Page 103 of The Mortal Trials

It takes two seconds to regret it, and one more to wonder what I’ve done. Ragged breaths tear from my chest. My eyes struggle to adjust to sudden darkness. It’s hot and humid in here, like it was in the labyrinth…

In a panic, I reach out to feel the walls, only calming when I realize they’re roughly hewn.

This is more like a cave than a cell or a maze.

Somewhere ahead, warm light flickers.

Maybe I should have found another exit from the oracle’s temple. Or perhaps I shouldn’t have threatened to kill her. I turn, considering whether to go back, only to find that the door I just passed through is gone.

Hand on my forehead, I take a deep breath. With only one way forward, I walk toward the light.

The scent of burning copal seizes my heart. Abuela burnt it three times this year instead of two. Once to remember her late husband’s birthday. He died before my siblings and I were born. A second time, to honor our mother’s. And a third, marking the date Carina first entered the world.

My eyes well at the smell and a knot tightens in the back of my throat. I rub a hand over my chest to ease the deep ache that blossoms.

A large room yawns open, the walls smooth and painted bright red. Firelight dances from lamps hanging around the space. There’s a modest wooden table set with two chairs. Copal burns in the middles of three abalone shells laid out in a row across its width. The smoke wafting from the bubbling resin is thick, white, and fragrant.

A woman crouches in the corner, rifling through woven baskets. She brushes long, dark hair over her shoulder when she hears my footsteps, then continues her search. Her blouse and skirt are the color of quetzal feathers, and the sash at her waist matches the crimson walls.

The lingering smoke shrouds her features as she draws a yellow shawl up over her head before rising and walking to the table. She lays something down, sits, and gestures to the empty chair.

I move to the table and take the seat.

“You saw the Pythia and she let you leave?” she rasps, head ticking back like she’s surprised.

I purse my lips. “In a manner of speaking.”

I hear her answering smile.

Hands thick with scars push through the smoke, holding a mirror out for me to take. It’s oval, rimmed in a simple, hammered-gold band, the obsidian a still, dark lake. Fighting my screaming, thrashing heart, I take it from her.

“What do you see?”

She wants me to look in the mirror. “I thought you’re supposed to tell me what you see.”

All the bravado I mustered this morning in my oikos is gone. I can’t bring myself to hold the obsidian up and peer inside it.

“Your friend needs your help. You should hurry. Look,” she challenges, gesturing again to the mirror.

My fingers tighten on the gold band. “Is this part of the trial?”

“It’s not part of their game, and it’s no trick. I’m trying to help you.” Her voice thickens. “And I am here because one from our blood must sacrifice to stay in contact with our gods.”

Sacrifice. The word isn’t as innocuous as it might seem on the surface, nor is its meaning. To Abuela’s gods, sacrifice is real. Lives are taken and given. Blood is required.

She takes an obsidian blade from her side and draws it across her open palm.

Both of her palms are thick with layers upon layers of scars. The healed patterns repeat up her forearms.

How many times has this woman had to cut her own flesh? And why didn’t she ask me to bleed instead of bleeding for me?

She fists her hand and drips blood into each shell, into the bubbling copal. Her blood mingles with the resin and the ivory plumes turn red. Then she pushes the shells across the table to me. “Drown the mirror in the smoke and look into it.”

I tilt my head… That’s an interesting choice of words, considering what I just threatened to do to the Pythia.

But maybe the smoke will distort my reflection enough for me to stand looking at it.

I hold the mirror up and let the red wash over the surface. At first, there’s nothing. But then, a familiar face appears in the dark glass.