Chapter 41 The Mirror
"Wake up, Tarah!"
I wake with a gasp, eyes peeling wide. The ceiling of the palace bedroom I have been sharing with Marton stretches above me.
Marton still sleeps beside me, arms outstretched toward me. I fell asleep crying in his arms. Yesterday was not a dream. I check my memory, half hoping that it was, but the details still stand out with crystalline clarity.
I blink around the room in confusion. I thought I heard something, a voice telling me to wake. But it wasn't Marton and there's no one else it could have been, unless someone yelled from outside the door. I strain my ears to listen.
Silence.
My brain tries to fill the quiet with memories of yesterday.
Will you kill them all, just to stay by my side?
We could be friends again, one day.
Sniveling girl.
Liability.
I need you gone.
My head spins, pounds. Bile rises in my throat, my mouth filling with saliva. I barely make it to the basin at the side of the bed before vomiting up the remnants of yesterday's picnic lunch.
What a joke. A ploy, to get me and Marton out of the way for an afternoon.
Worse than my head, my chest aches like someone has taken an axe and split it down the middle.
The bed creaks as Marton shifts behind me. His hand rubs my back in soothing circles. I fight the urge to cringe away from him. I can hardly stomach comfort right now.
"It will be all right, Tarah," he tells me softly.
My head gives an insistent throb. "How can you say that?"
He is still rubbing my back. "We'll pack our things, take all of the new clothes and the gifts the palace has given us. Use it to sell, to make some traveling money. And then we'll go and see the world. Just like we wanted."
I lean away from his hand, turning to look him in the eye. He looks...optimistic. Sanguine. My dragon stirs within me, feeling violent.
"You can't mean...that you think we should really leave. That we should go?"
His brow creases. "Cherry has commanded us to go."
For a moment, I can think of nothing to say to that. Emotions fill me, stacking one on top of another, weighing down my tongue.
Finally, I find the words to voice my objection. "But it's dangerous here. We can't leave them."
"Dangerous, Tarah? High tea and parlor games after dinner? Keeping up with the kingdom's popular hairdos? Which part is dangerous?"
"You know." I drop my voice to a whisper. "The king."
"What about the king?"
The perfect, blank confusion on his face throws me. My head spins, vision doubling. I blink hard, and the world rights itself.
What about the king?
"He's..."
Dangerous?
I think of the king smiling at me, gracious and kind from the head of the breakfast table. Think of him throwing himself from his throne to embrace his daughter.
I think of him saying, I sent men to the Old Castle with supplies for you both. Food, clothes, other essentials. When they did not return I sent messengers, scouts.
None of them ever returned.
The realization bludgeons me.
The king is not dangerous.
I am dangerous.
The danger and the problem and enemy in this kingdom has always been me. The dragon in the tower, hoarding the princess. My inability to let her go has hurt so many people.
Who will I hurt next?
For the second time in as many days, I grip my head in both hands, fingers digging in tight.
I am so dizzy that I almost consider Marton's oft spoken suggestion that I pay a visit to the palace physicians. But I imagine the energy it would take to rise and dress, to traverse the halls, to speak to strangers, and the urge leaves me.
"Take your time and rest," says Marton, rising from the bed. "I'll go and get a tray for breakfast, and then we can work on a plan for where to go."
I manage to muster a nod as he departs.
As the door snicks shut behind him, some of the pressure in my head begins to ease. For the first time this morning, I am able to draw an unimpeded breath. I can think.
I find my way to my feet, body aching. The ends of my fingers pulse with pain and I look down at them. For a minute, my fingertips are stained with red, nails jagged. I blink, and the vision is gone. My hands are clean and well-manicured, buffed and polished by the palace maids.
I flex my hands, testing. All seems normal.
I cross the room to my pack that travelled with us all the way from the Trove.
Inside are the things my dragon sister and her family gave me. Two spare tunics and pants. A patchwork quilt of bright fabrics. A bottle of hair oil from Araine. A roll of bandages from Hamish. A self-portrait done in uneven crayon by Sartok.
I think of my last conversation with Araine.
It's good to feel guilty when you have done something hard, when you've fought or killed.
It's good to hurt, to let yourself grieve for the lives you've taken.
It means you are a real, living person, with a heart.
With a soul that can ache. It means you are not a monster.
So let it hurt, Tarah. And then let it go.
You have to keep your eyes open, Tarah.
See yourself more clearly. The good with the bad.
The strong with the weak. You're a leader.
And that means you can't retreat into yourself when things get tough.
You have to lead them, sister. You have to be strong, in all ways.
Stronger than anyone should ever be asked to be.
You cannot falter, or all of them will fail. Do you understand me?
You are fierce and strong and good. But...brittle in a way that scares me. You have to hold together. Let love guide you; don't let it ruin you.
I draw in a sharp, hissing breath.
Let love guide you; don't let it ruin you.
Don't let it ruin you.
Don't let it ruin you.
A deep pain pierces my skull, and I slap my palms to my head as if I can catch it.
WAKE UP, TARAH.
I spin around, scanning the room. There is no one here but me, and my heart speeds. That voice, it was just like the one I heard by the stables yesterday with Marton, just like the one that woke me this morning, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
I think I am going mad. Memories spin fast through my head, a kaleidoscope of fractured moments.
I love you, said Marton. Does there have to be a reason?
Cherry in the Royal Wood. Tarah, I love you; you are like a sister to me. And you have hurt me, as only a sister can. I am furious with you, but I will never stop wanting to be your friend.
There isn't a competition between you and Vakhrin. The two of you are completely different in every way. You are my sister, Tarah. Vakhrin is a new friend.
You are fierce and strong and good. But...brittle in a way that scares me. You have to hold together.
You're weak, Tarah. You're impressionable and soft.
Don't let it ruin you.
Vakhrin and I, facing each other in the middle of a burning plain just south of the Olion mountains, as he explained Marton's story to me, "I do believe yourself against yourself.
As in, I believe in you, despite the things you say and even some of the things you do.
I believe in you as a whole person, and I think you're good, and I love you. "
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
See yourself more clearly.
I am on my knees, not sure how I got there. My fingers are claws against the stone floor. I blink and there is a patterned rug beneath my hands. Blink again and the floor is rough stone, uncut.
My fingers are bleeding.
I remember Cherry in the Royal Wood, realization and sympathy dawning in her eyes. How have I never realized? You are sensitive.
I think of the curious blankness on her face yesterday, as she spoke crueler words than I ever knew her capable of.
Somewhere, someone is screaming.
They are screaming my name, and my vision swims. The floor rises up to meet me and the world goes dark.
The morning dawns bright and warm behind the patterned curtains in our palace room.
A servant in a footman's uniform knocks on the door to let us know we've been summoned to breakfast with the king.
Behind him comes a team of maids and valets holding clothes for Marton and I, to replace the threadbare things we have worn here from the Trove.
I briefly return to my own unused room to let the maids work through the snarls of my hair and button me into a satin gown.
The shoes are a pair of matching slippers, nowhere near as uncomfortable as the heeled contraptions popular among the women of Philostia.
The dress has no corset, only a bit of padding for shape, and one of the maids braids the top half of my hair into a coronet while another carefully runs an oiled comb through my loose curls.
I gaze at myself in the looking glass, observing the end effect.
There is a clean, elegantly dressed young woman looking back at me, her yellow eyes and olive skin offset not unpleasantly by the dove gray fabric of her dress.
As I watch, her expression goes bleak and haunted. "This isn't right," she says.
Fear grips me by the throat.
"You have to wake up, Tarah," my reflection says.
"See yourself clearly."
Suddenly Vakhrin is standing over my shoulder, reflected in the mirror.
His words echo from my memory when he speaks, "You're just a girl, Tarah.
A scared girl, who's been beat down and stepped on more times than anyone should be.
It's alright to be afraid. To be bad at being a person who cares.
Everyone is."
My sister is there, Araine, with her dark, barely green skin and features so like my own.
She says, "They love you, Tarah. You don't have to hide.
"
Marton and Cherry stand on either side of me.
Cherry looks sad. Marton looks worried for me.
"You don't love me," I tell them.
My greatest fear. The shriveling, cold secret at the center of me.
Marton laces our fingers together.
"Love isn't a lie, Tarah," Marton whispers.
"Love is the antidote to lies."
"I'm scared," I admit.
Cherry wraps both her hands around my arm.
"It's okay to be scared. We can protect you.
Your heart. The way you've always protected us.
"
"You told me to leave.
"
"I would never do that.
" She meets my eyes in the mirror, and I realize with sudden, startling clarity that this is the real Cherry.
She is not perfect, but she is never intentionally cruel.
And she loves me.
She loves me.
"Wake up, Tarah. "
"I don't know how."
"You have to trust," says Marton. "Remember?"
And then Nerris is there, standing off to the side of the mirror. Her young voice speaks, "Basilisks try to change your mind's reality. To make you believe that something not real is really happening. That the truth is the lie."
Yaun continues for his sister, from the other side of the mirror, "You have to believe the truth, no matter what. To keep the faith even when your own senses tell you faith is foolishness."
"Basilisks," I repeat.
Cherry meets my eyes in the mirror.
"He's a basilisk," I say, the words working a strange alchemy inside me, everything else remade in their wake. "The king is a basilisk."
"The basilisk king in Ithyma," Araine says, voice ringing with memory, "his line was the one that started it all. They destroyed the world, just to gain power for themselves."
"To defeat a basilisk, you have to believe the truth no matter what," says Marton, "And in order to believe the truth you have to know it."
"None of this is real, Tarah." Cherry gestures at the palace rooms around us. "All of this has been a lie."
"How do I fight it?"
Marton answers, "You've fought him off once before.
Already. You didn't believe the lie he fed you about me.
You knew the truth."
"What is the truth?
" I whisper.
"Love is the truth.
" He squeezes my hand.
Cherry's fingers dig into my skin.
"Wake up, Tarah."
And this time, finally, I do.