Chapter 66
Belle
Noise from the courtyard drifted through the open window. Soldiers shouting. A rider approaching. I ran to the window, but my vantage was poor. I couldn’t see the foregate, but it had to be the king.
I grabbed my shawl and headed toward the grand entryway, my hands unsteady. Valen had been gone less than an hour. Either the negotiations had gone well, or very badly.
I emerged onto the second-floor balcony of the entry hall as the king stormed through the castle doors, his boots ringing on the marble tiles and his riding cloak fluttering. Servants and soldiers trailed behind him, unburdening him of his cloak and sword.
Valen looked up, and the brooding darkness slipped from his face, replaced by an emotion I couldn’t quite place. I raised my eyebrows in expectation, and he inclined his head ever so slightly in acknowledgement. My breath caught. Did that mean the general had accepted his offer?
“Leave us,” the king said as he waved away his entourage and ascended the stairs. When he looked up, the hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “It seems you missed me, princess.”
“Now, why would I do that?” I fell in beside him, doing my very best to ignore the promise in his gaze and the effect his scent had on me. “I’m simply eager to know how your meeting went.”
There was no denying that my body was eager for something else entirely.
I told myself it was just the effect of his blood, but the excuse had worn as thin as a well-loved shift, no longer able to conceal the truth beneath.
“The general is considering our proposition,” Valen said flatly as we strode down the hall. “He’ll have a decision for me at sunrise.”
“Do you think he’ll accept?”
Valen grunted. “Maybe. He rebuffed my initial proposal, but I have something that piqued his interest.”
Tension crept across my shoulders. I could almost feel the general’s covetous gaze, the callous way he’d grasped me and shoved me where he wanted me to go. “Sarkis said he was here for me…”
“Fuck what he said.” Valen’s voice grated with the promise of violence, and my stomach tumbled as a lethal darkness built behind his eyes. “Even if it would free me from the curse, I’d never hand you over to him.”
My balance shifted, as if the floor had tilted beneath me.
There was no way he could mean it. No matter how much he valued me or my magic, he’d trade me in a heartbeat if it meant breaking his curse.
His words were likely another half-truth, yet I couldn’t stop my heart from quickening, nor wishing they were true.
We turned down the corridor into the royal wing. “If not me, what did you offer him?”
Valen glanced over, his murderous mood softening for the briefest moment. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
Frustration stopped me in my tracks. “Why must everything be a secret with you?”
He paused and leveled me with a look that seemed to say, because that’s the way I like it.
“Your name, your face, your curse. Everything is either an outright lie, or at best, a veiled truth. It’s a wonder anyone even knows what you like for breakfast.”
“Blood.”
I stared back at him, jaw slack. “You made a joke.”
“More like a quip.”
I shook my head, unwilling to let the momentary flicker of humanity distract me. “You’re dodging my question.”
“Because you don’t need to know the answer,” he said, his voice a hammer. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to gather enough gold to buy off the bastard.” He turned his back on me and headed down the hall.
“I hope your secrets are good company!” I shouted after him. “You have plenty of them.”
He halted, and a growl of frustration escaped his throat. He stalked back to me. “You know more of my secrets than anyone outside Locke. Isn’t that enough?”
“No. It’s not,” I said, planting my hands firmly on my hips. “I want to know them all as well as everything about you.”
The words tumbled from my mouth, unbidden. His eyes dilated, and I realized what I’d just said.
“I doubt that very much,” he said, his gaze searching.
“It’s the truth.” The revelation was as new to me as it was to him—I was almost desperate to peel him apart, layer by layer, to discover the real Valen behind the mask, the monster, and all the pretense. I needed to know. I craved it.
His jaw tensed. “Trusting doesn’t come easy for me. Particularly women.”
I did my best to brush off the unexpected sting of his words. “That feels personal.”
“It’s not.”
Love, women, and demons. Three things I’ve learned not to trust. Who had broken his heart?
When I didn’t waver or back down, the king released an exasperated breath. “Fine. I’m likely a fool for doing so, but I’ll give you your answer—but not here.”
He led me to his chambers and ordered his sentries to take positions further down the corridor.
“Inviting me in and demanding privacy?” I said as the guards marched away. “They’ll think you’re having your way with me.”
“Should I?” A wicked grin pulled at the corners of his mouth, and I didn’t move from the doorway.
“That would be very inappropriate, Your Highness,” I whispered, certain my pulse had already betrayed me.
Valen stepped close, the heat of his skin licking against mine. “And yet you’re still here.”
His fingers brushed a lock of hair behind my ear, and a shiver of delight raced along my spine. I closed my eyes for the briefest second, savoring the smoke and spice of him, desperately wanting to melt into him. It was madness.
You can’t trust him, not yet, not with this, not until he proves himself.
Tearing myself away, I slipped around him and withdrew to the far side of the room and out of range of his far too inviting lips. “You said you’d give me an answer: what did you offer the general?”
He shut the door. “You’re a persistent woman, you know that?”
“I am.”
He yanked his dagger from its sheath, and I jumped. Then he held my gaze as he slowly drew the tip across his palm, a crimson streak forming in its wake. He dragged his bloody hand over the wall, leaving a dark red streak.
“What are you doing?” I glanced away, stomach queasy.
“Reveal yourself, Sirael,” he commanded.
Magic prickled across my skin, and whispers rose at the edge of my perception. The wall shimmered like sunlight dancing over water and melted away, revealing an ornate mirror with a gilded frame.
My breath caught, and I took a step closer, but Valen held out his hand, stopping me in my tracks. “Careful. It’s a wicked thing.”
Dark magic streamed off the mirror, cold and vile and demanding to be released.
While I couldn’t see the glass from where I stood, the edge of the golden frame had been intricately carved with whorls of gilded wood merging to form three wailing women—one young, one middle-aged, the other a crone. The Fates.
“It’s a mirror, but something more,” I said softly, as if somehow my words would startle it away.
Valen’s lips pulled into a thin line. “Sirael has the power to show you anyone you know wherever they are.”
The hairs on my neck rose as the implications set in. “Whoever possessed such a thing—”
“Would be dangerous beyond measure.”
A flicker of dread spread through me. “And you offered it to Sarkis? He’s a monster. You can’t let him have it.”
“I don’t have many options left, princess,” Valen said, his voice as cold as marble. “Gold was never going to be enough for him. It was either trade the mirror, my kingdom, or—”
Or me.
Something raw cut through the hardness in his voice. He took a possessive step toward me, and instead of backing away as I should have, I stood still, resisting the urge to close the distance. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Valen. He could use it against you.”
“If it comes to it, I’ll kill him and take the mirror back when all this is through.”
Murder. Treachery. A violent double-cross. And yet, it might be the only way to protect both our kingdoms. I should’ve reviled him for it, repeated to myself that he was a monster, that this was who he was, and yet…I felt nothing.
That terrified me more than facing the beasts or the dragon. Had I begun to lose all sense of right and wrong? Was I becoming like him, in which every end justified the means?
Maybe. Because if backstabbing the general could protect one person in the Bloodvale, I would do it myself.
“If you make this bargain, kill him as soon as you can,” I said. “The longer he’s alive, the greater the risk.”
Valen raised his eyebrows, but I had no intention of answering. Instead, I pivoted around him. “I want to see the mirror.”
He sidestepped, blocking my path. “And I said, no.”
“You’ve already revealed its existence. Why not let me look?”
“Locke refuses to go anywhere near it, which should be warning enough for you.”
“He’s afraid of it?”
The king’s expression darkened. “He thinks the demon left it here as a trap to corrupt the souls of the foolish—of which, apparently, I’m one. As Locke put it: if you’re watching them, who might be on the other side watching you?”
Cold crept over my skin. “But you use it anyway?”
“I stayed away at first, but over the decades, the temptation became too much, and the reward became worth the risk. The mirror is a window on all I can’t have.”
I searched his eyes, wondering what he’d been so desperate to see. Then I understood. “You’ve been watching your brother.”
“The mages’ spell over the Bloodvale blocked the mirror’s sight, just as it kept the beasts away.
I couldn’t see my brother—not until I learned your sister broke their spell.
” He hesitated, then fixed me with a knowing look.
“I came here the night you arrived. It was the first time I’d seen my brother in fifty years. ”
My chest seized. Ella. She was right there on the other side of the glass. “Please, I need to see my sister.”
His hand curled around my waist, restraining me. “You need to stay away.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t be so close and turn away, not without a glimpse. “Who knows what will happen? If we find the demon, this might be my last chance to see her.”
The king tensed, the meaning of my words striking deep.
Hunting the demon was a road that would likely end in death.
I’d accepted that the minute I proposed the search, and Valen had to know it as well.
Perhaps he thought the risk was another truth he could hide from me, but I wasn’t blind.
I knew what I was doing. My kingdom was at stake, as was Valen’s soul.
As he said of the mirror—the reward would be worth the risk.
“Belle…”
“I’m begging you. Please, let me see her. I know you understand this need.”
His expression grew pained, but at last, he yielded and moved aside. “I do.”
I stepped around him and turned to face the mirror. My breath caught. Fractures cut across the surface, breaking it into knifelike pieces, and the reflection looking back seemed stitched together from a dozen different versions of me.
On one side, a helpless woman stared back, a prisoner trapped by a crushing gloom. On the other—I shone with strength and radiance. My hair drifted on invisible currents, and the objects in the room behind me danced at my command.
My lips parted in an unspoken question.
Valen appeared beside me, his reflection split as well. On one side was the king I knew, though he was draped in misery and shadow, while on the other side was the dragon with scales as black as midnight.
“The mirror shows you your reflection, but also who you truly are,” he said quietly.
I stared at the radiant woman. The strength behind her eyes, the way she stood like nothing in the world could knock her down. I shook my head. “That’s not me.”
His fingers brushed the small of my back, sending shivers of warmth along my spine. “That’s the woman I see—a fearless queen with unmatched power.”
I swallowed, unable to accept his words.
“I speak the truth,” he said softly, as if reading my silence.
I studied my reflection, bright and shining and indomitable. What if Locke was right, and the demon had left this mirror here as a trap?
Valen claimed there was cruel irony to his curse, hope twisted with inevitable failure. Maybe the demon wanted to give us false hope, wanted us to look at ourselves and to think that we were strong enough to defy him, when the truth was that we’d be nothing against his power.
Valen was silent. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing.