Chapter Forty-One #2
I nodded absently. “It’s an old Lunarian myth. Gideon used to go on and on about it when we were at the Citadel. It’s said to show a single truth. One it chooses. In exchange for blood.”
The surface rippled at my words, glittering letters shimmering to life across its face. Slowly scanning the words, my gut twisted as the final letters appeared.
The mirror sees all. The mask shatters here. To walk the hidden path, you must confront the truth within yourselves.
Steeling myself, I stepped forward, my palm already tingling. “Well, it looks like we’re about to get a truth whether we want it or not.”
Ruhl’s hand shot out, stopping me as I lifted my hand and the dagger I now held. “Are you sure? These kinds of mystical relics… there’s no telling what it’ll show.”
“I need the Shard,” I said, voice low. Then, without hesitation, I dragged the blade across my palm, letting the blood drip onto the mirror’s surface. The silver glass rippled again. At first, with nothing. Then, movement.
A vision flickered to life. Not of me, not of the vow, but a memory. A truth.
One not of my choosing.
Of a dim chamber, lit only by crimson flame.
A towering male knelt beside a woman cloaked in starlight and shadow.
I squinted, narrowing my eyes at the familiar form.
Kaelith? A much younger version, but it was him, I was certain of it.
The female’s features were obscured, save for the delicate curve of her jaw and the way her hand cradled a bundle wrapped in inky silk.
The child inside didn’t cry. Instead, it pulsed with shadow.
I knew that presence, that nox. I knew it as well as I knew my own reflection.
It was… me. I was sure of it.
I staggered back, breath catching. “That’s… that’s impossible.”
Ruhl moved beside me. “Is that—?”
“I think Kaelith is…” My voice faltered. “My real father.”
It didn’t make sense though. Why would Tenebris claim a bastard who wasn’t his? And yet… the look on Kaelith’s face. The grief. The protectiveness. The familiarity. My thoughts spiraled, but my heart knew.
Ruhl didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, softly, “You sure you want to keep looking for answers?”
I turned to him, jaw practically unhinged.
If Tenebris wasn’t my father, then Ruhl wasn’t my half-brother either.
Everything had been a lie. Everything. My thoughts spiraled, a tornado of torment shredding my insides.
I knew what I was seeing was real. True.
But right now, these were truths I simply couldn’t contemplate.
I’d never known my mother, and still, I’d survived.
What difference did a father truly make?
Besides, Aelia was my family now, and I had to find the Moirai Shard and return to her.
My own complicated bloodline could wait.
“I don’t think we have a choice anymore,” I finally murmured.
Ruhl stepped closer to the mirror, then hesitated. “I’m not doing it,” he muttered, stepping away. “I already know too much about my damned future. I don’t need a cursed mirror rubbing it in.”
I snorted. “Coward.”
“Realist,” he replied, rolling his eyes.
The mirror’s light began to fade, swallowing the image. But not before a final flicker. A pair of glowing violet eyes and dark hair, set into a face that mirrored mine too closely to be coincidence. A Night Fae. One I’d never seen before.
“Did you see that?” I hissed.
But Ruhl had already begun to move down the hallway. His cocked his head over his shoulder, expression weary. “I’ve learned not to put too much stock in fate, brother. It’s far too fickle.”
Forcing my boots forward to catch up, I left the mirror and its images behind, burying the unsettling vision for now and focusing on Ruhl’s words instead.
One specifically. Brother. A dozen unspoken words sat perched on the tip of my tongue.
After the years of hatred Father had sewn between us, to find out we weren’t blood at all would be the ultimate irony.
But that was a truth to be left for another day. Now, we were here for the Shard. Quickening my pace, I shot past my brother as we turned a corner. Ruhl followed, shadows whispering at his heels. There, just a few yards ahead, was the central altar, where the Moirai Shard waited.
It wasn’t just a sliver of crystal, as I’d imagined. The Shard was a prism of woven starlight and silver threads, suspended in air between twin crescent moons carved of obsidian and moonstone. It vibrated softly, like a hummingbird midflight.
There was something familiar about the prism, the way it refracted the light. It reminded me of something…
Ruhl reached for it, drawing me from my musings, but the moment his fingertips brushed the edge of the dais a shock of silver magic exploded outward. It hurled him back, and he hit the ground, hard. A hiss of pain squeezed through his lips.
“Elra,” he growled, pushing to his feet. “It’s warded.”
Elra. The power of Selraya. A blessed gift, much like rais or nox; moon-touched magic woven from lunar tides and shifting fate.
I stepped forward, testing the barrier. The elra rippled under my palm, cool, humming, and refusing to yield.
Summoning one of my dark minions, shadows peeled from my skin attempting to infiltrate the orb.
They poked and prodded, but the elra held, even with an extra shot of zar added to the effort.
A pang of frustration swelled through me, and a growl ripped from between my clenched teeth. “I’m not sure I can breach it…”
Ruhl dusted himself off, lips twitching in a smirk. “Are you asking for my help?”
I hadn’t been, but maybe it wasn’t the worst idea. I gave him a sidelong glance. “Do you have it in you, brother?”
“I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?” His smile faded, eyes darkening and determination settling across his features. “Let’s do it.”
I closed my eyes, summoning nox first, and shadows coiled around my fingers, feeding off the temple’s darkness. Then came the zar, that cold pulse of Night in my veins, drawn from somewhere deep in my bones. My mother, maybe.
Beside me, Ruhl did the same, shadows lashing from his fingertips in perfect sync with mine. His nox crackled more furiously than I’d ever seen it.
We stepped forward together, our power merging in a single burst, darkness and void, shadows and death. Not fighting the elra but weaving through it. Coaxing it.
The barrier trembled. The silver light cracked, splintering into a thousand shards of moonlight. With a sound like shattering ice, the ward dissolved.
We reached for the Shard together, our hands closing around it at the same time. Suddenly, the ground trembled, sending a tremor through my entire body. My free arm shot out to steady myself as I tightened my grip on the artifact, refusing to lose it after all we’d been through to get here.
A figure stepped from the shadows of the temple’s inner sanctum just as the shaking stopped, silver robes whispering against the floor and feet bare. The female’s face was veiled, but moonlight radiated from her skin, a soft, pulsing glow that made my chest tighten.
A priestess of Selraya.
I’d read about them in the few ancient tomes I’d scanned in the Arcanum library.
“Shadow Princes,” she whispered, her voice like wind over water. “You have breached the Lupherium’s defenses, not by force, but by unity.”
Ruhl and I stood still, dread pooling low in my gut. This almost seemed too easy. There had to be a catch, there always was.
“I am not here to stop you,” she continued, clearly having read my thoughts, her tone as gentle as a lullaby.
“The Moirai Shard belongs to no one. It exists to balance fate. But know this—” She lifted her veil, revealing eyes like twin moons, one silver and one obsidian.
“When the Shard is used to break a bond woven by gods, there is always a sacrifice. Be warned.”
The Shard in our hands pulsed, brighter now, heavier.
“What kind of sacrifice?” I rasped, throat tight.
She tilted her head, almost sad. “That is not for me to say. The Moirai choose. But a thread must be cut, so another may be spun.”
Ruhl and I exchanged a wary glance before his jaw ticked. “How do we use it?”
“You must only whisper the words to unlock it: ‘Moirai incendiae’. The Shard will do the rest.”
I opened my mouth to ask more, but her form dissolved into silver mist before I could, leaving us alone beneath Selraya’s watchful gaze. As the priestess vanished, the Shard in my palm pulsed again, once, twice. Like a heartbeat. Or perhaps a countdown.
Ruhl’s fingers flexed around the shard, his jaw tightening. “Well,” he muttered, voice dry but hollow. “That sounded promising.”
I didn’t answer. Because in my gut, I had a terrible feeling I knew exactly what sacrifice the Shard would demand.