And in that moment, the mirror showed him only peace.
That night, Mateo dreamed he was standing before a colossal mirror. In its reflection, he saw himself—not as he was, but as he acted. He watched himself wake at midnight, not to work, but to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, paralyzed by a fear of failure he’d never named. He saw himself refuse help from colleagues, not out of strength, but out of terror that he wasn’t needed. He saw his “discipline” as a mask for his own hidden laziness—the laziness of never questioning his own heart.
“Vagrant,” he muttered. “The world has no place for dreamers who sleep through opportunity.”
In the misty highlands of a land called Argolla, there was a forgotten law whispered among grandmothers and carved into the archway of the old courthouse: La ley del espejo —the law of the mirror.