Fifty.
The power stabilized with a sound like a bell struck underwater, deep and resonant and final.
I opened my eyes.
A mirror hung in the air before me.
Massive. Perfect. A disc of fused obsidian glass, polished smooth by the magic that had made it, reflecting the moonlight in ribbons of silver and black. My face stared back at me from its surface—hollow-eyed, filthy, and grinning like someone who'd gotten away with something she had no business pulling off.
The Veil above the canyon went still. For five heartbeats, the world stopped screaming.
"You didn't conquer it," he rasped. "You became it."
My reflection watched me from the mirror, still hovering, still impossible. My fingertips drifted to the mirror's edge. The glass was warm beneath them. Alive.
A single shard broke free from the edge—a petal of black glass, shimmering with captured moonlight. It floated down into my palm.
Sharp enough to draw blood.
I closed my fist around it then pocketed the shard tenderly.
"Again," I said.
He almost smiled.
"Tomorrow. Rest now."
I stumbled back toward the camp, and for the first time in days, the weight on my shoulders felt lighter. Not gone. Just... manageable.
Like broken glass learning how to be a mirror.
We broke camp before dawn, because of course we did. Sleep was apparently a luxury reserved for people who weren't marching toward the end of the world. The night had settledinto the rock overnight and turned the whole gorge into a box of ice. Bedrolls peeled off the ground with a sound like tearing skin. Someone's hands were shaking too hard to tie their pack—I could hear the buckle clicking against itself, over and over, until a second pair of hands took over without a word. Nobody stretched. Nobody ate. We just moved, stiff-jointed and dead-eyed, folding our lives into bundles small enough to carry at a run. A skill we were all getting disturbingly good at.
The canyon walls narrowed as we climbed, obsidian giving way to rougher stone, darker and older. The wild magic seeping through the cliffs had bought us hours, not days—the Hounds wouldn't stay confused forever.
That's when I felt it.
A rumble rolled through the ground, deep and so low it was almost below hearing, more vibration than sound.
I stopped. Sniffed the air.
I caught sulfur, faint but potent, and char, like something had burned hot and fast and then vanished.
"Dreadscale." I snared his arm as he passed. "Did you feel that?"
He didn't slow down. "Wind."
"That wasn't—"
He launched onto his stallion and spurred into a gallop before I could finish.
Fine. Keep your secrets, you terrifying bastard. I'll find out anyway.
But I didn't forget the rumble. Or the sulfur. Or the lie.
Chapter 33
OATH-STONE: 0 DAYS LEFT
