Chapter 14 #2
His fingers closed on my shoulder. The touch was a shock, a deep, biting cold that felt like touching a winter star, yet a fierce heat bloomed beneath it, a core of impossible life that made my marks sing.
Another mirror turned. Another. We worked in tandem now, him defending while I repositioned the ancient glass. The wraiths caught between reflecting surfaces screamed as they were pulled into infinite regression, trapped in their own reflections.
The last wraith dissolved. Silence fell like a hammer.
Silvyr's knees buckled.
I caught him as he fell, my arms wrapping around his chest. The weight of him, actual weight, actual substance, nearly took us both to the floor. I guided our descent, my muscles straining against his dead weight until we were a heap on the stone floor.
"Too much." His voice came out raw. "Manifestation without anchor... burns through essence."
"You're fading."
"Not fading." He lifted a trembling hand to my face, fingers ghosting along my jaw. "Just... returning. Can't hold this form without—"
His fingers were translucent at the tips. I could see through them to my own skin beneath. The dissolution crept up toward his palms.
"No." I pressed my hand over his, trapping it against my cheek. "Stay."
"Aurea—"
The contact between us sparked. Not silver fire this time, something else.
Memory given form, flooding through the touch.
I saw myself as a young woman, standing in a garden made of glass and moonlight.
Saw myself cutting my palm, letting silver blood pool in a crystal bowl.
Saw Silvyr, young, desperate, appearing in his human form, matching the gesture.
"This binding will chain you," he said in the memory.
"No." My younger self smiled, fierce and certain. "It will free us both."
I dipped my fingers in the mingled blood, began drawing symbols in the air that hung like silver smoke. "I'm not trying to bind you to me or me to you. I'm trying to bind us together. One soul in two bodies. One existence across two realms."
"That's impossible—"
"Everything's impossible until someone does it." I pressed my bloodied palm to his chest, directly over his heart. "Trust me."
The memory shattered. I was back in the hall, holding Silvyr as he dissolved in my arms. But now I understood. The ritual hadn't been about imprisonment or even freedom.
It had been about unity. Complete, permanent fusion of souls.
"I wasn't trying to bind you." The words tumbled out, tasting of truth and silver. "I was trying to bind us together. Forever."
His eyes widened, those impossible black-star eyes. "You remember."
"Fragments. Pieces." I pressed harder against his fading hand. "Enough to know I loved you beyond reason. Enough to know I would have broken reality itself to keep you."
"You nearly did." His form solidified slightly, drawing strength from my touch. "The binding failed because we were too young, too eager. The magic turned inward, would have consumed you. I had to—"
"I know." I did know, suddenly and completely. "You took my memories to break the binding. To save me."
"I'm sorry—"
"Don't." I shifted, pulling him closer. His head rested against my chest now, my arms wrapped around him as if I could hold him together through will alone. "We were children playing with forces beyond our understanding. You saved my life."
"I lost you anyway."
"No." I pressed my lips to his silver hair, tasting moonlight and memory. "You kept me safe until I was strong enough to find you again."
He shuddered in my arms. The dissolution slowed but didn't stop. His edges blurred, reality losing its grip on him.
"The garden," he whispered against my throat. "When you're ready, find the garden where we began. It's still there, waiting."
"Silvyr—"
"Remember what you intended." His hand found mine, fingers interlacing despite their translucence. "Not binding. Unity. Remember that when—"
He dissolved. One moment solid, the next... gone. I knelt alone on the cold stone, arms empty, skin still burning from his touch.
The hall stood silent. The wraiths were gone. The mirrors reflected only darkness and my own kneeling form. But something had changed in me, in the magic singing through my blood, in the very air around me.
I pushed to my feet, nightgown torn and bloodied, silver still dripping from my palm. The wound had already begun to close, knitting together with unnatural speed. I looked at my mother's portrait one last time.
"I understand now," I told those painted silver eyes. "What you tried to do. What you died trying to protect."
The portrait seemed to shift in the lamplight, approval in those familiar features. Or perhaps that was hope making me see things.
I made my way back through the corridors, each step careful and silent. The guard came up the stairs to check on my door just as I slipped inside, the paper sliver still holding the latch open. I removed it, letting the door close properly, then collapsed onto the too-soft bed.
My marks had gone quiet. The silver blood had dried to faint luminescence on my skin. But inside, in the space where my soul resided, something had fundamentally shifted.
I hadn't tried to bind Silvyr. I'd tried to become one with him.
And somehow, despite the failed ritual and lost memories, part of me suspected I'd succeeded.