Chapter 11
For a moment, there is no sound. No mirrors breaking.
No glass falling. No torches burning. No Seren screaming.
Only Valerius. His arm is locked around me, hard and protective, pinning my back against his chest.
His body shields mine completely, broad and solid behind me, his Shadowflame still curled around us in a dark half-dome.
Heat presses against my skin without burning.
Black fire snaps quietly at the edges, swallowing the last tiny shards of mirror before they can reach me.
His breath is rough near my ear. Not calm and controlled like usual.
Rough. That scares me more than the shattered mirrors.
Valerius Draven is not supposed to sound shaken.
His hand is splayed over my stomach, fingers tense against the fabric of my dress.
The other arm crosses my chest, holding me still as if the floor might open beneath me if he lets go.
His grip isn't painful, but it's absolute.
I can feel his heartbeat through my back. Fast. Too fast.
The gallery is dark now except for the black torches trembling along the walls.
Their flames bend toward us like flowers straining toward a sun.
Broken glass litters the polished floor in silver-black fragments.
The cracked mirrors that lined the dueling gallery are gone, their frames empty and jagged, their ruined pieces scattered like frozen rain.
Seren stands a few feet away, both hands raised, green Veil magic flickering wildly around her fingers. Her face is pale. Her eyes are huge.
"What," she breathes, "in all the buried bones was that?"
I don't answer. I can't. My ears are still ringing with the whisper.
Valentina. The fire said my name. No, that is impossible.
Fire doesn't speak. Mirrors don't show impossible crowns of flame.
Powerless girls don't glow silver-gold in broken reflections.
They don't stand in restricted dueling galleries while black fire protects them and ancient whispers crawl under their skin.
I squeeze my eyes shut. The image is still there. Me, but not me. Eyes burning. Skin lit from beneath. A crown of fire above my head like stars caught in a ring.
My stomach turns. "Valentina." Valerius's voice is low against my ear.
My eyes open. He says my name differently now. Not like an insult. Not like a warning meant to cut me. Like something he has to hold carefully because too much force might break it.
His arm loosens slightly. Not enough to let me go. Enough to let me breathe. "Are you hurt?"
The question slides through me so unexpectedly that I almost turn in his arms. "No," I whisper.
His hand shifts at my waist. The bond mark burns beneath my sleeve, bright and steady, humming in rhythm with the Shadowflame around us.
He feels it too. I know because his breath catches once, barely, before he releases me.
The moment his arms leave me, the gallery feels colder.
I step forward, away from the heat of him, and immediately hate that my body notices the loss.
Seren rushes to me, boots crunching over tiny bits of glass that Valerius's fire missed.
She grips my shoulders, turning me toward her. "Are you sure? Did anything cut you? Did the glass touch you? Did you breathe any cursed mirror dust? Is cursed mirror dust a thing? It feels like it should be a thing." She rants.
"I'm fine." I say.
"You are not fine. Mirrors exploded after showing you with a burning crown, Valentina."
My heart stumbles. "Don't," I whisper.
Seren stops. Her face softens with fear, not for herself. For me. "Oh, Val."
I pull away gently because if she comforts me, I might fall apart, and I can't fall apart while Valerius is already moving through the gallery like a storm wearing skin.
He sweeps one hand through the air. The Shadowflame dome collapses into his palm.
Then he closes his fist. Every black torch in the room drops low, flames shrinking to thin red-edged tongues.
Shadows stretch across the broken mirrors, hiding the worst of the damage.
He walks to the nearest empty frame and drags his fingers over the cracked edge. The sigils along his wrist shift.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Checking for listening wards." He says.
Seren's voice is too high. "You said there weren't any."
"There weren't." He confirms.
"Weren't?" She questions.
His eyes flick to her. "Things change when mirrors start screaming."
"They didn't scream," I say.
Both of them look at me. My throat tightens. Of all the parts to correct, that is the one my mouth chooses?
Seren releases a shaky breath. "No. They whispered. Much more comforting."
Valerius's gaze returns to me. "What did you hear?"
I go still. He noticed. I look toward the shattered glass. A piece near my boot reflects nothing now, only black stone and torchlight. I want to crush it beneath my heel. I want to gather every shard and ask it what it saw. I want to run from this room and never stop.
"I don't know," I lie.
Valerius steps closer. The bond warms. His eyes narrow. "That's not true."
Anger flares because fear is much harder to hold. "You don't know that."
"Yes," he says. "I do."
Seren looks between us. "How?"
Neither of us answers because the answer is the mark beneath my sleeve. The pulse between us. The fact that Valerius seems to feel the shape of my lies before I finish speaking them. As I do to his.
He comes closer still. Not towering this time. Not caging. Just close enough that the warmth of him brushes my skin. "Tell me," he says quietly.
My chest tightens. That is worse than an order.
An order I can fight. A command I can hate.
But this—this low, controlled, almost careful request—slides under my defenses before I can lift them.
I look up at him. His hazel eyes are dark in the black torchlight, gold and green swallowed by shadow.
He is trying to look cold. Trying to keep the cruel prince mask in place but I see the cracks now.
The tension in his mouth. The worry sharpened into anger.
The way his body hasn't fully turned away from me since the glass shattered.
He is still ready to move between me and anything that threatens.
I swallow. "It said my name."
Seren's hand flies to her mouth.
Valerius goes completely still. "What said your name?" he asks.
"The fire. The mirror. I don't know." My voice breaks on the last word, and I hate it. "Something."
The black torches flicker. Valerius looks toward them instantly, Shadowflame gathering at his fingertips again.
Seren whispers, "We need to tell your mother."
"No," Valerius says. The word snaps through the room.
Seren turns on him. "I wasn't asking you."
"And I wasn't suggesting." He warns her.
"Her mother is the dean." She tells him.
"Her mother is hiding something." The words hit me like cold water.
Seren's mouth closes.
Valerius looks at me, and for once, he doesn't soften the truth. "You know she is."
I hate that he's right. I hate that some part of me already knew before he said it. My mother's face after the ward chamber. Her mistake. You do not know what you are. The way she looked at the bond mark. The way fear moved through her every time something strange happened.
I wrap my arms around myself. "I can't keep this from her forever," I say.
"I'm not asking forever." He looks at me.
"Then what are you asking?" I ask.
Valerius looks around the destroyed gallery. His jaw tightens. "For time."
Seren lets out a sharp laugh. "Time? There are exploded prophecy mirrors all over the floor."
"Which is why no one outside this room can know yet." He states.
"Someone will notice the mirrors are gone." Seren says.
He lifts a hand. Black flame streams from his palm, spreading across the floor in a thin, controlled wave.
It moves around our boots, swallowing glass without touching us.
The shards melt into dark smoke, curling upward before vanishing into the torchlight.
The empty mirror frames tremble once. Then the glass reforms.
The mirrors return in cracked sheets, dull and dark, exactly as they looked when we entered.
Seren stares. I stare too.
Valerius lowers his hand. His face remains impassive, but the bond gives him away. A flicker of strain. Sharp and quickly buried.
"That," Seren says slowly, "is unsettlingly useful."
He doesn't look at her. "No one will notice."
I step toward one of the mirrors. My reflection stares back. Pale face. Blue-grey eyes. Light blonde hair falling loose around my shoulders. No glow. No crown. No silver-gold fire under my skin.
Just me. Normal and powerless. Except I don't believe that word the same way anymore.
I don't know what I believe. Valerius appears behind me in the mirror, tall and dark and too close even with space between us.
Our reflections stand together in the cracked glass like a bad omen.
His eyes meet mine through the mirror. The bond pulls.
I look away first. "What happens now?" I ask.
"We leave separately," he says.
Seren crosses her arms. "Absolutely not."
Valerius's gaze cuts to her. She lifts her chin.
"I know you scare everyone else, but I grew up with three brothers, two dead grandmothers who still give unsolicited advice, and a mother who once made a council clerk cry over incorrect funeral paperwork. Your glare does nothing."
For one dangerous second, I think he might actually laugh.
"You leave first," he says to Seren. "Take the east corridor. If anyone asks, you were with Valentina in the winter garden."
"And Val?" She asks him.
"She leaves with me." He says.
My pulse jumps. "So everyone can see us?" I ask.
"So everyone can see you unharmed." The answer steals the argument from my mouth.
Seren's face softens with worry again. "Val?"
I hesitate. I don't want to leave with him. That's a lie. I don't want to want to leave with him. That is closer to the truth. I nod. "It's okay."
Seren doesn't look convinced. Valerius looks even less convinced. "Find me after supper," Seren says.
"I will." I reassure her.
"If he says anything horrible, scream." Seren says.
Valerius says, "I'll be standing beside her."
"Exactly." She shoots him daggers with her eyes.