Chapter 4 A Malicious Mirror
A Malicious Mirror
Desdemona
M
ial gave me a room. It’s multiple stories above ground and larger than anywhere I’ve lived.
The bed alone could comfortably sleep five.
I sit at its edge, elbows on my knees, staring through the open doors that lead to the balcony.
Rolling, dark gardens sprawl below, illuminated by a small amount of blue light from the moon and the glowing plants.
I wait for something to move inside me. I wait to feel anything at all—besides skeptical. Mial and the Arcanes went through so much trouble. It wasn’t just to feed me with a smile.
The problem is I don’t know what they want.
When I turn to face the molded doors I entered through, my breath catches. Mial looms in the entrance, watching me. I don’t move or look away, waiting for him to tell me what he wants.
He glances at the grand, empty closet. “Do you prefer dresses?” he asks. “Your mother did once.”
Knowing my mom was part of the royal court of Folkara still feels like a betrayal.
I knew she’d attended Visnatus, but I never really understood what that meant.
She was raised with spoils, me with scarcity.
I wonder if it’s harder to lose what once felt like a birthright, or to receive it after a life without.
“No,” I say, my voice low.
“What would you like?” Mial asks.
To see my mom. To ask her all my questions. But I already know his answer to that.
I think of asking for a journal—he might actually give that to me. But then, I see Lucian reading my journal and trying to kill me.
It’s easier to think of hating him because he doesn’t think of me at all.
Truthfully, it’s not hard. No matter how much affection is between us—between me—there’s always an undercurrent of hate.
So as much as I’d like a journal now, I won’t risk the possibility of someone here reading it and using my thoughts against me.
“Perhaps clothing?” Mial steps further into the room.
“The plainest you have, please.”
Grow no attachments.
But that’s stupid because clothes aren’t the things I’ll grow attached to. I know what I have to protect myself from: people. So I turn to Mial, prepared to tell him to disregard my last comment.
But it’s not him I face.
Suddenly I’m short again—and standing, not sitting on the bed. I’m looking up at Mom and Freyr. They’re holding hands. It’s sweet.
Until I try to speak.
Nothing comes out—Mom is using her magic to bind my vocal cords, suppressing any sound I try to make. My mouth opens repeatedly, but not even a whisper escapes.
“I don’t want her.” Spittle flies from my mom’s mouth. She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. “She’s a monster.”
Mom wouldn’t say that. She said a lot of things—but she wouldn’t say this.
I try to call for her. A pressure grows in my throat, like choking.
“She is a weapon, Isa, if you don’t love her, she will hurt people,” Freyr says.
A weapon? I don’t know if I’m anything more than that. It makes sense that’s all she sees.
When Mom finally looks at me, I see it in her eyes. They’re narrow, eyebrows slanted toward one another, her mouth curling in disgust. That’s what I am to her. Disgusting.
I try to shake my head, to tell her I’m not what she thinks—that I can be better. I promise, I can be better. I’m sorry for all I’ve done, the people I’ve killed, the mistakes I’ve made. I’ll do better.
But the words don’t spill. The pressure grows and grows, like an iron rod shoved deep down my throat. The metal scrapes my heart.
“I could never love a monster,” she spits.
I recoil, tears stinging my eyes as if she had struck me.
Suddenly, Mial is in front of me, his eyebrows furrowed and mouth slightly open. My hand reaches for my throat, but the pressure is gone. When I touch my cheek, searching for the sting, there’s no pain there, either.
I glance behind me and to my sides, searching for my mom. It isn’t possible. She was just in front of me, in this very room.
But now the only person I can see is Mial.
“Where is she?” I ask, scanning the room again.
“Where is who?”
“My mom!” I rise to my feet and try to push the golden headboard aside, but it’s too heavy. I turn back to Mial. “Where did she go?”
“Desdemona,” Mial says as I rip the blankets off the bed—like she could be under them. “Please, calm down.”
His hand settles around my wrist, and I look up at him, frozen. Oh my gods. His voice is calm, his face relaxed—but how could it be? I almost ransacked his pretty room.
I don’t move a muscle, even when everything in me screams to take my wrist back. I’ve already done too much. He might send me back to the dungeon now. How long can his kindness-act last?
My breath shakes as I say, “I’m so sorry.”
The set of his mouth shifts into a subtle frown. There’s no disgust, unlike what I got from my mom.
But where did she go?
“Is all okay, dear child?” Mial asks.
I glance at my wrist. His hand is still wrapped around it—but not tightly. He lets go quickly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again.
“I trust you have your reasons,” he says, holding out a hand. “Come. I came to gather you for your training.”
I shift back a step before stopping myself. There’s nowhere to run. I am completely trapped.
There is no choice but to clear my throat, accept his hand, and follow.
The hallway is lit with gold fixtures. There are no guards or soldiers to avoid. I could almost run, if I had somewhere to run to.
We travel down his mansion, and after the last flight of stairs, we step into a narrow, empty room. Each of its four walls is blood-red.
Mial steps around me, closing the door, and I pause, watching him carefully. He said we were training, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he meant to kill me.
I stand tall—trying to hide my fear and appear harmless at the same time. I imagine to him, I already am harmless.
Mial doesn’t move toward me. He just watches from our short distance.
“You’re not what I expected.”
My hands freeze at my sides. I try to keep my breath from shaking. “What did you expect?”
“Someone more like your mother.”
I always thought I was like my mother—stubborn, smart, a survivor. I wanted to be more like her, mimicking her smile, her laugh, the cadence of her voice. People always liked her more than me, and I wanted to emulate that.
I thought I did.
But I guess people like anyone better than me. Even if the title of Fire Folk was false, it always followed me—and scared people.
Maybe Mial’s right. Maybe I’m not like her.
I take a deep breath, and the action doesn’t go unnoticed.
“I wish not to harm you,” he says.
“Then why am I in a room the color of blood?”
Mial raises his left hand, palm facing both of us, like he’s putting on a show. As his eyes trace a line across it, his skin opens, as if pulled apart from the inside. Blood gushes from the wound—but it doesn’t cauterize. Hope bubbles in my chest.
It doesn’t cauterize.
His attention turns fully to the wound. Slowly, the gushing red becomes a trickle, then stops completely—leaving only a clean, dry line of red. Something I’ve never done.
Glancing at me, Mial lowers his hand. “Are you able to do that?”
“No,” I say. It absolves me. Doesn’t it?
I am a Fire Folk. Hope pours through me, like my heart is a cup filled to the brim and someone tipped it over. I’m exactly what I’ve always thought I was. Nothing has changed!
But Mial reaches into his coat and draws a gold knife. I take a step back, my back hitting the wall as he approaches. I don’t know what to do next. All I manage is to look away, closing my eyes.
Then he chuckles.
I squint open one eye, looking back in his direction. The golden knife sits in his open palm, ready for me to take. I’m afraid I know his next question. There’s only one reason he would hand me a knife.
The hope that spilled out leaves me completely empty.
“You want me to…”
“You need not be scared,” he says.
But what happens when I don’t do what he wants? Should I be scared, then?
I pick up the knife, weighing it in my hand. In a second, this could be over. I don’t have to keep trying anymore. But then my mom might be stuck here forever. I’m certain she’s locked in this mansion, especially after seeing her in that room before.
I have to find her. Maybe then she’ll see me for what I want to be.
With a deep breath, I press the blade to my palm. It’s sick—a malicious mirror. Months ago, I cut myself hoping the wound wouldn’t cauterize, not realizing the dreams were memories. But this time, I pray the wound does cauterize.
The blade follows the line of the scar I already have. Was there ever another ending?
Blood touches my skin, and I wait for the warmth. But I feel so painfully room temperature. There is no overwhelming heat, no burning in my blood or eyes. As the blade finishes its path across my palm, I dare to glance at the dripping dagger.
All I see is crimson.
“No,” I whisper, my voice uneven as I let go of the blade. It clatters to the floor. “I’m not—”
“Command it.”
I shake my head, gaze locked on my hand.
“Command it!” His voice presses into my ears. This is exactly what I’ve been trying to prevent—his anger.
There’s nowhere to go, nothing to do but what he wants.
Headmistress Constance once told me about the way of The Void: magic in a new language.
But I never even mastered my mother tongue.
The blood gushes from my palm, warmth dripping down my fingers to the floor—already the color of blood. I look up at Mial’s hand, at his closed wound. It’s still there, not cauterized or healed, but clogged.
I tell my wound to do that, even as I hope it won’t.
Mial steps closer. I try to press myself into the wall as he stands in front of me, blocking my view of the creepy room.
He picks up my hand. “Magic is of two things.” This time, his voice is soft—back to the gentleness he’s been using.
He guides my fingers open until my palm lies flat.
“Emotion and will. And you must feel dreadful indeed—betrayed, lonely, sorrowful. Yet, if you can bend that to your need, you shall feel nothing but power.”
Mindlessly, I shake my head. If that’s where power comes from, then maybe I don’t want it. I don’t want to feel that way. But even as I think it, I don’t believe it.
Blood drips down my fingers as I drop my head. “I can’t.”
“Try,” is all he says. A man of few words.
To appease him, I close my eyes and think about fire—about all the magic I’ve used before.
Then I think of my mom. Each time she handed me her necklace and told me to feel.
Each time I powered the stone that stole my memories.
That’s what this man is telling me to do now—feel.
Feel the bad emotions: the betrayal of my mother, the loneliness of being forgotten, the sorrow of knowing I’ll never get it back.
Feel the awfulness and use it. But it will only bring misery.
That’s all my magic has done. The last time I used it, I stopped the soldiers chasing Lucian and me in Ilyria’s wintry woods.
I killed them, most likely, while I laughed.
And I’d do it again. That’s the problem.
No fire moves in my bones. No magic pumps in my veins. Maybe there is no power to be had.
I open my eyes, shaking away the image of my mother’s face.
Mial’s already frowning when I meet his gaze. Again, something I don’t want from him. I have to keep him happy.
“Do you wish to learn?” he asks.
I want to say yes—not because I think he wants me to, but because I want power. I want to reclaim what the universe keeps taking, to seize the magic inside me. The magic that has killed so many—and still will.
“Yes,” I answer.
I want power.
Mial nods.
A small squeeze starts in my chest—a dull ache at first, then a blistering behind my ribs. I try to find Mial’s gaze, but when I do, it’s unfocused—far away.
My hands rise, clawing at my sternum. Could I hold my heart in place? It feels moments away from beating out of my chest.
It only gets worse.
My knees hit the floor. I don’t feel the pain of the impact—just my heart. It crawls up my spine, down my arms, flooding my limbs with tremor after tremor. This is what the Arcane did to me in the ballroom in Visnatus.
My fingers stop listening to me. They fall uselessly against the ground. My cheek follows. I choke. Every breath burns my lungs.
My pulse pounds so hard it bruises me from the inside.
I reach for fire again. There’s none—no heat or spark in my bones. Mial is going to kill me without even a fight. Why?
He just promised me power.
I search for it—desperate.
But something else rises in the fire’s place. Warm, not hot. It slips through my fingers like water.
Or maybe not. It’s thicker, heavier. It’s already inside me, threaded through my veins.
Or it’s seeping in before I can grasp it—soft as silk and just as slippery. It swells in my chest, through my entire body, pulsing where my fire used to burn. But it’s out of reach.
Mocking me from within.
I can’t fail. I won’t get another chance at power. Maybe this is what Mial meant by teaching me.
My heart swells, stretched thin and overflowing. Each beat knocks at my ribs, intense enough to break them. I can’t hold the blood I’m carrying, but my heart keeps filling.
The skin over my ribs feels tight enough to split. Veins strain, and heat builds like boiling metal.
My body is not a body anymore. It’s a furnace now. It’s pressure. Pain.
There’s a pop—like my eyes have burst. The world goes black.
There’s a crack—like my rib has shattered. The bone pierces my heart.
The last thing I’ll ever taste trickles into my mouth: metal and iron. Blood.
Then there’s nothing.