Page 195 of Blade of the Nightking

I wondered what he would do if he ever discovered what I knew about Dannis. The truth behind Levinica's death.

The thought turned my stomach. I pushed the rabbit aside, my hand drifting unconsciously to my abdomen as my meal threatened to make a second appearance. Rising abruptly, I put several paces between myself and the fire, fighting the urge to double over and bury my head between my knees until the feeling passed.

“The Spinner sealed its own fate,” he grumbled, returning to the subject as though he hadn't just promised violence against Aedric. “Though it was impressively stupid of you to offer it what you did.”

I scoffed. “It worked, didn’t it? Far better than your plan. Threatening it with my life—and yours—didn't exactly work, in case you hadn't noticed.” I leaned against a tree, refusing to look at him. “I don't see why you’d care, anyway. I offered it something it wanted. Now you're free, and we can continue this quest.” I shrugged. “You're welcome.”

The bitterness tasted foul in my mouth. The place where that memory had once been was now a gaping void. Since losing it, something inside me felt diminished, as though part of my heart had been scooped away. I couldn't explain it. Only that a light inside me had gone dim.

He pushed himself to his feet. “I need to fill the waterskin,” he said coolly. “Half an hour, we leave.”

He bent briefly, placing something atop the fallen log before straightening once more.

“You found out what it does after all,” he said stiffly. “And I'm a male of my word.”

A frown pulled at my brow, but before I could ask what he meant, he’d already turned away, striding into the trees and out of sight.

I remained where I was for several moments, listening to the steady crunch of his footsteps as they receded into the forest, waiting until the sound had vanished entirely before allowing my attention to turn toward whatever he’d left behind.

My breath caught.

I was moving before I consciously decided to, crossing to the log and dropping to my knees beside it. With trembling fingers, I reached out and wrapped my hand around the hilt, the familiar carving of the eight-pointed star pressing into my palm. It hummed against my skin, as though my touch had awakened it.

My bone knife.

Rìan had given it back.

CHAPTER 40

The forest ended abruptly, the tall pines falling away around us to reveal the landscape beyond.

I gasped. Before us, the world had become… a mirror.

Clouds drifted beneath my feet as clearly as they drifted overhead, the land blurring seamlessly together. The effect was so perfect that it seemed as though one wrong step might send me tumbling straight into the heavens.

A fine mist drifted across the landscape, softening the edges of everything it touched and lending it an almost dreamlike quality.

I looked down and found my own reflection staring back at me from the water-slick surface.

“What magic is this?” I breathed.

“Salt,” Rìan grunted beside me.

I frowned up at him. “Salt?”

Moisture clung to his hair and gathered along the thick sweep of his lashes. “An ancient sea once covered this region,” he said at last. “When the water retreated, it left thick deposits of salt behind. The ground is nearly white. When moisture settles across the surface, it reflects the sky.”

I looked back toward the endless mirror stretching to the horizon. It seemed impossible that something so beautiful could be so ordinary.

“It isn't magic?” I asked incredulously.

Rìan didn't answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed forward, his expression distant and severe. “No,” he said at last. “But salt drains magic. And Illyra lies at the center of the flats.”

I followed his gaze toward the horizon, where a dark smudge in the distance broke the seamless silver expanse.

“That's where we're going?”

“Yes. The capital of the Court of Mirrors.” Something in the way he said it made me glance back at him.