Chapter 32
NAAZ
“What the fuck?”
I tried blinking my eyes a few times, but all I could see was pitch black darkness around me. Carefully, I reached out both of my hands and waved them through the fog a few times, trying to grasp anything nearby.
How did I even end up here? I thought to myself. I couldn’t even remember what I had been doing last.
Suddenly, the crisp sound of a match echoed in thousands before a small flame appeared before me.
It crept up a single line, then turned to the left, and then down again.
Like a ripple of water, more strange rectangular fires began to form, until they lit the room enough for me to see four walls around me, all made of…
mirrors. And they were all lined with fire.
“Hello? I called into the darkness, my reflections moving with me as I tried to push against the walls.
I may have had a love for mirrors—I mean, honestly, how could I not? But I had no recollection of any room in my castle made of them.
Pressing myself against one of the mirrors, I tried searching for a handle to a hidden door, but couldn’t find one.
A quick flash of darkness seemed to speed past the mirrors.
Then, I heard the light shuffling of feet behind me.
Unnerved, I twisted quickly, and my eyes went wide when I saw Morrigan standing in front of me.
“Morrigan…” I whispered. Why is she here? The last time I saw her was… well… I actually don’t remember.
I opened my mouth to speak to her, but before any words could come out, she turned on her heel and ran to the left.
Instinctively, I shot forward to catch her, and was confused when I stepped through one of the mirrors.
The wall was empty, and it led into a separate hall of mirrors.
It wasn’t possible. I had felt every single wall; they had been solid before.
I don’t have time for this, I scolded myself.
Anxiously, I searched the mirrors for any sign of Morrigan and caught a glimpse of the very hem of her dress at the far end of the hall.
I raced toward her, bumping into a mirror at the end and being forced to make a right.
Each turn led into a new hallway, all filled with reflections of myself.
I would only ever catch the very edge of Morrigan’s reflection before she would disappear again.
“Morrigan!” I yelled, losing my breath from my pursuit in this strange maze.
Finally, I got close enough. The halls shortened, and when I saw the back end of her dress, I reached out to grab it. But as she turned left, I missed my footing and stumbled to the ground.
“Gods dammit, Morrigan, stop—” My words froze in my throat when I looked up and saw the mirrors around me. They were… empty. I quickly stood, searching every side of me. Not even my own reflection remained. “What’s going on?”
“I wish I could tell you that you have a choice…” My own voice made me jump, playing in the air like a distant, eerie echo.
Then, movement caught my eye on my right, and I turned to see me walking forward with Morrigan at my side. I stopped her, grabbing her hand, and she had papers clutched to her chest.
“You deserve more…”
Wait… I… I remember this.
“… know that you’re worth more than all of this…”
It was during the time that Morrigan had been living with Eris. Not long after that was when Guinevere… Morrigan…. A pang of guilt and sadness shot across my chest, weighing down on my lungs, but I didn’t know why I felt that way.
“Don’t you?”
I turned around to find my own reflection staring back at me. But it wasn’t… me.
“Who are you?” I asked, though I stared at the very image of myself.
“Little Naaz… the smartest boy of the bunch. What a prize he is…”
“Tell me where I am,” I demanded. “Tell me what you are.”
“I am you,” he answered. Lifting his hand, he began to tap against the mirror, his nails chirping against the reflective glass. “I am the you that ‘you’ cannot see. The ‘you’ hidden under perfect porcelain masks.”
He lowered his hands and placed them both behind his back as he began to walk. He moved through the mirrors somehow, circling me in the boxed room, and I followed his path until he stopped on the opposite wall.
“Do you remember when we were a child, and we wouldn’t let the servants brush our hair because their fingernails were too dirty?
” he asked. “Or the ones we had fired in our more… mature years because of the imperfections on their faces? What was it we used to say? Ah… Perfection is a privilege granted only to those who are willing to work for it. Should the servants have cut the moles off of their faces for us?”
“I was an asshole, yeah. I know that already.” I rolled my eyes, but kept my fists balled at my sides. I have to be dreaming. This is just a dream. I probably had too much wine last night. “What are you getting at?”
“What defines the true worth of something, Naaz? Would you pay your weight in gold for a chipped marbled vase?”
“Why would I waste my money on something already broken if I could have it made anew?”
The answer seemed to get a reaction out of my distorted reflection. “Then what might define the worth of a person?”
I jumped at the sound of screaming behind me. When I turned, I saw Morrigan fall to the ground. The back of her dress was ripped, revealing her bare back, and I let out a shuddering breath as I saw them for the first time...
I knew they were there, but... I just hadn’t seen them before.
The sound registered in my head before I could actually see the cane strike her. A single line against her fair, pink-tinted skin had been left behind.
“Morrigan!” I yelled, running to her, but my body slammed into the mirror. “Morrigan!” I’m here! I’m—”
“Nothing!” The voice echoed just as my reflection had behind me. An odd reverberating tone that sounded like we were deep inside of a cave. “You are nothing! You are no one!”
I couldn’t see the person striking her, but I would recognize Maeryn’s venomous voice anywhere.
“Would you pay your weight in gold to save her right now?” my own voice whispered nearby.
Morrigan cried out as the cane came down in a vicious slash, and I could almost feel my chest shattering as I watched the skin tear this time.
“Yes! Fuck, just…” I slammed my hands against the mirror, trying to get her attention. “Morrigan! Let me in!”
“But she’s broken, Naaz. Her worth… I mean, she’s worth no more than your common whore on the street now.”
Anger boiled in my veins, and I turned slowly to stare at myself. “What the fuck did you just say?” I watched my own face contort into a twisted smile, before I ran at the mirror. “I’ll kill you!” I yelled, slamming my body against it, trying to break the glass. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
I heard the crack of the cane again, but this time, a sharp sting erupted along the skin of my back. I dropped to the floor from the explosion of pain that shot up my spine.
“Do you know what it’s like to be broken?” my voice whispered on the other side of the mirror.
The cane whipped through the air again, but I couldn’t see it anywhere, and now, the image of Morrigan was gone. But the pain was all too real. Again and again, the cane smacked against my back until my chest hit the floor.
“Stop!” I pleaded with an empty room. “What—What is happening?!”
The pain slammed into my ribs, knocking the breath from my lungs, and I rolled onto my back searching for relief.
“No one!” Maeryn’s voice yelled again, this time distant and hidden in darkness. “You. Are. NO ONE!”
My head snapped to the side from being struck, and I felt blood spray from my lips, landing on the floor in front of me. It happened again, ripping my head to the other side until stars danced in my vision.
All I could hear as I faded from consciousness was Maeryn’s screams and Morrigan’s pained pleas…
“No one.”
“No one.”
“No one.”