Chapter 96 Taera
Taera
My hopelessness deadens me as I try to navigate the changing, looping maze.
Nikolai is gone, and my futile attempts only add to the growing, churning frustration in my gut.
I hate this place. It isn’t even in my power to find him—it’s up to the Halls of Glass, a terrible place full of malicious magic, deciding whether I succeed or fail.
I yank myself back from stepping into a huge dark pit that appears out of nowhere.
Shaking with adrenaline, I backtrack and choose another direction, watching my step.
What monster would create such a place, designed to hurt and confuse and destroy people?
Part of me yearns to turn back, to flee these scary glass hallways, but another stubborn part of me won’t give up, even if I’m following Nikolai to his destruction.
Fog descends on the corridors, cold and biting.
Not being able to see speeds the anxious racing of my heart and head.
I’m completely at the mercy of the Halls now.
I’m trapped. I have no idea where I truly am, nor the ability to see through the illusions.
What am I actually stepping on? Is any of this really a castle, or am I just wandering around the desert entranced by a mirage?
Perhaps everyone here is just a figment of my imagination.
Does Nikolai really exist—a powerful, gorgeous magician who supposedly loved me and lied to me and is searching for an infinitely powerful source of magic?
I snort. It would make more sense for me to have dreamed this all up.
The corridors grow tighter around me. My anger flares to life alongside the instinctual fear. The labyrinth is threatening me, flaunting its power over me, and I can do nothing but hurry faster down corridors that are starting to brush up against my shoulders, closing in around me.
Every turn I take, I’m squeezed tighter, until I have to tilt my body sideways to move.
My heart pounds, and I cry out, trying to hold back the terror.
Blood glass blossoms across the walls—walls that are going to crush me—snagging and tearing the thin sheets I’m wearing as I force my way past. I’m shaking with fear and rage under the attack.
This place feels alive with my own hatred and is mirroring it back.
That’s it.
I stop.
The Halls of Glass have only ever reflected how I feel—the blood glass, the cold, the beauty, the darkness.
I expected cruelty, so I saw cruelty. The Halls are just like its magicians; their magic is no more wicked than what they do with it.
From the moment I laid eyes on this magnificent, terrible place, I’ve seen what I expect to see.
I close my eyes, praying I’m right. If I’m going to survive this, and find Nikolai, I need to believe the Halls are capable of helping me as well as hurting me.
From the shadowed gray corners of my mind, I gather memories: smells and tastes—decadent breakfasts, mouth-watering feasts of endless delicacies—all probably illusions as well.
The steaming hot baths that soothed my body, and the beauty of the students, their appearances canvases for their art.
The childlike delight of playing in the snow, the flakes on Nikolai’s lashes, the way he kissed me.
I think about how illusionists can become healers capable of taking pain away.
My memories curl back to Nikolai. They’re still tinged with sadness and pain, but I remember the way he played cards with his sister, using his magic to make her laugh.
While he has done terrible things, I’m positive he will never give up on Hazel.
My heart squeezes tightly. If a magician capable of such brutal lies can still be capable of such kindness, can’t the Halls of Glass?
When I open my eyes, everything has changed.
The hallways have widened. They’re simpler now. Unadorned. Only a long tunnel looms before me, ending in a full wall of mirror. When I get closer, I see it’s no longer whole; it’s been smashed through the center, and the hole is wide enough for someone to step through.
Slowly, so as not to scare away my destination, I approach the mirror and—careful of the sharp edges—go through.
My mind and surroundings are still serene as I walk down the identical hallway on the other side.
The only difference is that on this side, the mirrored walls reflect every detail of me, down to the tiniest sun speckles on each cheek.
A few of the walls bear long, jagged cracks, as though Nikolai tried to destroy some of them.
Curls of blood glass withdraw as I pass, remnants of his passage, and I know without a doubt that in this corridor, all of his illusions must have been stripped bare.
What must it have been like for Nikolai to pass through here?
To face the one truth he can’t bear? What happened to him to completely alienate him from his own face?
He wanted to find the center of the labyrinth more than anything, but it’s also clear he despises this place.
I shudder at the sheer force of will it must have taken him to walk all the way down this hallway and face himself, when he wouldn’t even show me.
Up ahead, the corridor brightens into daylight. A silhouette stands in the center, and my breath quickens.
“Nikolai!”
Forgetting myself, I burst into a run. But the faster I push my legs, the further away the light gets. It’s like some nightmare. I remember Nikolai’s instructions when he first led me into the labyrinth. The faster we go, the longer it will take.
Painfully, I slow until I’m barely putting each foot in front of the other. I’m moving at a snail’s pace, but the end of the passage doesn’t stretch any further away. It’s the same twisted lesson in patience all over again.
The blood glass thickens as I approach the brightness, but there’s still a thin path that’s clear enough for me to step through.
The light blazes crimson; I have to squint to make out the figure in the center.
He’s standing inside half of a massive geode twice his height, surrounded by a tangled web of crystalline blades.
Blood glass. He’s facing away from me. His hair is still blond, but doesn’t shine like spun gold.
In front of him, hovering atop a pedestal, is a tiny amulet of an impossible shape—it’s geometric but also folded in on itself in a way that hurts my mind. I can feel the tingle of its power, even from here. It draws my gaze and won’t let go.
Nikolai lifts his hand toward the amulet.
Time slows.
I stagger to a halt, my necklace swinging against my chest, careening my thoughts back to my own family—to Ezran. Clear as glass, I imagine my own brother losing me to the lure of magic.
I don’t think. I just move.
The sickening crunch of the crystals beneath my feet comes too late. The blood glass screeches its broken song, reverberating through me as it leeches the magic out of me in a single hungry rush.
The jagged red shards pierce my skin, crawl up my legs. I can’t tell the difference between my own scream and the scream of the crystals as they seep the magic from my bones.
The pain blinds me, engulfs me, and I see red.