CHAPTER FORTY #2
For a single breath the image warped, the corridor twisting across the surface of the water like a painting dragged through wet ink—then the vision collapsed in on itself. The pale glow bled out of the puddle until nothing remained but cloudy water and the thin ribbon of red drifting from my palm.
I froze, staring down at it.
He had blown the leaf away.
I turned to him with a frown. “Why would you do that?”
Meliory was already watching me, his expression drawn tight beneath the grime.
“What are you doing over there?”
I lunged forward, dropping over the puddle and blocking it from view with my body as my fingers scraped across the stone for the fallen leaf.
The brittle thing crumbled slightly in my grip before I shoved it into my pocket, praying the faint shimmer still clinging to the water would fade before the guards reached the bars.
I plunged both hands into the puddle, smearing the blood through the water and bringing it quickly to my mouth.
“I am drinking,” I snapped when they reached the bars. “Since it seems you do not wish to keep me alive with service.”
One guard scoffed, nudging his companion with an armored elbow. “Go and fetch the creature a cup of water so she stops whining.”
The guard had barely taken two steps toward the corridor when the prison trembled.
“What in the Maker’s name was that?” he gasped, his body freezing mid-step.
The walls groaned around us. Dust sifted from the mortar and the iron bars shivered in their sockets with a long metallic whine. Even the silver circlet locked around my wrists hummed faintly, vibrating against my skin.
The guard stumbled back, his hand flying instinctively to the hilt of his sword, eyes wide and searching as he stared into the gloom of the corridor.
From the gap in the masonry, I heard Meliory’s breath hitch.
“Look,” he whispered, hoarsely.
I turned toward the narrow window.
For a moment I thought the glass had cracked.
Light shimmered across its surface in a pale ripple, distorting the reflection of the prison walls. The distortion spread outward like a drop of ink falling into water.
Then the reflection changed and a figure stood within the glass.
Not just the glass.
The same image flickered across every surface I could see.
It glowed faintly within the puddles pooled along the corridor floor. It shimmered across the polished silver of the guards’ armor. Even the distant river beyond the prison walls caught the light, its dark waters suddenly burning with a reflection that had not existed a moment before.
The world itself had become a mirror.
And within every one of those mirrors, Talon stood.
The guards lurched toward the window,.
“What sorcery is this?” one breathed.
Beyond the prison walls, the image towered over the city.
An entire city watching.
An entire world forced to listen.
The wind tore at Talon’s dark cloak, the fabric snapping behind him like a war banner caught in a rising storm. Xylos stood at his right, Bater at his left, both rigid with a tension that seemed to hum through the air around them.
But it was Talon who held the world still.
Even through the warped shimmer of water and glass, there was no mistaking the cold certainty in his gaze as it lifted, as if he were looking directly at every soul forced to witness him.
“This message comes to you from the depths of Umbral,” he said, his voice rolling outward like distant thunder. “For centuries, we have kept a silence you did not deserve. Today, that silence ends.”
The guards beside the window shifted uneasily.
“The High Court has fed you lies,” Talon continued. “They buried the truth of binding beneath silence. They twisted the laws of this realm and named it peace.”
My fingers curled slowly around the iron bars.
“And while you believed them…”
The pause stretched just long enough for dread to coil tight beneath my ribs.
“They took the one person they should never have touched.”
I stopped breathing.
His face was calm, but the fire in his eyes was anything but.
“They took the other half of me,” Talon said. “They tore her from my side and chained her beneath their halls for a bond they themselves abandoned long ago.”
A murmur rippled through the guards and one of them shifted uneasily.
“Blasphemy,” he muttered, though the word lacked conviction.
“They believed that if they hid her deep enough, if they buried the truth beneath enough stone and silence, I would accept their rule.”
Talon stepped forward then, the image shifting closer until the fire in his eyes burned through the reflection.
“They believed I would kneel,” he growled. “I will not.”
My eyes were beginning to sting and I realized that I was so fixated on his display, that I had not blinked.
“They have imprisoned an innocent soul for generations,” Talon continued, his gaze sweeping across the unseen multitude watching through water and glass.
Xylos stepped forward beside him, fury blazing across his face.
“And the wandering souls you were told had been lost to the wind? They were never lost,” he admitted. “They were taken to the Thrynn Chambers. Their souls devoured—so the High Court could maintain a balance they never had the right to wield.”
A gasp echoed the space, but I was not sure where it came from.
“No longer,” Talon declared. “The Sayel is the truth and you all deserve to know it.”
My grip on the iron tightened until the metal bit into my palms.
For a single suspended heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath.
Talon’s gaze lifted again.
“This is no longer a warning.”
The wind howled around him as his eyes narrowed.
“This is war.”
The image shattered.
The reflections vanished as suddenly as they had appeared, leaving the world dull and silent once more.
For several seconds no one moved.
The guards stared at the empty window as if the sky itself had betrayed them.
Across the gap in the wall, Meliory let out a broken laugh that turned quickly into a sob.
I stared at the empty space where he had been, a slow, incredulous smile spreading across my lips.
One of the guards finally turned toward me, his face pale.
“You think this is amusing?” he snarled.
I ignored him, my smile widening until the cracks in my lips bled fresh.
The war had begun, and I was at the heart of it.