“Are you sure?” I glance between him and it.
“You must sooner or later. I think now’s the time.”
My heart is pounding as I cross the room. My gait has changed. Every step a bit different from how I remember taking it before.
Kaelis continues to watch me closely. That worrying look as he gazes at me is how I know he’s doing more than merely assessing the work ahead. This is something deeper in his eyes. Something as knotted as what’s in me.
As I pass him, his fingers twitch. Why he hesitates to reach for me now when he used to so freely is strange. He knows every inch of this new body of mine. He made it.
I pause a step away, waiting. Kaelis accepts the unspoken invitation, closing the gap between us. Wordlessly, he adjusts the vest over my upper chest and collar, smoothing out unseen wrinkles with deliberate motions. It’s such a simple yet intimate thing. His restraint is nearly unbearable. My breaths shallow under his hands.
Will you still touch me as you once did?I want to ask. Yet I cannot. I don’t dare.
“You were perfect as you were,” he murmurs.
“Am I no longer perfect?” I meant it as a witty retort, but it’s so weak. Almost fearful.
He laughs, low and deep, eyes flicking to mine. Hands hovering near my body without touching me. The corner of his mouth quirks into a grin that’s knowing. Familiar. “You are the same woman, no matter what eyes you have or clothes you wear. You will always be. Change your hair, your height, every physical element of you…it matters not to me. I am devoted not to your vessel, but to your soul. A soul I would follow across all the worlds.”
His hands fall away, and he gestures to the mirror. I swallow the lump in my throat and finish what feels like a great trek alone. I grip the tarp and pause. I’m not ready.
So I don’t know what propels me to pull the cloth from its place.
As it falls, I can’t look away.
Chapter 27
I don’t recognize the woman in the mirror. She moves when I do, turns her head and lifts her hand at the same time. But there is nothing else that would connect her to me.
Horror wars with fascination—and both battle a strange thrill that begins to course through my veins at what this all means for me. For what I can do now.
The rich brown of my hair is lighter, highlighted with streaks of a blush-tinted bronze.
My skin remains my own, but the scars that once lined it, etched by all the cruelty I’ve endured, are now gone. The last vestiges of Halazar arefinallyexpunged from me.
In place of the scars is a map of unfamiliar freckles and birthmarks. I take a few steps closer to the mirror, turning my face left and right, studying the new shadows my cheekbones cast and just how oddly narrow my nose is. I touch my cheek. Even my fingernails are longer, the nail beds slimmer than I remember.
Every part of me has been rearranged. My proportions are subtlydifferent from head to toe. It’s as though I’m playing dress-up in my own skin.
But there’s one thing that feels more out of place than the rest: my eyes. Even though they still have a reddish hue, seeing the rusty brown is strange. Those crimson eyes, my last visible link to my mother, probably the thing I loved most about myself…are gone.
I swallow the lump that tries to form in my throat.
I chose this.I could have fought it, attempted to go without. I could have said no, or asked him to stop. But I committed. Nothing is permanent in this world. There is no home that can’t be destroyed by my enemies so long as they live. Why should my body be any different? At least this way, I will reap the benefits.
For the first time in forever, no one beyond a select group thatIchoose will know what I look like. No one will recognize me; I hardly recognize myself. I don’t need to look over my shoulder. I don’t need to keep to the shadows. For that, Mother would be proud. I know she would.
And who’s to say I can’t put myself back to how I was when I make my wish with the World?
Kaelis continues to watch me. I wonder if he can’t bear the silence, because eventually he asks, “What do you think?”
My fingers drift over my jaw, over the slightly higher curve of my cheek. “No one will think I’m Clara Graysword, that’s for sure.”
He shifts a bit closer, edging into my field of vision. “What doyouthink?”
“I won’t lie, it’s strange.” My eyes dart between him and the mirror. “To see myself, but it’s not me. But it is…” I think it helps he went to lengths to incorporate aspects of my appearance I’d always mused over altering—like the length and color of my hair. “But I can live in this skin. Maybe even have a bit of fun with it. You certainly didn’t make me ugly.”
“I couldn’t if I tried, and I’d never try.” He scoffs, a bit of his usual arrogance returning.
