enough spirit force to banish a hell hound… or imprison something far worse.
I opened the lid.
The glow spilled out, lighting my face in pale bluish silver.
"I need these forged," I said quietly, my voice steadier than my hands. "Into something we can use. Something that can hold him."
Sigmund turned toward me, brow furrowed. "Hold who?"
"The hat man," I said. "We can't kill him. We can't outrun him. We can't starve him. But we can trap him."
Lorian's eyes widened. "Trap him… how?"
I swallowed, feeling the idea crystallize inside me like a shard of mirror.
"We fight mirrors with mirrors."
The wisewoman's bells chimed sharply, as if in approval. "A parallel world," she murmured. "A cage made of reflection. A prison built from his own hunger."
I nodded. "These coins are infused with spirit energy. Enough to bind a soul. Enough to anchor a doorway. If we melt them down and forge them into a mirror, one that reflects spirit instead of light we can create a cage he can't break. We trap him like a genie in a bottle."
Lorian stepped closer, staring into the box. "A soul‑forged mirror," he whispered. "A trap made from the very thing he craves."
Sigmund exhaled slowly. "It's dangerous. Unstable. If the forging goes wrong, the energy could tear a hole through the veil."
"I know," I said. "But if we don't try, he'll tear one himself."
The wisewoman lifted her rod, tapping it lightly against the ground. "We will need a master smith. Someone who can work spirit‑metal. Someone who can withstand the heat of soul‑fire."
"And a ritual circle," Sigmund added. "To bind the mirror once it's forged."
"And a lure," Lorian said softly. "Something to draw him in."
Their eyes turned to me.
I felt the weight of their gaze, the weight of the box, the weight of the entire plan pressing down on my ribs.
"I'll be the lure," I said. "He already wants me."
Silence fell, heavy, thick, and suffocating.
The wind shifted, carrying the distant cries of sylphs and the echo of hound howls.
I closed the box gently, feeling the coins pulse like trapped hearts.
"We save who we can," I said. "We stop the hounds. And then we build the mirror."
A cage made of soul‑light, its silver a prison made of reflection.
A trap for the creature who lives between worlds.
The forge was hotter than the night outside, but the air still felt suffocating, thick with urgency and the metallic tang of spirit‑energy. I stood beside the eldest silversmith — a tall elf with hands steady enough to thread moonlight — and the circle of mages who had agreed to help me do something no one had ever attempted: melt down spirit coins into a mirror capable of caging a monster.
The box of coins hummed in my hands, each one glowing faintly like a trapped firefly. I opened the lid, and the light spilled out across the forge stones.
"I need them melted," I said, my voice low. "All but a few. We're forging a mirror — thin, silver‑backed, infused with my spirit. It has to hold him."
The silversmith studied me for a long moment, his eyes reflecting the glow. "Spirit‑metal is volatile," he murmured. "It will want to bind to you. It may burn you."
"I have enough spirit to spare," I said. "More than enough."
The mages nodded, forming a circle around the forge. Their hands lifted, weaving concealment spells, stabilizing sigils, and binding runes. The air shimmered with magic as the coins were poured into the crucible. They melted quickly, their glow intensifying until the entire forge looked like a star collapsing.
I felt the pull immediately.
The molten spirit‑metal reached for me, tugging at my ribs, my breath, my very essence. I stepped forward, letting it take what it needed. I let it infuse itself with my spirit, my memories, my strength. The silversmith guided the flow, shaping it into a thin, perfect circle. The mages cooled the edges with frost‑magic, sealing the mirror's surface with runes that glowed like constellations.
When it was done, the mirror looked deceptively simple, just a thin disc of silver‑backed glass, faintly etched runes glowing with the light of a thousand souls and one very stubborn human spirit. I slipped it into my pack.
The attack and rescue went off without a hitch, smoother than any of us dared hope. The villagers moved like a single organism, each group peeling off toward their mission with practiced efficiency. The sylphs were pulled from their cliffside homes, their wings trembling but intact. The distraction party drew the cannibal hounds away with noise and light, their shouts echoing through the ravine. The mages collapsed the limestone walls, sealing the hounds' return path.
I dressed in stealth‑weave fabric that shimmered with elven concealment spells borrowed by hunter elves. I accompanied the rescue team moving toward the bone village. The air grew colder as we approached, a relief from the day's cloying heat, the fog thickening into tendrils that curled around our ankles. The bone huts loomed ahead, pale and twisted, their shadows stretching like claws. Beyond them, the cracked mirror pulsed faintly, a dark shine pulses, a heartbeat in the dark.
I kept one hand on the soul‑forged mirror in my pack.
I needed to reach the cracked mirror, to be close enough to use it, and to do it without dying.
The concealment spells bent moonlight away from us, turning our presence into a whisper. Even the hounds that prowled the edges of the bone village didn't notice us as we slipped past.
And toward the moment where I would have to face him
with a mirror made of souls and the hope that it would be enough.