Chapter 5 Cinder
CINDER
“Discord!” I slapped my palm against the stone. “Let me out.”
Muffled growls and the sounds of a struggle emanated through the wall. I ran my hands along the smooth surface, searching for a seam or a hidden release switch or spot where his magic didn’t solidify…anything to get me into that room so we could take out Tumult together.
It was as if the doorway never existed.
“You and your damn walls.” I rested both hands against it, straining to hear the commotion. “For someone whose powers are waning, you sure spent a lot of vim on a stupid barricade.”
I blew a hard breath through my nose and turned toward the hall of mirrors. Lighting a fireball in my hand, I touched the flames to the vat of oil, hoping to illuminate the room, but it didn’t ignite.
The crimson sigils on the mirror in the distance brightened, pulsing, and a faint blue light glowed from the center of the glass. The temple groaned like it had when I’d shattered a mirror, the cracking sound of millennia-old stone making my muscles tense.
How could I have let Tumult lead us into a trap? He was here, waiting for us the moment we arrived, but…how? I definitely sensed Hecate when I scried. Did the asshat have the ability to enter my mind? To manipulate my visions?
Or had he simply followed us here? With his ability to disappear, he could have been riding along with us the entire time, waiting for the most dramatic moment to make his appearance.
The mirror hummed, drawing me from my thoughts, and I moved toward it.
My abdomen tightened, my mouth going dry as I cautiously put one foot in front of the other.
If Tumult had set this all up, it could be another part of the trap.
Maybe he materialized the mirrors like Discord could walls.
He certainly didn’t place them all one by one.
Or did he? Honestly, I had no clue what other powers he possessed.
The humming intensified, drawing me deeper into the room. I glanced into the first mirror, and my breath caught. I spun to face its twin and then turned back to the first one. The mirrors reflected each other, going on and on, into infinity, but I…
I still had no reflection at all.
Unease made my stomach sour, but I pushed on, pausing to look into the next one. I held up my firelight, stepping closer to the glass. Still, I had no reflection.
“What the hell?” I reached forward, tentatively pressing my fingertips to the glass, half-expecting them to pass right through. The surface was solid. I rested both palms against it and applied pressure. It didn’t give.
It would be my luck if Tumult had shoved me into the ether, and now I hung in limbo, here but not really here. My sweaty handprints marred the glass, so I had to be on this plane.
“Why no reflection?”
The sigils on the mirror in the distance glowed brighter. The hum intensified. Goosebumps pricked my skin. This long, narrow room should have been filled with thousands of Cinders, reflections of me as I passed each mirror.
Instead, I was completely, utterly, painfully alone.
I took a deep breath, centering myself, the gravity of my predicament settling heavily on my shoulders. I had no idea what was happening in the other room. The only thing I knew for certain was that Discord was still alive. How long he’d remain in that state, I had no clue.
My pulse thrummed, and I extinguished my flame. I needed to look into the mirror that called to me. Whether Tumult set this up or not, there was only one way in and out of this chamber…and my dear, sweet demon had barricaded the door.
I was trapped, alone, and I really, really needed to pee.
My throat thickened, and I swallowed hard before stepping in front of the mirror. My breath came out in a rush as I took in my reflection. The mirror opposite mine didn’t reflect my image back, though. I turned, looking into it, but it was as if I wasn’t there.
I spun to the illuminated one. The sigils surrounding it pulsed softly, some of them familiar, others I had never seen. If only Ash were here. She could decipher whatever message someone had engraved in the glass. She was the smartest person I knew.
If Ember were here, Tumult wouldn’t have stood a chance. She’d have skewered him the second he materialized in the room. I loved fighting alongside my sister. She was the fiercest woman I knew.
My chest tightened, a homesick feeling making it ache. The three of us together were an unstoppable force, but I… Dammit, I shouldn’t have come here alone. Everything I had done for the past year went against my very nature.
The secrets, the lies, the solitary actions. I hated being alone.
I gazed at my reflection, at my disheveled hair and the dark circles beneath my eyes. My mom had been training me to be self-sufficient my entire life. Being high priestess is a lonely undertaking, she would say, but it’s a burden you must learn to bear on your own.
But what did she know? My mom didn’t have sisters.
She didn’t understand what it was like to be forced to keep secrets from the people she loved the most. And she wasn’t truly alone as high priestess.
She’d married my dad when she was eighteen, long before she ascended to the position.
She had a partner, someone she confided in.
My sisters used to be my partners, but training to run the coven isolated me, forbade me from sharing things with them, and I hated it. I hated everything about it.
The humming intensified, the red sigils pulsing brighter, demanding my attention. In the center of the mirror, an elemental fire witch sigil glowed deep blue…exactly where I had drawn it in my breath.
I touched the glass, tracing my fingers over my sigil and then the others. Nothing happened, so I tried again, going the opposite direction. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”
The sound of something hard hitting stone echoed from the other end of the room. I jerked my head toward the sound, hoping to see Discord charging through, but the wall remained intact.
The mirror, with its glowing sigils, showed me nothing more than the lonely woman staring back at me. If this was some sort of test, I was failing miserably.
“I’ve got nothing.” I shrugged and lit another fireball before pacing to the end of the room. Holding the flames toward the wall, I searched for another way out. This wall was as solid as the front.
I peered along the row of mirrors to my left and then to my right. They had all been placed flush with the wall, so unless one of them was a hidden doorway, there was no way in or out of this place without Discord’s help.
Of course, I had to try them all.
I ran my fingers along the edges of the nearest mirror.
I found no seam, no indentation, or bump to indicate where the mirror ended and the wall began.
I tried the one across from it, but it felt the same.
I worked my way down the wall, feeling, searching, hoping to no avail.
The reflective glass was a part of the stone, no doubt magically created when the temple was erected.
I returned to the glowing mirror, the only one that offered my reflection, and extinguished my flames. “Hecate, please hear my plea.”
A loud crash sounded from the other room, like stone cracking against stone. The temple groaned again, and bits of basalt fell from the ceiling. Whatever the boys were up to out there, I needed to figure out this puzzle before the entire temple collapsed on top of me.
Okay, think, Cinder. This mirror, these sigils…
I highly doubted this was the work of a demon.
I recognized the strength sigil on the right side of the glass, and one for endurance was etched into the bottom left.
They were witchcraft symbols. The mirrors seemed to be part of the temple, which meant whatever test this was, it came from the goddess.
Good. Witchcraft I could handle. A demonic trap, not so much.
“Show me what you need me to see.” I stared through the fire symbol, letting my vision soften so I could hopefully receive whatever message Hecate had for me.
My eyes watered at the brightness of the sigils, and as the light intensified, I had to squint.
The symbols dimmed, and the rest of the room plunged into darkness.
I mean, complete, utter, total darkness.
Seriously, I couldn’t see anything but my reflection… not even my hand in front of my face.
“Okay, I take it you want me to see myself.” I laughed dryly. “Here I am. All alone.”
My heart sank at my words. “I know. I need to get used to it. Is that what you want me to see? That my birthright, my duty to my coven, comes first and I need to prepare myself for a lonely life?”
I’d hoped my revelation would reignite the firelight, or a secret door would open behind me.
Hell, I’d have settled for a ringing bell and a winner, winner, chicken dinner.
Anything to say I’d passed the test and could find Hecate and end this nightmare.
But nothing happened. My reflection didn’t change.
The same miserable woman, who looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, stared back at me.
“I don’t understand why it has to be this way.” I shifted my weight to my right leg. “I get tradition. I get ritual. But sometimes, doing things a certain way because that’s how they’ve always been done does more harm than good.”
The crimson light pulsed twice, and I crossed my arms.
“Or is this because I broke the rules? Am I supposed to see that I shouldn’t have told my sisters about the curse? That this was my burden to bear alone because every high priestess before me handled it on her own? If so, I call bullshit.”
The fire sign wavered, the blue glow around it growing larger, egging me on.
“A coven should be able to operate in whatever manner works best. My sisters are as much a part of the Holland bloodline as I am. I should have brought them in on the secrets as soon as I learned them, because a true leader keeps her people informed.”
The fire sigil flashed, its blinding light freezing me to the spot. I no longer saw myself reflected in the mirror. Instead, my mind floated in the ether, in a trance similar to scrying, though I wasn’t searching for anyone but myself.
Or maybe I was.
Deep down, in the core of my being, I knew I needed my sisters.
The vision showed me flashes of them in the earthly realm.
Ash burning through roots, Ember slaying demons, both battling fae bigger than any I’d ever seen.
The veil had grown so thin…and it kept getting thinner. They couldn’t mend it on their own.
It would take all of us…all six of us…to make things right again.
I gasped, my vision returning to the mirror’s reflection, only this time, Ash and Ember stood behind me. I whirled to face them, but of course they weren’t there.
They needed me, though. They needed me to survive Lucifer’s games and get the hell out of…well, to get the hell out of Hell.
“Hecate, please show me where you are.” I turned back to the mirror and froze. Sharp pain sliced into my temple, like an ice pick slowly sinking into my brain. Flashes of images pierced the otherwise total darkness, but I couldn’t make out anything.
The building shook. A loud crash sounded behind me, but my body wouldn’t move. The flashes grew brighter, flickering faster as if someone were fanning the pages of a book.
“Slow down.” I tensed, ignoring the stones falling around me and focusing only on the images the ether showed me. I reached with my mind, pushing through a gelatinous sludge and stopping the pages from turning. A path. A location. But Hecate wasn’t there.
“Why show me…?” The location pulsed, demanding attention, emphasizing its importance before another, absolutely horrifying vision entered my mind.
Hecate bound in chains.