by Lyra Selene
The crowd murmured, a touch uneasily.
They finally understood what I was doing. It was a modified version of the Meridian story, the legend we’d all heard so many times from the cradle that most of us could recite it verbatim. But I’d altered it. Instead of making the Moon a lovely woman floating in a pearly palais, I’d made her a man, clad in a fine silvery coat. He wore an elaborate plumed hat, and a mask shaped like adjoining crescents covered his face. And instead of making the Sun a man—a king in a golden château—I’d made the Sun a woman. More specifically, I’d made the Sun Severine—the illusion wore her radiant gown and elaborate hairstyle, bedecked in a sunburst circlet. The only difference: The Sun wore a kembric mask around her sparking violet eyes.
I chanced a glance at the empress, but she just swept her fan in slow circles around her smiling face.
I reenacted the legend of Meridian. The Sun chased the foppish Moon, but he rebuffed her love. Now that the story was well under way, the crowd was enjoying itself again, laughing and clapping at the charade. Finally, the Sun grew angry and sour, heartbroken that the Moon would not be hers.
The crowd grew somber. Everyone knew this part.
I made Meridian a towering Skyclad Garde. There was the flaming chariot, the weapons forged to catch and destroy the Moon. I projected a glorious, heartrending chase across the sky: a flaming star inscribing an elegant arc in the night, a long tail of sparks streaming out behind it. The Moon fled, flickering between his phases, but the dristic-clad lord was too slow. At last, the chariot approached the Moon.
The crowd held a single breath.
But my Meridian didn’t fall in love in a single glance. He didn’t spare the Moon. He didn’t fall to earth with his weapons of destruction. My Meridian caught the Moon. His net of glittering kembric snared the dancing lord, crushing his curling hat feather and bearing him to the ground. Meridian lashed the lord to his chariot and flew him back to the Sun.
Uncertainty pulsed through the watching revelers. This was an unfamiliar twist. I dared another glance at the empress. She was no longer smiling. Her fan flicked like the tail of an irritated house cat.
I took a deep breath, and focused all my energy on the next part of the illusion.
The Sun empress stepped from her shining throne to where the Moon lord knelt at her feet. She yanked the hat off his head, spinning him to face the audience and exposing his features for all the world to see. There was cropped red-brown hair. A trim beard on a handsome—if grizzled—face. And piercing, wise eyes a shade somewhere between grey and violet: a shade darker than my own blue-grey eyes, a shade paler than the empress’s stunning gaze.
It was Sylvain, the old and very dead emperor. I’d studied his portrait for hours, searing the image of my murdered father into the flesh of my brain. I faced him toward the audience long enough for the crowd to react.
An anxious laugh. A shriek of surprise. Severine rose to her feet.
The empress’s fantasy doppelgänger took a dagger from her waist and plunged the blade into her father’s heart. A fountain of blood spurted out, drenching the onlookers seated in the first row with phantom gore. They scattered and jumped away, even though the scarlet droplets were nothing but illusion.
Chaos erupted. The crowd surged to its feet, shouting and screaming. I thought I heard clapping, and a possible roar of approval, and a grim smile crossed my face when I turned my gaze to the empress. She was livid with fury, snarling orders at her courtiers and her Skyclad bodyguards. Three of the silver-cloaked soldats detached from the phalanx and pushed through the crowd.
Time for the final act.
I dissolved the illusion, and the Sun and the Moon and Meridian all faded like a lover’s promise. There was only me, standing cloaked and gowned at the center of the stage. The crowd quieted, waiting to see what I would do. Even the Skyclad Gardes slowed their booted steps. Would I plead for my life or shout murder at the empress? Would I weep, or laugh, or rant like a madwoman?
Would it all be a strange joke, a twisted prank among bored aristos?
Behind me, the music swelled. Slowly, theatrically, I drew back my hood and let the cape fall. The crowd leaned in, confused. My hair, though a few shades darker than Severine’s, was coiled in the precise manner of their empress. A sunburst circlet sat on my head. A golden mask covered my features. With one smooth gesture, I tore away the black lace overlay of my gown. The cloth whispered to the ground, exposing a gown identical to Severine’s.
Silence hung thick enough to choke.
I reached into the pocket I had specially commissioned on my counterfeit dress and drew out my ambric pendant, the Relic everyone seemed so eager to possess. It glinted dully in the light, rotating gently on the end of its golden chain.
At the top of the amphitheater, Severine’s violet eyes went wide with rage and greed.
I pulled off the glittering mask obscuring my features and dropped it to the ground. There was no mistaking me now—without the mask I was most assuredly not the empress. My grey-blue eyes were closer set, my skin more tanned, my lips fuller. Anyone who lived in the Amber City—a city emblazoned with banners sporting their ruler’s face—would know in an instant that I wasn’t the empress.
I was just announcing to the world that I ought to be.
The Grotto exploded with noise. People rushed toward and away from the stage, shouting and roaring in a maelstrom of emotion. Severine was no longer content to let her lackeys do her bidding; she hiked her voluminous skirts to her knees and marched down the tiered theater, murder in her eyes and destruction in her soul.
I was so focused on the empress striding through the humanity churning at her feet that I nearly didn’t see the Skyclad soldat remove a crossbow from his back and notch a bolt. The string drew back. The trigger pulled.
A straight, true shot. The arrow flew toward my pale breast, exposed above the plunging neckline of the replica gown. The bolt pierced skin, flesh, bone. I fell backward.
And dissolved into a cloud of fantasy and imagination.
The real me stepped out of the shadows at the edge of the stage, still clad in a cape and black lace. I held up the pendant and gave it a gentle swing. The empress screamed, her eyes venomous with spite. The Skyclad Gardes drew their weapons and loped toward me.
Now, I whispered in my head. I imagined the thought winging out across the palais jardins, piercing stone and marble and amber to hit its mark. Now, Dowser. NOW.
A half mile away, Coeur d’Or exploded with a rumbling thrum that shook the earth and sent a cloud of fire and ash climbing toward the sky.
Melee.
Shouting. Screaming. Wailing. Shoving.
The Skyclad twisted to stare at the plume of smoke disfiguring the red sky, their usually impassive faces distorted with confusion and fear. Only the empress stalked forward, her eyes fixed on me and the dull glow of the Relic around my neck.
I turned on my heel and left the Grotto, heading in the opposite direction of the explosion. I counted—one, two, three—then glanced over my shoulder. Severine followed, hunger in her eyes and only two Skyclad at her shoulder. She must have sent the rest to the palais.
I quickly turned myself invisible as I sent a copy of myself streaking across the lawn at an angle. She was fast, and the Skyclad Gardes didn’t hesitate before giving chase, cocking their crossbows and moving with practiced ease. Only the empress paused, her eyes fixed to the spot where she’d seen me standing a moment ago. She’d noticed what the Skyclad Garde had not—my illusory double wasn’t wearing the Relic.
Trust Severine to notice the difference.
I winked back into view. Severine frowned and whirled to call her guards, but they were already out of earshot, chasing their false prey. I kicked off my heels and took off at a trot, brutally aware that the real me was much less graceful than my imaginary twin. I had to trust that my actual half sister was seventeen tides older, hours drunker, and more burdened by her voluminous skirts than the dress I’d had speciall
y made for tonight.
I led her across the lawn and through the trees, cursing my heavy legs and thumping heart. I shed first my hooded cape, then the swathe of black lace differentiating my gown from Severine’s. How strange we must look, if anyone were to see us: two nearly identical women in identical outfits, sprinting across the palais jardins like the world depended on it.
I choked on a breathless, bitter laugh. Maybe the world did depend on it.
I reached the Solarium with strides to spare. The empress was flagging, her long train slowing her progress. I dashed into the pavilion, darting my gaze around the arched room. I’d had Sunder’s men shift the high mirrors, angling and tilting them in a design of my own concoction. I just hoped my calculations were correct.
I spared an anxious moment to catch my breath and calm the reedy thrum of my heart. Then I darted to the back of the room, slid behind a mirror, and projected myself throughout the circular room. I made two of me, four of me, eight: the angled mirrors made me sixteen, twenty-eight, fifty.
I was legion.
I waited, trembling in the corner, for Severine to arrive. And in some twisted corner of my mind, I heard Sunder’s voice, tight with irony and rich with humor.
Finally, not-Sunder drawled. Mirage earns her name.
And even though I knew it wasn’t really Sunder, even though I knew it was some crazed corner of my fearful mind playing tricks on me, the words sent a veil of calm settling over my frayed nerves.
The empress burst into the Solarium, and stopped dead. I almost laughed at the look on her face, but the laugh died on my lips when I saw her eyes narrow and murder creep back into her gaze. She stalked toward the center of the room, examining each of my replicas in turn.
I didn’t skimp. A copy of the Relic hung around each doppelgänger’s neck. It took all of my concentration, but each time she approached one of the illusions, I had it back away. All the others twisted and shifted in different directions, their reflections spinning in a kaleidoscope of echoing reflection and deflection.
It worked. Irritation and confusion twisted the calm mask on my sister’s face, transforming her into a vengeful demon.
“Come out, you coward!” she shouted, her fluted voice loud in the cavernous space. “Are you going to hide from me all Nocturne? Or are you too afraid to face a woman twice your age, unarmed and unguarded?”
I gritted my teeth and settled deeper into my crouch, fighting the flare of pride her words ignited. I knew she was trying to bait me into fighting her on equal footing, but that wasn’t going to happen. I needed to buy Dowser, Sunder, and Luca more time. And I needed to find out how Severine’s legacy manifested. If we couldn’t find a way to defeat her power, then all of this would be for nothing.
I nudged one of my replicas forward to turn and frown at the empress. She lifted her gold-dusted arms in a placating gesture. I spoke, and in the echoing room, it was impossible to tell where my voice came from.
“I’m frightened,” said the copy. “I didn’t know it would go this far. If I surrender, will you grant me mercy?”
Light sparked in the empress’s lucent eyes, and she crossed to the illusion in two fast strides. Her hands lashed up, so fast I barely saw them move. One grabbed for the Relic, and the other curled into a claw latching around the illusion’s throat.
The other me dissolved into mist. The copies around her shifted and turned, their reflections rotating in a disorienting rush.
Severine screamed, the inhuman sound exploding from her mouth and reverberating around the room. I gasped, clapping my hands over my ears and fighting for control. I tried to sort through what I had just witnessed. When Severine thought she had me in her reach, she went straight for the Relic. But she also reached for my throat, like she wanted to choke me. Like the Nocturne of the Blood Rain Ball, when she’d wrapped blood-tipped nails around the throat of a man I’d thought was her lover.
I wasn’t big, and I didn’t know how to fight. But I was nearly the same height as my half sister, and with her slender frame and slim arms, I didn’t doubt I could break her hold in an instant. So her legacy was either enhanced strength, or—
What? What else?
Think, Mirage, think, I whispered to myself. Time is running out.
“I know who you are!” called the livid empress. She stalked through the labyrinth of mirrors and illusion, her composure untangling as her patience faded. “You’re one of his brats! One of the many litters whelped on his kennel full of bitches.”
I caught my lower lip between my teeth, and tried to smother the kernel of fury spitting sparks. Not yet.
“I should have noticed,” she continued. “You look like him. You even look a little like me, if I’m feeling especially generous. But mostly, you look like her. Madeleine Allard, wasn’t it? The one who almost got away. I say almost because she didn’t, of course. Do you know, she begged to trade her life for yours, in the end? Before she bled out slowly on the steps of a cloister.” She chuckled. “Isn’t that ironic? Maybe if she’d gone to the nunnery first she wouldn’t have gotten herself knocked up with my father’s indiscriminating seed.”
Something tore inside me. Flames licked at my heart.
“Yes, you look like her. The same unfocused ignorance around your close-set little eyes. The same vulgar air of entitlement, like the world owes you something. She thought she deserved special treatment because she rutted with royalty. Well, she got what she deserved. It just wasn’t what she expected.”
A hot tear squeezed down the ridge of my nose.
“And you,” she screamed. She punched one of my illusions, haphazardly, and missed. I wished I could make the replica punch her back on my behalf. “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You think you deserve my throne because you were born with his blood in your veins. Blood means nothing. He thought his blood kept him safe. He sat on his throne with his merciful laws and moderate policies, and delegated the empire away to his Council while he tried to bed every girl who’d have him. He thought he deserved what he was given just because he was born to it.”
“And you weren’t?” The cinder pulsed hotter. My voice echoed from every direction. “You were a dauphine. An heir to an empire. Isn’t that the definition of bloodline? Of entitlement?”
“I would never have sat on that throne if I hadn’t earned it,” Severine snarled. “I never wanted what I was born to—second in line. No one deserves anything. The only things worth having are the things you take.”
“Don’t you mean steal?” I screamed. My voice rasped hoarse, and I knew I should be more careful, but the kernel of rage had splintered into chips of ruby, singeing my veins. “You stole your brother’s life. You stole your father’s life. You stole the lives of countless children for no other reason than your own self-loathing. You’re nothing but a thief.”
Her high-pitched cackle spangled through the room.
“I’d wager more thieves wish they could brag of the bounty of an empire.”
“And I suppose you’d have to be a thief,” I shouted. A voice inside me kept telling me Stop, no, it’s too soon, but I was incandescent. Too hot, too bright. “Since you have no legacy. There’s no use pretending you even know how to use this Relic.” I forced myself to laugh, and it was a wretched, savage sound. “You may rule an empire, but you can never steal the one thing that even the lowliest of legacies possesses: magic.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Severine screamed at the ceiling.
“You’re giftless!” I continued, savage. “Not one magical bone in your body. Or perhaps it’s a pathetic legacy so useless you’d be derided until the day you died! Why else hide it, unless it’s so weak you can’t bear anyone to know what it is?”
Severine stood quiet for a bare second, surrounded on all sides by copies of me. Then she thrust her arms outward.
The room exploded.
A hundred angled mirrors burst instantly, sending needles of glass winging into every corner of the room.
I threw my arms up in time to protect my eyes, but shards of pain erupted along my bare arms, in the small of my back, the base of my neck. I sucked a sharp breath of air into paralyzed lungs, and when I lowered my stinging arms Severine was standing right over me. A long shard of mirrored glass smiled silver against her palm.
“Say hello to our brothers and sisters for me,” she snarled, and slashed her makeshift dagger toward my throat.
Instinct pushed me out of the way and rolled me along the floor.
I felt the wind as the dagger sliced by my ear. Lines of pain flared along my waist and shoulders as scattered mirror shards cut me. I was on my feet in a moment, crouched low in the tatters of my once beautiful gown.
“No legacy?” The empress smiled. “Wrong guess.”
She lifted her arms, and the piles of broken glass trembled and lifted, hovering in the air like a frozen rain of tiny daggers. I conjured up four illusions of myself, and sent them running around the room as I dashed for the door.
But Severine was smart. She sent the shards flashing through the air toward the real me, the only one who fled straight for the door. I cursed my panicked idiocy, and flattened myself to the floor.
A thousand needles whistled inches above my head. Fear was a tremulous pulse forcing me up, pushing me up by my bleeding palms, revving my flailing muscles. Run. I took off for the door, but the heavy slab slammed shut in my face. I pounded my bloody hands against the door. It didn’t budge. I whirled, planting my stinging back against the wood.
“You have something I want,” purred the empress. She stalked closer. She didn’t seem to mind that her hand was slick with blood where the mirrored shard dug into her palm. Her violet eyes glued to the cabochon of ambric bouncing above my breast. “Give it willingly and perhaps I’ll be merciful, in the end.”
“How stupid do you think I am?” I hissed through my teeth. Every breath stung—one of my ribs must have broken.
“Very, very stupid,” she said as she took one final step and grabbed at the Relic.