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In shadows deep of the castle’s keep,

Countess found a letter’s sweep.

On her mirror it lay in wait,

A faded seal, a warning's weight.

“Beware the blood; it takes its due,

For beauty’s price returns to you.”

She laughed it off, hid it away,

Defying fate to have its say.

She watched her face grow fair each day,

In mirror’s glass, youth held at bay.

But soon the glass began to shift,

A murky haze, a shadowed rift.

One night she saw her face grown old,

Hollowed eyes, her beauty cold.

She dropped the glass, the vision gone,

Yet something dark inside had spawned.

Haunted more by every glance,

Her beauty showed a twisted dance.

Each time, a fleeting glimpse of dread,

Her face as one who’s long been dead.

“Beware the blood; it takes its due,

For beauty’s price returns to you.”

She laughed it off, hid it away,

Defying fate to have its say.

The letter’s words now seemed too real,

Her soul, it seemed, a cursed seal.

In rage, she tore the page in two,

But still the mirror’s horrors grew.

“Show me myself!” she screamed with force,

And saw a creature, pale and coarse.

With clawed hand pressing from the glass,

The twisted Countess watched time pass.

Faces of her victims bled,

Ghostly figures trapped and dead.

They swarmed, they clawed from silver deep,

Their whispers, “Forever,” stole her sleep.

Next dawn, her chamber empty lay,

Yet coldness lingered in dismay.

In the mirror, shapes did stir,

Twisted faces, trapped in blur.

“Beware the blood; it takes its due,

For beauty’s price returns to you.”

She laughed it off, hid it away,

Defying fate to have its say.

And through the halls, on silent nights,

Her haunted whispers filled with fright.

A soul in glass forever bound,

In mirror’s depths, she still is found.