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Draven approached the mirror. From nearby, Avriel waited and watched. I was surprised he hadn’t shoved his way past Draven and Selwyn to go immediately after Lyrastra. Instead, he seemed to be biding his time. His very presence so close to Draven made me nervous.
But Draven ignored him.
The mirror was speaking again. Words only the competitors were close enough to hear.
I clenched my hands into fists, heart pounding impatiently. What would it ask of him?
Slowly, Draven turned and lifted his head, his eyes going up to where we stood in the gallery.
Our eyes met. Time stood still for a moment as I drank in the sight of the man who had become my entire world. Obsidian hair cascaded around his face, enticingly disheveled. When was the last time he had bothered to cut it? I was sure Breena would have loved to get her hands on those overly-long locks.
His sun-kissed skin seemed so out of place in the damp stony cavern.
While the mirror gave off a bright radiant light, it was no longer beautiful. I now saw it for what it was–a false, cold promise of light.
Whereas Draven's skin held a captivating warmth that I had felt, touched, kissed, licked. The secrets of a thousand brilliant sunsets lay in that bronze-tinged skin, a thousand hours sprawled in our bed, a thousand kisses placed all over my body.
He wore a supple leather jerkin over his chest, hiding the burn-marks I had given him the day before. The dark brown material hugged his face, accentuating his broad shoulders and sculpted waist.
A lump grew in my throat. Every contour and sinew of his body spoke of raw power and primal strength. He was a warrior. A killer. A brute of a man.
So then why was he looking at me in that way? As though he were peering into my soul with unsettling ease.
As if in answer to an unspoken question, I felt my mouth beginning to open, my lips forming a silent “yes.”
But Draven was already turning away.
He spoke something to the mirror. Then he pulled out the blade from his belt.
“What’s he doing?” I demanded of Rychel and Odessa sharply. “Why did he look at us?”
Rychel shrugged helplessly from beside me.
Odessa was quiet. “Not at us,” she said finally. “At you. What were you about to say?”
“I was about to say ‘yes.’”
“Why? To what? What question did he ask you?” she demanded.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “He... didn’t. And yet.”
“It was the mirror,” Hawl said decisively. “You said ‘yes.’ But that’s not enough. It’s whathesays that matters. I’m surprised you were asked at all.”
“But...what did I say ‘yes’ to?” I asked, in confusion.
“A question you should never have had to answer.” Odessa’s face was furious as she glared at the mirror. “And your answer was worthless, without even understanding the question.”
“But he understood. Look.” Rychel pointed.
Down below Draven was shaking his head and looking at the mirror with a mutinous expression.
He spoke again, then seemed to be waiting.
Finally, the voice from the mirror answered, as clouded as its surface.
Draven nodded decisively. He raised the blade.
“What is he doing?” I demanded of the others.
