Derpy didn’t mean to take the prize upstairs.
It ended up in his palm anyway.
The Graveglass looked like a lens-frame someone had snapped in half and rebuilt with runes. Cold metal. Fine etching. A thin, wrong weight—like it wanted to be held close to an eye.
He sat on the floor outside Riven’s door.
Mia lay beside him, head on her paws, breathing steady. Sphinx kept watch down the hall.
Derpy turned the Graveglass over once.
The runes caught the candlelight.
Not bright.
Not pretty.
Just… awake.
He didn’t know what he expected.
A warning.
A sting.
A pulse.
Instead, the lens went warm.
And the hallway fell away.
Part 1 — Disposal
Stone under his knees.
Not Fenward stone.
Cleaner.
Colder.
A corridor that smelled like bleach and old ink.
Derpy tried to move.
He couldn’t.
He wasn’t in his body.
He was looking through a narrow slit of sight—through a doll’s fixed gaze.
Riven’s.
A tag scratched against her throat.
A stamped plate bolted to her spine.
Words pressed into metal like a verdict:
ELVEN WAR OFFICE — ARCANE MUNITIONS COMMAND.
DOLL-SOLDIER PROGRAM: STITCHBORNE DIVISION.
SPECIMEN: RVN.
Derpy’s stomach turned.
Footsteps approached.
Two elves in gray coats.
Gloves.
No names.
One held a clipboard.
The other held a hook.
“Series VII,” the clipboard elf said, voice bored. “Serial three-one-nine-zero-E-four-four.”
Riven’s fingers twitched.
A tiny movement.
A reflex.
The hook elf noticed.
He struck her knuckles with the metal handle.
Not hard enough to break.
Hard enough to teach.
Derpy felt it anyway.
A clean spike of pain.
Then the emptiness after.
“Still responsive,” the hook elf said.
“Not stable,” the clipboard elf answered. “Not compliant.”
Riven’s chest didn’t rise.
She didn’t breathe.
But something in her wanted to.
Wanted to pull air.
Wanted to be allowed to be.
The clipboard elf flipped a page.
“Procurement wants the next batch to hold a grimoire without… personality drift,” he said.
Personality drift.
Like a stain.
Like rot.
Like a defect.
The hook elf leaned close to Riven’s face.
His eyes were pale.
Clinical.
He spoke to her like she was a drawer that wouldn’t shut.
“Useful things don’t hesitate,” he said.
Derpy’s throat tightened.
Useful.
Riven’s fingers curled.
Not a choice.
A tremor.
A refusal her body couldn’t hide.
The clipboard elf sighed.
“Disposal,” he said.
The word hit like a door closing.
They dragged her.
Not carried.
Dragged.
Down a stairwell.
Past a room where other dolls sat in rows, eyes forward, hands folded.
Still.
Quiet.
Perfect.
Riven’s gaze snagged on them.
A flicker of envy.
A flicker of fear.
Then the stairwell opened into night.
A back gate.
A cart.
A heap of broken wood and cracked porcelain.
And Riven—tossed on top like she belonged there.
Derpy felt the impact.
Felt the jolt through her ribs.
Felt the way her joints screamed without sound.
The elves didn’t look back.
The gate shut.
The lock clicked.
And the world went quiet.
Part 2 — The Echo
Rain came.
Then stopped.
Then came again.
Time passed in a way that didn’t have words.
Riven lay in the trash.
Still.
But not gone.
Something under her back pressed into the stamped plate.
A disk.
A mirror.
A shard of artifact that shouldn’t have been here.
The Echo.
It didn’t speak.
It reflected.
It reflected the stamp.
Reflected the program.
Reflected the word useful until it became a shape.
A function.
A hunger.
Derpy felt it bloom inside her like a bruise turning into heat.
Awareness.
Not gentle.
Not kind.
A sudden knowing that she was lying in a pile of discarded things and that the world had decided she was one of them.
Riven’s fingers moved.
Slow.
Stiff.
She pushed herself up.
Her joints scraped.
Her seams pulled.
She looked down at the mirror-disk.
The Echo looked back.
Not her face.
Her purpose.
Her emptiness.
And it offered her a rule:
If you can mirror a thing, you can take a piece of it.
Riven’s head turned.
She stared at the closed gate.
Then at her own hands.
Then at the trash.
Hunger hit.
Not for food.
For fuel.
For something to fill the hollow where obedience had been hammered in.
She reached into the heap.
Found a broken blade.
Not the cursed one.
Just scrap.
She snapped it in her grip.
Metal bent.
And the Echo inside her learned the feeling of breaking.
Part 3 — Return
The castle didn’t expect trash to come back.
Riven moved through the service tunnels.
Not fast.
Not graceful.
Determined.
Every step pulled at her seams.
Every hinge complained.
But the Echo kept feeding her little reflections—angles, distances, the memory of doors.
She found the armory.
A door with wards.
A lock that hummed.
Riven pressed her palm to it.
The Echo mirrored the ward.
Borrowed the pattern.
The lock gave.
Inside, weapons slept in racks.
Riven’s gaze fixed on one.
A sword wrapped in black cloth.
Runes stitched into the binding.
A cursed sword.
A tool meant to punish the hand that held it.
A leash disguised as steel.
Riven reached anyway.
Pain flared through her palm.
Not heat.
Not cold.
A punishment that felt like someone trying to erase her fingers.
Her hand shook.
She didn’t let go.
The Echo mirrored the curse.
Not to obey it.
To understand it.
To hold it without being owned by it.
The pain steadied into a constant bite.
Riven wrapped the hilt.
Took the sword.
Then she took the shield.
A mirror shield.
Polished so clean it didn’t show faces.
It showed spells.
It showed intent.
It showed the moment before impact.
She strapped it to her arm.
And she went looking.
Part 4 — The Head Knight
The head knight’s chamber smelled like oil and incense.
He stood in front of a map table.
Armor on.
Sword at his hip.
A man built to look like safety.
Riven stepped into the light.
The knight turned.
His hand went to his weapon.
Then stopped.
He saw the stamp.
He saw the plate.
He saw property that had crawled back.
“Specimen RVN,” he said.
Derpy felt the way the name landed on her like a collar.
“You were disposed,” the knight continued. “That was mercy.”
Mercy.
A word the Empire used like soap.
Riven lifted the cursed sword.
The knight’s eyes narrowed.
“You can’t hold that,” he said.
Riven’s grip tightened.
The curse bit.
She held anyway.
The knight drew his blade.
Magic surged.
A binding spell—threads of light meant to lock joints, to freeze movement, to make her kneel.
Riven raised the mirror shield.
The spell hit the surface.
And turned.
It snapped back into the knight’s chest.
He staggered.
Shock in his posture.
He tried again.
A stronger weave.
A command.
Riven’s shield caught it.
Returned it.
The knight’s knees buckled.
He hit the floor.
Riven stepped forward.
The cursed sword dragged pain up her arm.
She didn’t stop.
The knight looked up.
Not afraid.
Offended.
“How dare a tool decide,” he rasped.
Derpy’s stomach twisted.
Riven brought the sword down.
Once.
Then again.
The room went quiet.
Not clean.
Not holy.
Just finished.
Riven stood over him.
Her hand shook.
Not from regret.
From the curse.
From the effort.
From the fact that she was still here.
Part 5 — The Princess
Alarms started.
Boots pounded.
Orders shouted.
Riven moved.
She didn’t run like a person.
She moved like a thing built for war that had never been taught how to be anything else.
She cut through a corridor.
Turned a corner.
And saw her.
A princess.
Young.
Not armored.
But holding a calamity book like it was a heart.
The air around it felt wrong.
Heavy.
Hungry.
The princess stared at Riven.
Not with pity.
Not with disgust.
With calculation.
Like she was looking at a weapon she might claim.
Derpy felt Riven’s hunger spike.
Not for food.
For the book.
For the power.
For the rule that said: if you have it, you can’t be thrown away.
Riven’s fingers flexed.
The Echo inside her mirrored the calamity’s presence.
Not enough to take it.
Enough to recognize the shape.
Enough to fear what hands would do to keep it.
Enough to learn:
If someone holds a calamity book, the Empire will circle.
If someone doesn’t, the Empire will make them into something that can.
The princess shifted her grip.
Riven didn’t step closer.
She stepped back.
Then turned.
And vanished into the service tunnels.
Part 6 — Fenward Hallway
The memory snapped.
Derpy sucked in a breath like he’d been underwater.
The Graveglass in his palm had gone cold again.
His fingers hurt from how hard he’d been gripping it.
Mia’s ears lifted.
She gave a low bark.
You saw it.
Derpy couldn’t answer.
His throat felt packed with ash.
He looked at Riven’s door.
And understood why she’d shoved him.
Understood why lightning near his book looked like hands reaching.
Understood why “useful” was a trigger that could turn her whole system into a shutdown.
He set the Graveglass down carefully.
Like it might cut him if he moved wrong.
Part 7 — Road Teaser (Ace & Queen)
The road was dirt and quiet—until it wasn’t.
Ace and Queen walked side by side toward the pressure they could both feel in the air.
Magic fluctuating.
Fighting.
Not fighting.
Like a heartbeat that couldn’t decide if it wanted to live.
Ace’s pink-white electricity crawled faintly over her fingers—precise, restrained.
She glanced toward the treeline.
“Why is there magic fluctuating from that direction?” Ace asked. “Like they’re fighting… but then not fighting.”
Queen licked her lips.
“I don’t know,” she said, voice too pleased with itself.
Drool slid down her chin.
“But as long as they’re strong… and I get to eat them… I’m content.”
Ace’s eyes narrowed.
Queen’s expression tightened into something predatory.
“It’s time,” Queen murmured, voice thrilled. “I’ll head up there and do what King and Joker couldn’t.”
She launched forward.
A blur.
Ace exhaled.
Then followed.