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The mirror is a heavy floor-length marvel, its border a complex matrix of swirling loops and geometric curves, all finished in bright gold—a wedding gift from King Dimitri. Rough estimates place its worth in the range of a small fortune, especially in Sreng, a land not known for its luxury goods or fine artisan crafts. The mirror is beautiful. Perfect, even.
Sylvain hates it.
He hates it because within moments of its arrival, his lovely wife insists it must go into their bedroom.
“Are you sure it wouldn’t look better in the dining hall?” Sylvain asks, forced to maneuver around servants as Mercedes helps orchestrate the delivery of the mirror first into the house and then upstairs. “Or in the… um…” Think, Sylvain, think! “—chapel! Yeah! The chapel, so it can reflect all that heavenly light!”
Mercedes smiles at him. “No,” she says pleasantly, “I’d like it in the bedroom. Unless there is a specific reason you object?”
Sylvain drags his hand down the back of his neck. “Me? Object? Not at all. Why would I object?”
She tilts her head ever so slightly. “I don’t know…”
He almost winces under the aim of her gentle gaze. Mercedes has this way of seeing through his conceits, straight down to his frightened heart. He’d almost compare it to a hound flushing a bird from a bush, but it’s not done out of cruelty or vain curiosity. She’s always sought to understand him, the real him, unperturbed by Sylvain’s reputation, unwilling to take his behavior at face value the way so many of his other classmates had back at the monastery.
And now they are married and she has a wife’s intuition that borders on scary.
“You don’t like the mirror,” she guesses. “Or… something about mirrors in general bother you. No, that can’t be it, either. Not with all the time you usually take in front of one in the mornings...”
The servants have begun taking the stairs; two positioned ahead of the mirror, two at the base. Hey, Sylvain thinks hopefully, maybe they’ll drop it. That’d certainly spare him having to explain his ridiculous childhood fear. Unless, of course, Mercedes insisted on then replacing the broken furnishing… He almost groans. She would insist, wouldn’t she?
Sylvain looks back at his wife, prompted by her soft hand on his exposed forearm. This summer has been warmer than normal, and he’s found it more comfortable to go around with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. That, and he knows the effect it has on ladies—his lady, particularly. On occasion, whenever he’s worn his shirt half-undone while outside helping with the renovations on and around their home, he has caught Mercedes secretly watching him with an interest that is not merely polite. In those moments, he couldn’t help but mentally preen. Still got it.
But now his attractive advantage has become a vulnerability. The delicate touch of Mercedes’s fingers combined with her compassionate expression makes him swallow. By the time she whispers, “Tell me,” the words are already rising like a desperate confession.
“I’m afraid of mirrors,” he blurts. Thankfully, the servants have already rounded the curve of the stairwell, out of sight and ideally earshot. “Not all the time. Could you imagine?” He forces a laugh. “That would be crazy.”
“Sylvain,” Mercedes says, helpfully keeping him on track.
“Right. Okay. It’s like this: when I was growing up, Miklan liked to tell me scary stories. If he wasn’t trying to beat me up, he was trying to make me frightened of my own shadow. I think it was his way of feeling stronger, despite not having a Crest.”
Bitterness twists his tone even now, even with his brother dead and gone. He felt sorry for Miklan in the end. It isn’t his brother he blames, but Mercedes knows all this. “I must have been, I don’t know, six when he first started telling me stories about mirrors. He said I had to be careful at night, or I’d see something in the mirror—and that something might see me, too. And if it did, it’d crawl out of the mirror and replace me. No one would ever know, he said,” Sylvain takes a shaky breath, slanting his gaze away in shame, “because no one would miss me.”
“Oh,” Mercedes says in a pained voice. Her hand has closed into a fist over her heart. “That is a very cruel thing to say to a child. I’m so sorry, my darling.”
“Anyway,” Sylvain hurries on, “I know it’s not true. Obviously. But mirrors still freak me out at night. I always think I’m going to see something weird.”
“That’s why you didn’t want it in the bedroom.”
He nods, abashed.
Mercedes takes his hands into her own. “I’ll make you a promise. Let us have one night with the mirror. The servants have already gone to all the effort of bringing it upstairs. Tomorrow morning, if you decide you still don’t want it in the bedroom, it will be gone before the afternoon. I’ll move it to the chapel, where you’ll seldom see it.” To anyone who did not know Mercedes as well as Sylvain did, they likely would have missed the playful edge to her smile. But Sylvain knows his wife, and he can only chuckle at her light dig at his poor record of attendance.
“I don’t think I’m gonna change my mind,” he says, “but okay. Sure. One night.”
#
His wife is up to something.
It’s obvious from the moment dinner ends. Ordinarily, Mercedes excuses herself for her evening prayers while Sylvain occupies himself with a book or attempts to paint, but tonight, she skips straight upstairs instead. Sylvain follows, unavoidably curious at this departure from routine, but when he tries to gain entrance to their bedroom, she denies him.
“Come back at the usual time,” she says through the door with her usual sweetness.
He hangs around in the hall for a short while after, watching her shadow pass back and forth, interrupting the light coming from behind the door. What is she doing in there? Soon, becoming bored, Sylvain decides to respect his wife’s seeming desire for privacy, and goes to find something to read.
Time passes slowly.
Mercedes would be done with her prayers by now, if she’d gone to the chapel. She’d have come back and joined him, and maybe he would read a little out loud to her while she rested her head on his lap. It’s often a struggle to keep the book open to the right page with one hand while also running his fingers through Mercedes’s crop of ash-blonde hair, but undoubtedly worth it. She makes quiet sounds of pleasure that remind him of a cat purring. He’s always liked cats.
Sylvain rereads the same page over and over, mind too distracted to make the words stick. It’s grown dark outside, and all he can think about is whatever Mercedes is doing upstairs. And that mirror. She’s alone with the mirror. He feels himself tense, even though he knows there’s no real danger. Dimitri wouldn’t gift them a cursed mirror, after all.
Or would he?
No. Definitely not. Sylvain lets out a harsh breath, wishing to be done with these old fears.
The moment the clock strikes midnight, he tosses the book aside, bounds up from the armchair, and within moments has reached the top of the stairs.
The door to his room has been left slightly ajar in invitation. Light from within grows and ebbs like the flickering pulse of a heart.
Sylvain loosens the collar of his shirt and eases the door all the way open, expecting—well, he’s not quite sure. For all her love of tradition and routine, Mercedes also enjoys surprising him. She’s not afraid to change things up to keep their life together exciting, always a little warm and new.
Within moments of stepping inside, Sylvain sees she's done it again. Every surface of every furnishing, with the exception of the bed, is occupied by a lit candle. No two candles are the same, each burning at a different speed. All are beautiful, especially taken together.
But it is the vision of his wife lying naked on their bed, half nestled inside their enormous trove of pillows (her guilty pleasure, if she allowed herself to feel guilt over pleasure, which to Sylvain's knowledge, she never has) like a mermaid sunbathing across a rock that smooths all the creases of worry from his mind.
"Close the door, please," she asks softly, and Sylvain quickly obeys, unwilling to take his eyes off Mercedes for even a moment lest she vanish like a dream. He misses the handle twice before settling on closing the door with his foot.
Sylvain hurries to join his wife, dragging his shirt off over his head instead of bothering with the buttons. He leaves his pants on as he climbs onto the mattress. Mercedes normally enjoys the process of undressing him, working his pants over his narrow hips, tantalizingly his cock with soft pressure from her thumbs, and tonight is no exception. It’s everything he can do to hold still, growing hard under her ritual ministrations.
Before too long, they are both lying naked, all the heat in the room invading his skin.
As usual, Sylvain averts his eyes from himself, feeling a great deal more shy than does his wife. This has always been the case. Mercedes is unapologetically joyful whenever they come together, allowing herself every freedom of look and touch. At the monastery, most girls he’d been with had held back from asking Sylvain for what they needed or weren’t honest about what they liked. Maybe they thought he wouldn’t care, or maybe they simply didn’t know themselves. But his first time with Mercie, she commanded him like a soldier, going so far as to show him where on her body to touch, and how, shameless about her own desire for pleasure. Sylvain, however, was not raised to see himself as something beautiful, only as something useful ; he has needed others to tell him he is worthy of love.
As always, Mercie prefers to prove truth to him through action, rather than asking him to accept her devotion on faith alone.
He watches her face—her delighted eyes glittering with candlelight, as mischievous as a cat’s—and fights against throwing his head back in pleasure as she lowers her mouth over the head of his cock, letting her tongue slide wetly against his sensitive tip. “Mercie,” he breathes, and it’s almost like he’s begging for it. Mercy, mercy . But it's obvious he doesn’t mean for her to stop, and she doesn’t.
She adds her hand into the mix, gripping him at the base as she moves her head up and down, the warm friction of her mouth sparking stars behind Sylvain’s eyes. Her breasts lay heavy on his thighs, her nipples like two hard pebbles inside a pool of smooth, hot skin. He seeks the top of her head out with his hand like he’s bestowing a benediction, but he doesn’t hold her in place, merely lets himself enjoy the feeling of her soft hair snaking between his fingers.
His wife has done such an admirable job of distracting him thus far that Sylvain almost forgets about the mirror. It’s only when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye that he realizes the monstrosity has been hung on the wall adjacent to the bed, near enough to catch their legs and part of Mercie’s lower half within its dark surface. It’s certainly not the worst view, but something in him begins to freeze up, regardless, pulled out of the intimate moment by thoughts of a face appearing behind his crouching wife.
Mercedes releases him and sits up. She touches her hand to the side of his face, bringing his gaze back to her. Goddess, she is perfect. Sylvain doesn’t deserve her. He could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve her, he thinks. And here he is, softening beneath a gorgeous woman because of a damn mirror, of all things. He opens his mouth to blurt an apology, but she closes it with the tip of her finger and a patient smile.
“Wait here,” she says, climbing off of him. “I have another idea.”
Mercedes goes to each candle and, one by one, blows them out. The room begins to darken. Sylvain tries not to look at the mirror. “Yeah, so I’m thinking… more candles. Not less. Like, a lot more. That would be great.”
“Trust me,” she tells him, and Sylvain quiets, settling for twisting the bedspread in his fist. Because he does trust his wife. He trusted her with his life on the battlefield, and he trusts her now, in this deep moment of vulnerability. She has more than earned his trust.
She does not leave a single candle burning. But she does throw back the curtains, letting silvery moonlight fall into the room. Sylvain’s need returns with a vengeance, strengthening low in his gut at the sight of his wife silhouetted in that haunting half light. Mercedes turns her face toward the mirror, her expression peaceful. He longs to go and kiss her, and in the same moment realizes there’s nothing stopping him.
Mercedes smiles underneath his lips, and he can’t help smiling, too. She presses herself against him, and he can’t help but buck his hips a little, wanting to bury himself in that heavenly sanctuary between her legs. After a moment, Mercie takes the lead again, guiding them both over to the mirror.
She stands in front of him, her back against his chest. He feels hot all over, but especially where their bodies meet. “I want you to touch me,” she says, as cordially as if she were asking him to pass a plate at dinner, “everywhere, and I want you to watch. Can you do that for me, my love?”
His heart lurches into his throat. He wants to say no. He wants to back out of the room, away from this mirror with its two ghosts inside, and bring his wife with him. But if he does, then Miklan wins. The terror his brother inflicted on him will remain stamped on his brain forever. Change is never easy. Recovering from trauma, even less so. But lucky for him, he married the best healer in Fódlan.
“As my lady commands,” Sylvain purrs, finding it surprisingly easy to rally when his wife is standing naked between his arms. “Where should I start?”
Mercedes stills him by taking his hand and making eye contact with him through the mirror. “If this becomes too much and you want to stop at any point, please tell me.”
A dozen joke responses flit through his mind, but he dismisses them all. They’re the last bulwark of a boy too scared to admit his true feelings, and he hasn’t been that boy in many years.
“I will,” he promises.
“In the future, when you think of a mirror,” Mercie whispers, lowering his hand to the inside of her thigh, “make it this one. Make the reflection inside it one of us. No room for darkness—” her breath catches as Sylvain rolls his thumb gently over her clit the way she loves best, “only love.”
A short time after Sylvain has worshipfully massaged his wife in all the right places, they move to the bed opposite the side closest to the mirror. When he bends Mercedes over the mattress and drags her hips up to meet his, he watches himself thrusting into her, each jolting movement in sync with his grey reflection. It’s more arousing than he expected to see their impassioned union from the outside, but the best part, by far, is watching the expression of sheer pleasure flicker and grow in his wife’s moonlit face as she reaches the peak first.
#
When a letter from the king arrives a week later asking after the happy couple’s satisfaction with his gift, Sylvain wonders if Dimitri knows. He and Mercedes are not discreet in their lovemaking, especially now, and servants gossip. Nothing is sacred, even in a land as far removed as Sreng.
Regardless, Sylvain replies in good faith, thanking Dimitri and describing how the mirror has become a permanent addition to their bedroom, well-loved. It opens up the space and the gold frame complements the tan tapestries on the windows. These things are all true.
And when Sylvain finishes the letter by writing, We both love it, that too is true.