The Mirror in the Mountain (The Mirrored Trilogy #2)

4. Eva

Chapter 4

Eva

I should have known Alette had fire magic.

Maybe I should have been more surprised. But I could only look on with detached horror as Alette blasted the False King’s quarters apart, a fireball tunneling down through the floor until the hole it had formed looked like the yawning entry to hell itself. Flames flickered at me from every surface, and it was all I could do to quash my terror as my mother’s screams filled my mind, my two worst nightmares merging to become reality.

I was almost grateful Bash couldn’t feel my distress as I lay rigid with fear, trying not to let my panic overwhelm me.

But there was a faint reddish glimmer around the bed that not even the smoke penetrated, the shield the exact shade of the fire I had seen in Alette’s eyes. Shaking, I desperately focused on it, forcing my mind to calm.

I hadn’t so much as breathed in before four guards, who must have been stationed outside the door, burst into the room. Alette, however, was gone, as if she had disappeared into the hole she had made in the earth. I pretended to be stunned as one of the guards unlocked the chain extending from my manacles to the bedframe, their metal now steadily heating around my wrists.

Sucking in a scorching breath, I readied to make my move. As two of the guards yanked me up by my forearms, I kicked out with both feet at the third in front of me. His eyes flared as he seemed to hang in the air for an extended moment. Then he fell into the flaming hole with a scream that was swallowed by the roar of the fire.

Taking advantage of their shock, I stomped on the foot of the guard to my left, yanking myself from his hold. The other guard roughly twisted my arm, trying to subdue me. I slammed the crown of my head into his face, feeling the gush of his blood on my hair as it cracked his nose.

I screamed as something hit me from behind. A stream of water turned to ice as it pinned me against the double doors. The fourth guard prowled forward, a sneer curling his lip. With all my limbs frozen in place, I could do nothing to stop him as he pulled that too familiar syringe from a small metal case and stabbed it into my arm.

A burning sensation spread like a fire through my veins. The flames swam concerningly.

No.

Past and present merged together. Smoke blurred my vision. And then I could feel my mother’s hand on my chest pushing me into the void?—

But there was no mirror to fall through. There was nothing at all.