Room 9 had no door.
Just a mirror.
Naomi stood before it with the red key in one hand and Vera's breath still warm on her lips.
The mirror didn't reflect her body—only her eyes. And they weren't hers anymore. They were darker. Hungrier. They belonged to the Mistress now.
She touched the glass.
It rippled like water.
And let her in.
---
She stepped into cold.
Into silence thick enough to choke.
The room was vast but empty—at first glance. Smooth white walls. No furniture. No scent. No warmth.
But it wasn't truly empty.
It was listening.
Her breath echoed. Her heart did not.
She took one step.
Then the room shifted.
---
The walls lit up.
Hundreds—thousands—of moving images shimmered across them. They weren't paintings. They were memories. Recorded. Preserved.
Not of pleasure.
Of breaking.
Naomi stood still as she saw former initiates in the throes of madness. Some screaming. Some laughing through tears. Some begging to be forgotten.
And then—
Amara.
Bound. Gagged. But her eyes blazed with fury.
She was not begging.
She was warning.
"This room is a prison for the truths the Order buried," her voice echoed, not from the walls, but from deep inside Naomi's skull.
"If you're here… you're already undone."
---
Naomi clutched the key tighter, but it had dissolved—melted into her palm.
The room accepted her now.
And it was only beginning.
---
Another shift.
Chains slithered from the ceiling like vines. The air thickened, cloying with a scent Naomi recognized—Vera's perfume, aged and sour.
A figure appeared across the room.
Not Vera.
Not an initiate.
Herself.
But not the Naomi she'd become.
The first-night Naomi. The one trembling outside Room 403. The one begging for the flame but fearing the fire.
She stepped forward.
Her past-self mirrored her movements.
When she reached out, the mirror-Naomi whispered:
"Do you think you're free just because you've climbed higher?"
Naomi didn't answer.
Because she wasn't free.
Not yet.
---
The room transformed again.
Now it was a dungeon. Velvet-lined chains. Bloodstains that pulsed like veins. A bed soaked in a black liquid Naomi instinctively knew was desire, memory, and loss.
And on that bed—
A body.
Naked.
Still.
Hair fanned like ink.
Skin pale as frost.
Vera.
But no breath.
No rise. No fall.
No heartbeat.
Naomi stumbled forward. "No—no, you're not—"
But when she touched Vera's chest, the body opened its eyes.
And said, "You already killed me."
---
Naomi reeled back.
"You're not real."
"You're what remains when the Mistress becomes the Monster."
---
A thousand versions of Vera stepped from the walls—each twisted, perverse, burning with lust, with cruelty, with madness.
Naomi screamed—
And the room swallowed her.
---
She woke up shackled to a chair of mirrors.
Every angle showed her naked. Flawed. Small.
But above her—
A shadow emerged.
Lucienne.
Only not her.
A ghost made of elegance and hate.
"You think the title makes you Mistress?" the specter asked. "The Mistress is not the crown. She is the sacrifice."
Naomi shook. "I've bled for the Order."
"You haven't died for it."
The chair ignited.
Flames crawled up her thighs, her stomach, her breasts.
She cried out.
But not in pain.
In remembrance.
---
The flames didn't burn flesh.
They burned her past.
Every scream she ever gave.
Every whimper.
Every "please" whispered into another woman's mouth.
Gone.
And when the fire cleared—
Naomi remained.
Not untouched.
But transformed.
---
The walls of Room 9 collapsed.
And the center opened—a pedestal.
On it: a single rose. Made of black glass.
She approached.
She didn't need to be told.
This was the truth Vera never faced.
Not pain.
Not lust.
But love.
---
The rose shattered when she touched it.
And from it came a single, final memory.
Not Vera.
Not Amara.
But Naomi's mother.
Her voice.
Her lullaby.
Her scent.
Naomi dropped to her knees.
She had buried that memory years ago. Along with the soft girl she once was.
Tears carved down her cheeks.
And for the first time in weeks—
She wept.
Not for pleasure.
Not for power.
But for what she lost becoming who she had to be.
---
When she stood again, the room was gone.
She was in the Moon Room again.
Alone.
The collar on her neck had cracked.
And in its place—
A silk ribbon.
Purple. Ancient. Sacred.
The true insignia of the High Mistress.
---
Lucienne stood at the door.
"You went through Room 9 alone," she said quietly.
Naomi looked at her, eyes still wet, but sharp as blades.
"No," Naomi said.
"I went through with everyone who came before me… and never made it back."
——