AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This was sounding more like another riddle to solve.
“How do I find it?”
“You already know.” She started walking again, a clear sign that our conversation was complete.
“Where are we going?” I rushed to catch up with her.
She looked down at me. “The final test.” My eyes widened as she placed her hand on my shoulder.
Suddenly, everything sped past us in streaks of color before leaving us standing at the base of a small mountain. I bent over and hurled the contents of my stomach onto the grass.
“What was that?” I coughed before spitting out the remnants of vomit from my mouth.
“Traveling,” Kleio said with a shrug.
She turned her attention up the slope of the mountain. My gaze followed, and I noticed a large, flat section of rock about halfway up the side of it, shimmering with light. I had never seen rock like that. The section was at least thirty paces high and spanned the length of Morah. Before it was a flat expanse of stone, like a dais.
“The Galadynia.” She raised her chin toward the flat stone. “A Test of Fate. The Galadynia will pass judgment, your fate will be sealed, and you will have completed the Trial of the Gods.”
My fate. So uncertain.
“And Kya.” She turned her head toward me. “Save the bloodline from peril.”
I stepped onto the flat stone after climbing up the mountain. After Kleio had informed me of my task, she vanished. Leaving me to complete the final test. It dawned on me then. I was alone.
Where are the other contestants? Am I the only one?
I glanced behind me down to the open slopes of the mountain. No one was around. I turned back to the flat rock, only to realize it wasn’t rock at all. It was made entirely of glass, and reflected the landscape in front of it. A mirror.
I slowly approached the Galadynia. It was built into the side of the mountain—no, part of the mountain. The edges of the mirror blended seamlessly with the surrounding rock. I stood before it and saw gentle swirls of light and darkness within it, like thick black smoke fighting against the rays of the sun. It was enchanting and captivating.
Once I approached, only myself was reflected, nothing of the landscape around me. My clothes were torn, burned, and covered with dirt and blood. My hair was a tangled mess and nearly unbound from the tie I had around it. Dark circles outlined my green eyes, and my face was more hollow than I remembered. I barely recognized myself.
I leaned closer and pressed the wounded palm of my hand, free of pain in this wondrous place, against the mirror—the wound I had forgotten about. The swirls inside the mirror slowed and seemed to part as images of people appeared. I turned around, no one was there. It was coming from inside the glass. I squinted at the figures and realized that I knew them as they came into focus. Nikan and Malina were standing between rows of booksin Morah. It looked like they were having a heated discussion, but I couldn’t hear anything. Nikan was holding up a piece of parchment. I could barely make out the words I had written a few days ago.
‘Dear Nik,
By the time you…’
“What is this?” I whispered.
In the blink of an eye, another image appeared. A small village of beautifully crafted homes that I would always recognize. My home in Atara before it was destroyed by the Glaev. The house to the left was mine. It had been twenty years since I had seen my house but I could still feel the cracks in the foundation beneath my feet, the smell of dinner cooking on the kitchen stove, the sound of laughter within the walls.
In the mirror, a horse-drawn cart on the street next to my house toppled to the side when the wheel fell off. Before it happened, I knew that children would rush up to it to gather the tarts that had fallen from it—Malina and I amongst them. I remembered. I knew who was about to come out my front door to hurry off the children from the baker’s cart.
A tear escaped down my cheek and my lip quivered.
This is a memory.
It was gone in an instant and replaced with another image.
“Wait! Let me see them!” My voice was hoarse as tears streamed down my cheeks and I banged on the glass with my fist.
Eamon was sitting in his study, hunched over books on his desk. But it seemed wrong. His hair was white, and he looked frail with wrinkles etched over his usually smooth face. That wasn’t a memory.
“This hasn’t happened yet,” I gasped a sob.
More images flashed from the mirror. Memories from my past, vague and obscure visions of my future, streaked across theglass. The people I had killed, wars that I had no memory of, flashes of my childhood, a male in the shadows, previous lovers, hooded cobalt eyes, beings I didn’t understand. Darkness, love, pain. My enemies, my worst past nightmares and ones that had yet to come, every mistake I had ever made stared back at me. It was too much, and it was terrifying. Tears blurred my vision and I wanted to look away but I knew I shouldn’t. The Galadynia was measuring me. This was the test.
