Lately, the witch, as he liked to call her, in favour of his stepmother, had become even stranger. She had been leaving her den more and more, watching from the stands as he had his sword fighting lessons and appearing right when he was saddling up for his horse riding. 

She never said a word, just sat and watched as he rode across the arena. Granted, they had rarely spoken even when his father had been alive. Even when he was younger, Sehun had found her mildly disturbing and preferred to stay out of her way.  

At first, Sehun tried to ignore her, focusing instead on the task at hand. But things got stranger the more he tried to ignore it. He was nearly slashed across the throat by his swordmaster by complete accident during one of his lessons. His horse bucked and almost threw him into a fence during a riding lesson. And he had very nearly been crushed by a fallen tree riding home from a hack in the woods. 

The storm had come out of nowhere, dark clouds rumbling and roiling angrily overhead. He had urged Erlking into a canter, fearing the rain. They were riding through the woods, completely fine when the lightning struck, colliding into a tree. Said tree gave them no warning, falling straight into their path.  

Had they been a moment earlier, both horse and prince would have been crushed beneath its weight. When he had arrived home, drenched and shivering, his stepmother had been in the throne room, glaring at him through her thick black lashes.  

He could almost swear that she was trying to kill him, until one night, when he was sneaking around in the kitchens, trying to secure some stolen pastries that he heard something that made his blood run cold. 

“She will have us poison his food!” 

“Shush now, you’ll have us both killed.”  

“Why would she choose now to kill him, not while he was a child?” 

“How would I know? We just need to follow her orders, alright? I like where my head is, and I would like to keep it.” 

Sehun pressed himself against the stone wall, holding his breath. His fingers slipped to the small mirror he always carried in his pocket, clenching around its weight.  

“I heard her tell one of her guards that he’s getting too powerful.” 

“What is she on about? The prince has shown no signs of any magic, much less being strong enough to counter her wickedness.” 

“Oh, do lower your volume! We will get caught!” 

“You shut up. Her mirror acts strangely. I could’ve sworn it spoke the other day when I was cleaning her room.” 

“Could she be keeping a ghost in there?” 

“Maybe the dragon lives in the mirror.” The servant snorted and their voices faded as they walked further away, leaving Sehun speechless behind the wall.  

How could she have known that my powers had already manifested and could the dragon really be hidden inside the mirror? He mused as he returned to his room, fingers clenched so tightly around the mirror’s handle that his bones ached. 

He had never seen the dragon, though he had heard accounts of it. It was rumoured to have jet black scales that glittered in the sun and an underbelly the colour of moonlight. How could someone conceal such a massive creature? 

Sehun steeled his nerves. He had to get another look at that mirror. The Queen almost never slept at night, preferring to spend most of her time in the lower bowels of the castle, and there was a secret passage that led straight into her room. He would have to avoid using his magic now, as he suspected that she could somehow sense him using that.  

Walking across his room, he lifted a false book carved into his bookcase. There was a soft click, and the entire bookcase sank into the wall, sliding aside to reveal one of the castle’s many secret passageways.  

The bookcase slid back into place behind him when he walked inside, following the twists and turns of the passageways easily. He had played in these places a lot in his childhood, giving his mother many a heart attack when she discovered him missing from his playroom, and knew every one of them like the back of his hand. 

When his father had remarried the current Queen, Sehun had laid wards the moment he could, sealing the passageways leading to his room, so that he was the only ones who use them. He taught himself to control his powers in the privacy of those passageways. 

The passageway turned narrow and when a sickly scent of apples filled his nostrils, Sehun knew that he had arrived. His senses tingled and he let his magic guide him to push the brick into the wall, an entire expanse of stone sliding silently aside to reveal his stepmother’s chambers. 

He stepped out, closing the passageway behind him. The mirror was right there, at the foot of her gigantic four poster bed. Its surface seemed impossibly smooth and solid, and for a moment, Sehun doubted himself.  

But he stood in front of the mirror, staring at his own reflection, waiting for the voice.