Chapter 10
She stumbled into her room, in front of the mirror. After several failed attempts, she’d finally shadowed herself back. Zadie would be proud.
The crown’s petals fluttered, and for a second, Imani was so angry that it had chosen her that she lashed out.
With the Drasil in hand, she smashed her head against the glass.
It didn’t move. Magic protected by delicate flowers.
Shards fell to the ground, and a spiderwebbed crack appeared on the mirror.
She did it again and again. And again, until she blasted it with the Drasil, and glass flew everywhere.
One piece finally lodged in her cheek, and blood began dripping down her face.
Even then, it didn’t hurt. Imani looked at her hands, bloody and trembling, as the crown’s power pushed the shard out of her skin, dropping it to the floor with a soft plink.
It was always protecting her. She couldn’t even really hurt herself unless she used the Drasil, and even then, the power was nearly equal.
The crown had kept the worst of the pain from reaching her, pushed glass from her skin, and her shadows had carried her across half a kingdom.
Surely that had to count for something.
Perhaps she did not need the idiotic crown-removal test she had been reckless enough to suggest after all. If she could demonstrate impossible magic in front of his council, they would have to believe something about her was different.
Whether different meant queen was another question.
Her legs finally gave out, and she sank onto the edge of the bed, elbows braced on her knees, staring at the glittering wreckage scattered across the floor.
Glancing down, she couldn't stop her hands from shaking. She curled them into fists.
“Pathetic,” she muttered. There was only herself to blame.
It was her own fault for crossing the distance and entering Kiran’s room because some treacherous part of her had needed to see him, needed to know what he was doing, needed to stand close enough to test whether the bond still had the power to dismantle her.
Imani rubbed both palms over her face, smearing blood over her skin. Weeks ago, shadowing herself across that distance would have seemed impossible. Instead, all she could think about was how natural it had been to arrive beside him.
Her stomach turned, knowing she’d memorized the cadence of his breathing when he was irritated. She knew how his voice dropped when he wanted something. The dangerous pull of his mismatched eyes still tugged at her.
Pushing abruptly to her feet, she paced through the glass, ignoring the crunch beneath her slippers.
“What did you expect?” she whispered to herself. That he had changed?
Her eyes slammed shut at how much she despised and missed him in equal measure. Hatred had not erased the desire, or any of their memories together.
She walked to the basin in the corner of the room and lowered her head.
I will not go back, she vowed. For several breaths, she stayed there, forcing the tremor from her arms and the heat from her face.
Panting, she barely heard the soft rapping at her door.
It must be Esa, she thought. Not caring about her appearance in front of the pixie, Imani smeared blood on the door handle as she pulled it open.
Ellisar stood on the other side.
He raised his eyebrows in question.
Imani held her hands up. “It’s not what it looks like… I-I did this to myself,” she stammered.
“Well, let me in so you can explain, because you look ghastly.” The High Sentinel did not mince words. She liked that about him. She didn't guess at hidden meanings or toy with her.
Embarrassed by the examination, Imani’s neck flushed.
But as she opened the door wider, she gestured for him to come in.
She turned her back and headed to the basin for water to wash her hands and face.
He followed and took a long look at the glass on the floor.
“And are you going to explain why you destroyed my mirror?”
“I didn’t like what I saw,” Imani replied. “I’m sorry for the mess, though.” Blood spread like ribbons across the water as she washed it from her skin.
“I see.” His eyes bored into her back. An emotion flickered in Ellisar’s eyes once, and his nostrils flared, subtle but unmistakable as he caught her scent. A muscle feathered along his jaw.
“I can smell him on you. The Niflheim king,” Ellisar said quietly, the words precise and unflinching. “But how is it that it’s nowhere else in the room? Explain.”
Nausea churned in her gut.
Telling him she could shadow-travel would have helped her argument. Telling him she had intended to cross the width of this room and instead landed beside Kiran would not.
She still did not understand why the shadows had chosen him over the destination she had given them.
The heartmate bond was the obvious answer, which somehow made admitting it more humiliating.
Ellisar did not need to know that her supposedly impressive new ability could seize on some buried desire, carry her across kingdoms, and deposit her beside the one person she had sworn not to return to.
Especially when she had been planning to use that same ability as evidence of how powerful and capable she was.
“No.”
“I decide what happens within my borders.”
“Good thing this wasn’t inside your borders, then.”
Yes, withholding the only successful long-distance shadow-travel she had ever performed while trying to prove the extent of her magic was strategically ridiculous.
But pride won anyway.
Imani dried her hands on the folds of her dress, then lifted it and dabbed her cheek. “How can I help you, High Sentinel?”
His eyes met hers, cold and piercing. “You can call me Ellisar, Your Majesty,” he said, the gentleness unexpected beneath the low rasp of his voice.
“Then you can call me Imani. Does this mean you believe me?”
“I believed you were probably telling the truth before you ever sat in front of my council,” he said without pretense. “That is not the same as proof.”
Imani folded her arms across her chest.
“I can gamble with my own judgment,” Ellisar continued. “I cannot ask Vathis, my soldiers, or the Norn people to stake their lives on it. They need something they can see and verify for themselves.”
“Apparently smashing glass into my own face isn’t dramatic enough?”
Ellisar stole a glance at the shards on the floor. “It proves you have powerful magic.”
“The crown pushed the glass out of me. I barely felt it.”
“And?”
Imani lifted her chin. “And most people cannot do that.”
“No. But unusual magic does not make you Essenheim’s queen.”
Irritation rose. “Neither do shadows, I suppose.”
He gave her a once-over. “Now, those make you interesting.”
“How comforting.”
“They also make you sound like an Eldritch elf.”
Imani reeled back as Ellisar regarded her more closely. “You didn’t know?” he asked.
“I know very little about Eldritch elves. Only that I’m half one.”
“Then know this much. Shadows are not unique to you. Other Eldritch elves wield Under magic. Whatever you are doing with yours may be exceptional, but it proves something about your blood and your power. It does not prove that Essenheim chose you.”
“Just admit that you can’t go through with it,” she sneered, desperately wanting to steer the conversation away from her father. “I regret suggesting such an idea, if we’re being honest with each other.”
He chuckled darkly. “Does the queen have a heart somewhere beneath all that fierce armor?”
“As black and shriveled as it is, it seems I do. And I’m going to find another way.” She put a hand on her hip, daring him to challenge her.
Ellisar’s mouth twitched as he reached up to push a loose strand of silver hair away from his forehead. The movement pulled his sleeve back several inches.
A mark crossed the inside of his wrist, and Imani spotted the Norn sigil next to his own.
She had spent enough time staring at her own heartmate brand, resenting what they represented, to recognize one even when age had changed it.
Ellisar’s was faded compared to hers, the lines pale against his skin rather than vivid with an active bond.
Her hand dropped from her hip. “You have a heartmate?”
He glanced down at his wrist, his face unreadable. “She’s dead.”
The answer was so blunt that Imani almost regretted asking.
“Oh.”
Ellisar tugged his sleeve back into place. “I loved her.” His expression remained blank. “But that does not mean I intend to spend the rest of my life pretending I died with her.”
Imani blinked a few times. She had known elves who never recovered from losing a heartmate.
Her own grandmother had been transformed by grief until little remained of the woman she had once been.
The bond was supposed to be singular, permanent, the sort of magic that divided a life into before and after.
Yet Ellisar stood in front of her, the evidence of that loss hidden beneath his sleeve, and spoke of surviving it as if survival itself had been a decision.
“You make that sound simple,” she murmured.
“It wasn’t,” he said with a huff. Ellisar glanced toward the broken mirror, then back at her bloodied hands. “There were years when surviving her death was the only thing I managed.”
Imani adjusted her own cuff, aware of the heartmate brand she carried. It struck her that Ellisar might understand her better than she had assumed.
He walked toward the window, glass crunching under his boots. “What do you know about the Lochheim Kingdom?”
Imani’s mouth gaped at the abrupt subject change. “Are we still talking about you touching the Crown of Life?”
Ellisar threw the curtains open and shot her a glance over his shoulder. “I asked what you knew about the Lochheim Kingdom,” he repeated.
“I know what you asked,” she snapped. “I need to think.” She bit her nail, considering his question.
She’d only heard of Lochheim once before, in an overheard conversation with Tanyl.
Imani couldn’t even be sure she’d heard correctly, but she’d been surprised to hear of another kingdom in the Mesial Realm.
“There’s a slip forming in the Fabric,” Ellisar said, voice steady. “It’s opened at the edge of the Draswood, near the Neshuin Sea, and it won’t stay contained for long. So, I suggest you answer.”
“There were skirmishes with the Essenheim queen months ago. I heard Tanyl discussing them with his commander,” she replied.
“Well, in the past few hours, this has already escalated beyond a skirmish,” Ellisar said, his tone grave. “Lochheim is attacking, and it’s happening now.”
Her head snapped up. “How are they here?”
“A slip,” Ellisar explained. “But we think it’s tied to an attack they’ve been building for longer than anyone realized.” He glanced ahead, jaw set. “They’ve been pushing against the Fabric in ways they shouldn’t be able to, and now it’s tearing open for them.”
“Then this isn’t just a natural breach,” Imani mused, her voice shaking as she caught up to the implication. “It’s a move, and they’re not hiding it anymore.”
Ellisar nodded shortly in agreement. “Exactly. There’s also another way to demonstrate who you are,” he said.
“One that doesn’t involve bloodshed. But it will need precision—and it will be noticeable.
” His mouth curved faintly, not quite a smile.
“If you succeed, no one will doubt your claim. If you don’t…
” He shrugged casually. “Then we’ll both know the truth. ”
Imani stepped into his space just enough to challenge it. “Then you believe me?” she demanded, her voice taut, edged. Her chin lifted, unyielding.
“You’re asking the wrong question,” he said, almost gently. “Whether I believe doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts is that something like this can only be fixed by someone as powerful as a monarch.”
“How so?”
“A glamour can imitate the Crown of Life in most ways,” he continued.
“But it cannot force the Fabric to obey you. Close the slip, and no one has to die proving what you are.” After a pause, he added, “And it must be now.” His eyes met hers briefly, confident and calculating.
“Unless, of course, you’d rather I find out you’re not who you say you are in a less… convenient setting.”
“So, if I close it, I prove I’m the Essnheim queen, and everyone who sees it will know it. But if I don’t…” She let the thought hang for a fraction too long, then finished it herself. “Then I’m exposed, and whatever protection I have disappears with it.”
Ellisar leveled her with a serious look. “Let’s just hope you do close it.”
Imani worried her lip. This was a real solution. Her magic would be observed, judged, and discussed across the realm. Which changed everything. If they were watching, visibility was an opportunity to seize power.
Convincing one man hadn’t been as complicated as she first thought. Convincing a realm would be more interesting, though.
“If I do this for you, I’m not being taken anywhere,” Imani said. “I’m choosing to step into this.” Her gaze narrowed on him. “Don’t mistake following your lead for control. I decide when and where I act when it comes to the slip.”
Ellisar crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Good,” he said, nodding. “I’d rather you walk into it of your own accord. Just be certain your decision holds when everyone is watching.”
A firm resolve settled over her, her decision settling deeper. “Then let them watch.”
Not waiting for him to lead, Imani maneuvered around him with ease, tossing an expectant look over her shoulder.
Ellisar didn’t move right away, but his expression subtly changed to a blend of approval and curiosity.
Then, he moved to follow her.
When she reached for the handle, they entered the corridor side by side, like two rushing streams flowing in parallel without merging.
“Power like this doesn’t come without consequences. Remember that when you’re drawing on the Fabric,” Ellisar said under his breath.
Imani didn’t reply, but she understood perfectly.
As they walked together, his intimidating presence stood in stark contrast to her smaller stature, but her newly honed resolve, no longer held back by hesitation, made her steel her spine.
Once she sealed the slip, it would no longer be about who controlled whom, but about what she chose to become despite the world’s attempts to hold her back.