I stare at Sira. “Because she’s my friend.”
Sira smiles. “Then you’ll be more than happy to take her punishment.”
A shadow lashes at me, and all goes dark.
20
Rosalina
Iwake with a start, body heavy, my vision swimming in and outof focus. The dining hall is in ruins—plates shattered, goblets overturned, the remnants of food strewn across the floor like the aftermath of a storm. The air is thick with the scent of spilled nectar and something fouler, acrid. My dress is torn, the hem now in frayed strands. My head throbs with a dull pulse.
A whimpering noise reaches me.
Heidigog.
She cowers in the corner, her yellow eyes wide, but she’s not looking at me. Her gaze is fixed on something behind me.
I do not turn. I know who it is.
Instead, I swallow my fear and keep my expression vacant as Sira steps toward me. “What is your purpose?” the Queen of the Below snarls.
I blink, feigning confusion. It’s not hard with my head still ringing. “To serve the Prince of Thorns. I belong to him.”
Siratsks, tapping a finger against her lips. “Even as his thrall, you are disobedient. And disobedience cannot go unpunished.”
She turns as footsteps echo through the hall. The presence that enters is unnatural. A cold weight settles in my gut. The air grows thick with magic that shouldn’t exist in this worldanymore, like dust and rot and things buried beneath the earth for too long.
“This is Vespera, the Abyssal Sorceress,” Sira purrs, gesturing toward the figure that steps into the dim light. “She has a unique power. One you’ll get to experience.”
I try not to shrink back, though every fiber of my being screams at me to run.
Vespera’s skin is a strange shade of pale blue. Her dark hair coils and shifts as if caught in a breeze no one else can feel. And her teeth…rows of razor-sharp fangs, her gums slick with black, oozing blood.
She tilts her head, voice curling around me like smoke. “The hood or the mirror?”
I inhale.
I do not know what the hood entails, but I do not want to lose my sight, to be trapped in darkness. My words are barely a whisper. “The mirror.”
A smile unfurls across Vespera’s face, slow and knowing. From within the folds of her dark cloak, she draws a tarnished mirror. The handle and rim are engraved with butterflies, their delicate wings warped into something twisted.
She steps closer, holding it up before me. “Stare into the mirror, and do not look away. For if you do, you will write what you see into truth.”
Stare into a mirror. I can do that. I take it in my hand.
The edges of the mirror glow red. Jagged light crackles from the glass.
I scream.
The pain is immediate and searing, like something burrowing deep beneath my skin.Don’t look away, I remind myself.Don’t look away.
I force myself to stare into the mirror’s glass surface. Farron appears in the reflection. My heart races. He’s running across abattlefield as a troll’s spear impales him through the chest. Then beside him is Day, his eyes glowing sickly green, plunging his blade into Ezryn’s back.
Pain blossoms through my body as if I too have been struck. I cry out, my breath ragged, my hands trembling.
“Look away at any time, Rosalina,” Sira croons. “Vespera stole this mirror from Philiris, Fate of the future. Now the power of destiny is in your hands.”
No.
