Chapter 89 Taera
Taera
The beautiful lies come crashing down around me, fragmenting as the truth tears them apart. I can’t breathe, can’t think. Slowly, I turn to Nikolai. I blink up at him, searching his face for answers, still clinging to the small part of me that wants to trust him.
“Tell me she’s lying,” I whisper.
His expression is anguished. His lips part, but he doesn’t speak.
And his silence says it all, brutal, undeniable, even as I search his tormented green eyes.
There’s no room left for doubt. He stole my magic.
He lied to keep me trapped here in the Halls.
And I’m not the only source he’s charmed with those same words, those same lies.
Although I’m fully clothed—in his illusions—I’m stripped of more than when I was naked. Because this time he’s stripped something real from me.
My trust.
Around us, everyone is watching. I can’t stand it anymore.
My brother was right; he was right all along.
“Get out!” someone shouts.
Confused and disoriented, I look down at the lightning web of cracks radiating across the polished stone floor. A spiderweb of fracturing glass, and I’m at the epicenter. It’s like the weight of the truth is too heavy.
Students scatter around me, rushing to escape the ballroom.
“I kept him for longer than most,” Jezebel murmurs. “Until he found you.” She takes her time backing away before joining the river of dazzling costumes departing through the doors.
“I didn’t want you to find out like this.” His whisper makes my chest tighten.
I try to blink through my disbelief. I know the devastation is coming, but shock lingers across my vision.
I look down to where I’m still holding Nikolai’s hand, too stunned to pull away.
Because it still feels so right to have our fingers linked together, even as my trust crumbles.
I sway, dizzy, and wonder idly whether I should be taken to the Healers’ Hall.
The crackling beneath my feet draws my attention, and I look down.
In all the times I wished for the ground to swallow me up, I never thought it would actually happen.
Except the shattering floor doesn’t only threaten me, it’s cascading beneath everyone at the masquerade.
A moment of clarity: I could ask all the glass here to explode, and it would obey.
I could hurt every magician in this room, every magician who has deceived me.
And I want to. I want them to hurt like I’ve been hurt.
Feel something sharp. Bleed the way I’m bleeding inside.
I want to ask Nikolai why. But he might just tell me more lies.
Hopelessness envelops me. I don’t know which would be worse: not hearing him out or letting myself be fooled by his lies all over again.
I’m furious. Not at him, but at myself. I should never have trusted him.
I knew not to trust him. And I certainly never should have opened my heart.
I wanted to give him everything. My body. My magic. My love.
I don’t care if his dress disappears right off me.
I would rather leave naked than have to look at his devastating, devastated face, or listen to any more of his beautiful, false words.
I hold onto his hand for one more moment.
I want him to feel every broken, dissonant chord of betrayal as my heart shatters and the shards—memories that used to mean something—shred my insides.
I can’t trust him. I can’t trust anything.
By the anguish on his face, I know he’s experiencing it all.
Somewhere between the mirrors and the glass, amidst the beauty and the danger, I had completely and utterly given myself to this magician.
Somewhere in the warmth of his arms and his seductive imagination.
It’s as though Nikolai never leaped in front of those shards of shattering mirror, and he had pushed me forward instead.
I want to scream.
Instead, I hear screaming.
Cries of fear overtake the ballroom, and I tear my eyes away from him to see the blood glass flowering up between the cracks in the floor—drawn to me.
I need to get out of here before I hurt everyone, before I give in to the voice that tells me they deserve it.
Yanking my hand away from Nikolai, I flee the masquerade.
It’s easier than breathing. Everyone steps out of my way, letting me pass, and I’m already outside the ballroom, running down the hallway.
“Taera, wait!” Nikolai is dodging the blood glass in my wake.
“Leave me alone,” I say.
Omi stands waiting partway down the corridor, as though they anticipated I would run. “Please, Taera. I’m so sorry. Just calm down.”
Tears sting my eyes. “You, too?”
“I know he lied, I know I lied, but that doesn’t mean—”
“No.” I’m shaking my head, emotions roiling out of control. “Friends don’t do that. I don’t even know you.”
Omi’s eyes flinch with hurt. “Taera—”
“Get out of my way.” I grit my teeth together, glaring between Omi and Nikolai, who’s caught up with us.
“Please—” Omi tries to say, still standing in my path. They reach out a hand, but I shoulder past them.
I make it one step.
One single step.
Then—
A scream.
I spin around.
Omi stumbles, tries to catch their footing, but the floor is a minefield of ruby red crystals.
Glittering. Hungry.
“Omi!”
They fall. Terror flashes across Omi’s face; their eyes meet mine. They crash onto jagged shards of blood glass.