Page 35 of Blood & Roses

“Izzy!”

Sera’s shout was distant somehow as the voice that was not a voice spoke again.

I see what you want, Isolde. I see your desires. Your parents found. The heart of the hunter you won’t let yourself love. I could give them to you.

“Stop it!” I screamed, closing my eyes as the voice echoed in my mind, sending pain shooting through my head. My hand felt stuck to the glass, trapped as Amira must have been trapped by its wicked magic, and I heard the voice laugh.

Let me in, little Nightshade, and I’ll make it stop.

“Isolde!” firm hands were shaking me, masculine hands, but I couldn’t open my eyes from the pain in my head.

I heard distant voices, Rowan perhaps, and Sera, but none were loud enough to make out as the voice in my head continued to make poisoned promises to me.

I can make you rich. Make you beloved. You could be a queen and your sisters princesses. You could rule at my side. There would be no more poverty. No more winter. No need to give everything to take care of everyone else.

Something pounded against the wall, under my palm as I held it against the mirror.

“You made the queen do those things,” I said, the glass thumping beneath my hand. “She was innocent, and we killed her.”

The voice laughed in wicked amusement.

Amira was already wicked when I found her. Too eager to climb the ladder of power. Already a murderer. She was too happy to let me in to help her with her schemes.

But you, so good and bright and wise, you could save me, Isolde. Make me good again. Save everyone from me. Save your sisters. Save the male you love. All you have to do is let me in.

The mirror knew, somehow. Knew that in my heart and bones, I would give anything for them. For Lena and Lis and Sera and Mora and Calli and Ella. For my sisters and my family.

And now for Rowan too.

I was about to say yes when the glass shattered.

Shards exploded, cutting my hands and face as they flew about the room. I cried out, and a masculine curse behind me told me that someone else had been hit by the breaking glass.

“Isolde.”

It was Rowan. Rowan cupping my cheeks, cuts on his face and knuckles, all over his hands from where he had broken the mirror. His green eyes were wide and panicked as he took mein, checking for injury.

“I’m fine,” I said, more weakly than I would have liked. “Your hands—”

“Gods above,” Rowan growled, pulling me against his chest in a tight embrace. “I would kiss you right now if my lips weren’t poisoned.”

Poison to kill Amira. Poison made from Rowan’s blood using my bloodweaving and painted on his lips before we entered the palace. Colorless and tasteless, his lips were poison to everyone but him, including me.

I laughed, but it came out as more of a sob as the pain finally receded from my head, the last echoes of the mirror scattered like shards of glass across my mind.

“Tristan?” I asked.

“Still out,” Rowan said, sounding concerned. “I heard you screaming and left him long enough to find you. Sera is with him now.”

“And the guards?”

“Injured, but alive,” he said. “Hopefully rid of the mirror’s curse as well.”

I nodded as Rowan rose and held out a hand to pull me to my feet. I let him, feeling rather shaky as I surveyed the damage Rowan had done more fully.

The mirror was shattered, glass everywhere and blood dripping from the shards where he cut his knuckles. I quickly scanned hishands, pulling a few of the larger shards free. The smaller ones would require tweezers.

“What happened?” Rowan asked gently as he guided me into the hallway, leaving the shattered room behind us.