by Hannah West
Beauty alone is not what strikes fear. What you want is power. But you have that already. You are of ancient, magical stock. What stands in your way, splendorous queen?
He spun me back around, graceful as a trained dancing partner, but kept my hand in his plated grip. The muscular shape of his body swelled through the mirror, as though it were molten metal and he, a model, shaping its mold. His bright silver eyes seemed to carve rivets into my very soul.
What stands in your way? he repeated.
“Valory Braiosa,” I whispered. “By a fluke, she is more powerful than any other elicromancer. There is no one able to hold her in check.”
Together, we will rival her in power, Nexantius said, stroking my hair. Together, you and I will cut her down.
TWELVE
GLISETTE
THE night seemed to darken as Ambrosine leaned against the entry to the Edifice of the Holies, wearing a revealing black nightdress confected of sheer lace. Her eyes appeared to shine silver.
I shifted my stance to shield Navara and Hesper.
“Why do you look so nervous?” Ambrosine asked, her claw-tip rings toying with the ribbon closure of her gown. “Like foxes prowling in a vineyard.”
“Come here, Ambrosine,” I said evenly.
“You don’t command me any longer, Glisette.”
“One step over the threshold. That’s all.”
She cocked her head. “This place is considered sacred by my new family and my people. I do not wish to defile it with my unbelief.”
She pronounced “defile” with relish, as though the word tasted delicious. Then, turning a patronizing smile on Navara, she added, “I know how your mother valued faith, dear girl.”
“Where is my father?” Navara demanded.
“He’s resting. How many times do I have to tell you that he’s feeling unwell of late? He is a proud man and will allow only his wife to see him in such a condition.”
“You’re lying!” Navara lunged, but I shoved her back. “If I find out you’ve harmed him in any way, I will—”
“You’ll what?” Ambrosine asked. “Cut off your nose to spite your face, just like your hair?”
“That’s enough,” I said, squaring my shoulders so that Ambrosine could plainly see where my loyalties resided. “This game you’re playing must end. Enter the edifice or take us to the king.”
A grimace tightened Ambrosine’s features. I didn’t believe in this lore of the Holies and the Fallen, but her hesitance to take even one step into the edifice needled me with doubt. Her narrowed eyes shot up to the altar, down to the missing tiles and the treasures Navara had scattered on the floor. As she realized the princess had tricked her, her nostrils flared.
“Right this way,” she said, collecting herself, and turned to descend the steps.
Navara started to follow, but I grabbed her by the elbow and swung her around. “Stay here, both of you,” I ordered. “You’re right: Ambrosine doesn’t want to come in here, for whatever reason. You’ll be safer here than anywhere else.”
Hesper nodded. I could trust her to protect the princess.
By the time I jogged down the steps, I saw only a streak of golden hair trailing around a corner.
“Keep up!” Ambrosine called.
Turn after turn, I glimpsed enough of her to continue pursuit: the hem of her gown, a lock of hair, her swiftly retreating reflection. The concept behind the mirrors became clear. They didn’t just feed her vanity; they helped her maintain control by sowing confusion.
The mirror illusions became more artful the longer I pursued her. They created a labyrinth of infinite, nonexistent corridors and stairwells. The pounding in my head grew unbearable as I struggled to make sense of them.
And then I lost her. Maybe I’d taken a wrong turn. I retraced my steps and came face-to-face with a mirror. A pang of panic made my limbs feel weak. I could have sworn I’d come from that direction.
I swallowed my fear and spun in place, determined to make sense of this maze. Navara stood at the far end of the hall.
“I told you to stay in the edifice,” I whispered harshly, but the princess didn’t acknowledge me.
“Father, please!” she cried in Perispi, gazing beyond me, or maybe through me. Her hair was long again, and she wore a ruby necklace like the one she’d described. “Please help us!”
I turned around to see an image of King Myron, unkempt and unwell, sobbing on the floor of a dark room painted with appallingly violent murals. From my studies and Perennia’s reminder, I recognized his surroundings as an Edifice of the Fallen, the underground counterpart to the beautiful temple I had just left behind.
Myron’s eyes were bright silver, rimmed with dark circles, and wild with madness. He was only a reflection, or even an illusion. Was his torment real? There were three of him, then a dozen, and all around him Navara screamed for help while duplicates of me watched in bewilderment.
“Come find us,” a calmer, feminine voice said behind me. “Please, Myron, my love.”
I looked over my shoulder and found an enchanting woman with black hair—the same face from the portrait Navara had showed me. It was Navara’s mother, the dead queen.
Either Ambrosine had found a way to break the enchantment on her elicrin stone, or she truly had tapped into a dark power.
“I can’t!” the king sobbed. “You’re not here. You’re not real.”
“What can I do to make you believe I’m real?” she answered, with sorrow that sounded convincing.
“Ambrosine!” I called out, tempted to smash through the glass and put an end to this eerie sensation that I was seeing a ghost. “Where are you?”
The woman dropped her expression of despair and stared at me. “I’m only doing as you asked.” Ambrosine’s voice emerged from her lips. “I’m showing you the king. Now you can tell Navara he’s alive and assuage her fears.”
“You’re torturing him!”
“I could do worse.”
“But you haven’t.”
“I’m keeping him for legitimacy’s sake. A revolt against my rule would be a waste of my attentions. I’m busy with other undertakings.”
“What other undertakings?”
The image of the woman faded, replaced by Ambrosine wearing revealing battle armor that no warrior would ever wear. “I hate seeing you act like a pathetic shell of yourself, Glisette,” she said, dodging my question.
“I could say the same to you,” I said. I took a step closer. This could be the last chance to reason with her, to remind her of who she used to be—the last chance to keep this encounter as civil as Perennia hoped it would be. “Your sharp thorns used to protect something good and sensitive. I don’t know when you changed. Was it Mother’s and Father’s deaths that shriveled your soul? Or was it riches beyond your wildest dreams? Was it the Water drying up? Fear over the changing politics of power? When did you become someone our parents would be ashamed of?”
A flash of teeth let me know I had struck a vulnerable place that no armor could protect. “At least I’m not the slavering sycophant to a Calgoranian bitch born with no magic,” she barked. “They would be ashamed of you, not me.”
She had finally dropped the insouciant act, as I’d hoped. Maybe I could still reach her. “This is about Valory?” I asked, ignoring the dangling bait that would drag me into an argument I couldn’t win. “This tantrum, this torment of your new people, is all about her? You call me a sycophant, but I’m not the one obsessed with her power.”
“Maybe you should be. Immortals know that even the best of intentions turn rancid with time and invincibility. The only way to stop people like Valory from claiming absolute power is to use our power to restrain them.”
“Perhaps you don’t recall that Valory and I were doing exactly that while you enabled the Moth King in his quest for chaos. We restrain elicromancers after they use their magic for ill. Valory has done nothing wrong, unlike you.”
“She killed her own family.”
�
�They were traitors and murderers.”
“She took justice into her own hands. It’s only a matter of time before she runs afoul of the Realm Alliance and throws off the shackles of her conscience.”
“Is that how you see one’s conscience? As a restraint?”
“I’m not going to argue morality with you.” Ambrosine’s countenance darkened. “This is about survival, about protecting Devorian and Perennia. We can’t guarantee their safety when a creature like her exists. But I will save this world from her. My plan has already been set in motion, but I want you to help me. Help me and be even stronger than Valory. You are no one’s right-hand woman, Glisette. You deserve better. You deserve more.”
“What are you planning?” I asked.
“You must trust me,” she said. The mirror rippled and stretched with her movement like a bubble too strong to burst as she reached out her hand, offering it to me.
I considered deceiving her to decrease the intensity of the situation, to lessen the danger for others who could be caught up in her wrath and sacrificed to her temper. But I could not pretend I didn’t hear the poison lacing her every word, a toxic brew of arrogance, fear, envy, and acrimony that she hoped to make me swallow.
Elicrin magic pounded through me, warm and urgent. The hairs on my forearms prickled.
“You’re asking me whom I will serve,” I said. “You’re asking me to choose between you and Valory. But my answer is neither. I serve light over darkness, goodness over wickedness. You cannot understand that because you only serve yourself.”
Ambrosine bared her teeth, ready to retort, but someone else spoke first.
“That’s not true. She serves her new master.”
Hesper emerged from the shadowy space between two mirrors, clenching an effigy in her fist. She must have quietly followed me here. “I can see him behind her eyes. Vainglory does not hide for long. It cannot resist showing itself when invited.”
Holding out the effigy, she closed her eyes and began praying in Perispi, beseeching the Holies to give us the strength to defeat Nexantius.
Ambrosine twitched and sneered as though repulsed. Her pupils enlarged and the irises flooded with luminous silver.
“Stop!” she yelled, her high-pitched screech entwined with a velvety male whisper.
“Hesper, let me handle this!” I raised my voice over hers, trying to contain my panic, but she only prayed louder.
“Stop it!” Ambrosine screamed. To my horror, she stretched the fluid mirror to knock the figurine from Hesper’s grip and raked her claw-tipped rings across the woman’s face.
I roared while Hesper shrieked and sank to her knees. Blood trickled through the cracks between her fingers as she clenched her wounds.
My shock fueled the spell that sent two glowing whips hurling from my elicrin stone. They were meant to wrap around Ambrosine’s wrists, but she stepped back into the safety of the mirror. They struck the glass and dissolved to glimmering dust.
Ambrosine laughed. Again, a deeper voice braided through hers.
Waves of dread roiled through me. My sister was a formidable enough opponent, but she had struck an unholy union with this creature. Who knew the scale of their combined power?
I had to face them both. Ambrosine had squandered the redemption we’d given her. She had misspent our mercy and, instead of reforming her ways as Perennia probably still hoped, she had tormented innocent people. She had opened her body and soul to something even more wicked than herself.
I would never be able to drag her back to Nissera in chains.
The only choice was to destroy her.
But not here, in this maze of mirrors, where she held an undeniable upper hand. I had to escape, draw her out.
“Sokek sinna,” I whispered to generate an enveloping shield.
Hundreds of reflections of the shield glowed back at me in the darkness, encouraging me. I knelt beside Hesper to cover her with my shield and help her stand. “We have to get back to the edifice. Is Navara still there?”
She peeled her hands away from her rent flesh and managed a nod. One of her eyes was a bloodied mess. Even a fine physician would not be able to salvage it. I tried not to cringe or think of how close I had come to such a devastating injury myself in my battle with the blights last year.
“Keep close to me,” I whispered, leading the way back down the passage.
But now…it was solid. Closed off. Another mirror.
This was no maze.
It was a prison.
Hesper whimpered through her blood-slicked hands. I turned in place to find a way out.
Instead, I found likenesses of my parents.
My heart thundered with longing, joy, loss, despair. I’d known Ambrosine was capable of cruelty, but this was beyond cruel.
“How could you turn your back on your own sister, Glisette?” the likeness of my mother asked.
“We always taught you that family comes first,” my father added in his typical stern tone.
“Father would never say that,” I said, feeling as if my heart had been torn. “He was a king. His duty required putting his people first.”
“We told you to take care of each other,” Mother continued. “You have lost your way, my darling. You’ve lost sight of what truly matters.”
“Ambrosine!” I roared. “Don’t be a coward, hiding in your mirrors. Face me!” I stood and smashed my fist into the glass, shattering it, revealing the wall behind it that had been stripped bare of its art. “Fight me!”
In the next mirror, Mercer appeared. Ambrosine only knew him from her hearing before the Realm Alliance. He didn’t look quite the same; she had made his eyes blue instead of brown and had misrepresented his elegant chin, making his jaw almost comically masculine.
“Glisette,” his unconvincing likeness whispered. “I’m finished with Valory. What she is, is wrong. It’s not natural. But I fear her retaliation if I tell her it’s you I want.”
“Erac esfashir,” I whispered. A blast of power from my elicrin stone shattered the mirror so my bloodied knuckles didn’t have to.
“Fight me!” I screamed again. “Your tricks won’t work.”
“Glisette!” a voice behind me called. “Help me!”
I turned to find Perennia cowering in a prison cell, bloodied and wearing filthy rags. “Valory’s coming to take my power,” she whispered, trembling, tears blazing trails down grimy cheeks. “She’s going to kill me.”
“Erac esfashir.”
The bubbly sound of children’s laughter floated around me. I turned again to see Ambrosine and me as young children, playing in the garden while Mother sat in the shade with a chubby infant Devorian. Ambrosine was braiding flowers into my hair, as pale and soft as the pear tree blossoms overhead.
“Erac esfashir.” The happy image burst into fragments.
This time, when I shattered the mirror, it revealed a long, dark corridor—a way out.
I turned to look for Hesper but found I was alone. A few drops of dark blood dappled the carpet.
I launched into a sprint. Gold-clawed fingers jutted from every mirror lining my path, nicking my face and tearing my clothes like branches blown by a treacherous wind. Retracing my steps was impossible, but I stumbled upon the antechamber: the way to the edifice.
Erecting my shield again, I drove on. Frightening images with silver eyes pursued me, but I was so close now, could see the marble stairs awash in moonlight…
And a lifeless body sprawled across them.
Hesper’s limbs fell limp and contorted, as though she’d been shoved backward down the stairs. Her dark hair had slipped loose from its bun and spilled around her, damp with blood seeping from her skull. I heard Navara’s sobs resounding in the temple, broken up by appeals to the deities she worshipped.
An elegant shadow waited on the top step, blocking the entrance to the edifice, her wicked eyes gleaming. “So, it’s come to this,” Ambrosine said.
“You brought us to this,” I spat.
&nb
sp; The silver in her eyes slid down her face, forming a swirling metal mask under her eyes and over her cheeks. It spread to her neck and chest and arms like plating, armor that embraced her shape.
The creature facing me was far more powerful than the Ambrosine I knew how to fight. But I prepared to strike anyway, the magic in my blood rising to the challenge.
“Umrac korat!” I called, using a slashing spell. I expected Ambrosine to react with a shield, but she merely raised an arm to deflect. It bounced off of her armor and shot back at me. I barely jumped aside. It skimmed over the back of my hand, drawing a thin line of blood.
Then I registered the gasp of pain from behind me.
Ambrosine’s eyes widened with shock.
I followed her gaze, turning to find Perennia, the color draining from her lily-white face. A red bloodstain bloomed on her nightgown, crossing from shoulder to hip like a sash.
My whole future, my world, balanced on the point of a shard of a glass. I waited for Ambrosine to reveal this as another of her disturbing deceptions. But the bloodstain only spread and grew. Perennia dropped her chin to stare down at the wound, stunned.
“Perennia!”
I used a levitation spell to catch and cradle her just before she slumped to her knees, hurrying to gather her small warmth in my arms.
“Get help!” I turned to scream at Ambrosine.
She gaped at me briefly. The metal plating on her flesh receded. She stepped over Hesper’s corpse and hurried to do as I’d commanded.
I would kill her. I would drag her to the edge of the edifice, throw her off, and never feel a shred of remorse.
But for now, I bunched Perennia’s nightgown against the wound I was too afraid to examine. I had to stop the bleeding. “Hold on,” I said while my sister drew desperate, shallow breaths.
A gentle hand touched my shoulder. “Let’s bring her up to safety,” Navara said. “Just in case.”
The blood soaked through the fabric, seeping between my fingers. I refused to believe this could be the end. I rested my cheek on the crown of her head and, with a shuddering cry, shed tears into her hair. After a moment I nodded and lifted her with the whisper of an incantation.