Chapter 19
Elsedora
Sybilla and I walked Lark, shaken and remorse-filled, to bed, and then regrouped in the sitting room, where Krait waited with the dreadful mirror. My composure threatened to unravel faster than yarn.
“I did not mean for her to end up in harm’s way,” I started. “She went to bed—said goodnight. I thought she’d gone upstairs to read. I never…”
Sybilla’s eyes narrowed on me. I hoped she didn’t need to sink into my mind to understand my regret. She’d learned my expressions over our fifteen-year friendship.
“Forgive me, please.” I looked between them, hands shaking at my sides.
Before Sybilla had begun doubling her doses of garrot root, she’d been able to break any wards set mentally—crack into anyone’s head. The root helped with her bouts of inflammation and illness, so its positive effects outweighed the negative.
“You think this is your fault? No, El, that girl disobeyed you, us, everyone. I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking,” Sybilla snapped. “She can be so smart and so foolish at once.”
“She thought she was helping me,” I said, defending the girl; foolish or not, Lark had taken the wrong course of action with the kindest intentions. I’d lashed out at her unfairly.
My prior anger evaporated—she didn’t deserve a reprimand.
I did.
Sybilla asked, “How could such a risk be helpful? I don’t understand.”
I’d spent so much time in Emmerick’s quarters—our little secret. Slinking carefully around the palace, I’d avoided either of them noticing so that I wouldn’t need to make up fanciful excuses if caught.
Had they known, maybe none of this would have happened. With Lark involved, I couldn’t lie to them any longer.
“Start at the beginning,” Krait said. The lamplight cast ominous shadows across the blue floral wallpaper. They ebbed off him as he contained his simmering rage.
He never needed words to be intimidating. Pacing the sitting room, I explained the evening from the start.
Lark slipping out.
Angeline visiting.
Realizing my key was missing.
The unbinding charm.
Sybilla swore like a sailor through the whole recounting. Mostly about having a word with Asterie about appropriate curriculum for a thirteen-year-old. I knew my friend wouldn’t stay this riled up for long—she needed to boil over to come back to her senses.
“The mirror Lark used was enchanted. It allowed me to communicate with King Mattock. Until tonight, when that connection broke.”
Once I’d begun, I couldn’t stop. I stared at the floor and kept spewing the truth.
“Through the mirror, we became friends. I’ve been speaking to Emmerick for years, so have Angeline and Leo. Oh, Sources… they’re going to be devastated.”
Holding a hand to my mouth, I glanced up at Sybilla.
“Lark thought she did a good deed. She wanted to help me wake him. It isn’t her fault—I was careless. She must have heard my thoughts about using the mirror. I tried to keep it out of sight.”
I hoped my friendships with Sybilla and Krait would survive this.
I didn’t tell them one thing.
I left Dritan out of it.
Lark had coerced the boy’s involvement. She’d said so herself. So I protected him. No good would come of condemning him to the dungeons.
“You’ve been able to speak with Emmerick for all this time?” Sybilla’s voice wobbled. The Queen had become my dearest friend, and Krait had saved me from a horrid fate centuries ago. I deserved the betrayal written across their features. “For how long?”
“I discovered the mirror’s power the day I brought it back to Luz.”
Sybilla’s frown gutted me. Her former lover had been in communication with me for over a decade.
My chest ached.
The one person I wanted to discuss this with I couldn’t speak to. Em would know what to say to make me feel better; he’d know how to calm Sybilla down and smooth all this over.
Krait grunted, his brow furrowing. The few tendrils of shadows he still possessed retreated.
“Her safety means the world to me,” I whispered.
Neither of them responded. The blue velvet curtains seemed to grow closer, and the star-adorned ceiling caved upon me. My head throbbed.
I needed them to understand.
My lungs burned as I held back the sobs that threatened. Another beat of silence passed as they glanced at one another.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Krait finally asked. I knew that tone. I hadn’t heard it in centuries, since I was barely older than Lark and he’d dragged me out of the burning wreckage of Phynx.
That terrified, cornered child resurfaced. I’d thought I’d toppled her presence within me and rebuilt her with stronger cornerstones.
Krait’s iron stare seared through me, full of expectations.
“It was not my truth to tell. Emmerick preferred if only Leo, Angeline, and I knew. I am no stranger to keeping others’ secrets until they are ready to face them.”
Krait had once asked me to withhold the truth about Isolde’s prophecy from Sybilla. I could only hope that he granted me grace for my mistakes.
Silence stretched between us like a gaping chasm—me on one side, them on the other. Then we cast our gazes at the cursed mirror, lying face down on the low table. I gripped the wood frame of the back of the sofa.
“What now? What do we do with it?” Gesturing to the mirror, Sybilla cut through our tension. She still appeared hurt, but her continued camaraderie gave me hope.
“We destroy it,” Krait said plainly.
“And risk Caym being released? This is magic we can’t comprehend,” I reasoned. “Who knows who he might influence, who he might take as his envoy if breaking the mirror released him?”
“We should hide and guard it,” Sybilla concluded, with her shoulders thrown back. “Somewhere no one is likely to come across it. And we continue our search for the relics to defeat him.”
She rounded the sofa to stand beside me. Chasm closed.
I loved her for her ability to think critically as Krait growled under his breath, clearly hating the idea of such a vulnerability existing. We all knew Caym would rise again regardless—when, where, and how were less clear now than ever.
We were supposed to have years yet.
“I’m going to go check on Lark,” Sybilla sighed out. “I trust that the two of you can think of what to do with that.” She nodded toward the dreaded artifact that imprisoned the Death Origin. “The fewer people who know its location, the better.”
When she left the room, Krait sat down in an armchair and rested his head in the palms of his hands.
Gray peeked through the mess of black hair at the top of his head; the reminder of his aging only brought me more dread. For centuries, I’d never needed to imagine a world without him.
“The first fifty years were the hardest,” he said to the ground.
I straightened, halting my pacing when he looked up at me.
“After losing Freya. It all felt so meaningless. I blamed myself every day.”
“Yeah… I remember you then. You were insufferable,” I said. He’d somehow been even more surly.
“I built the Sahlms not for myself, but for those like you. A refuge from a land that rejected them.”
I didn’t know where he was going with the lecture, but I swallowed and nodded, meeting his gaze over the chair back.
He continued, “I can’t imagine having lost Sybilla in those years, too.”
Ah. Now I knew what he was getting at.
I shook my head and circled the sofa to sit across from him. “It is not like that,” I explained. “King Mattock became a dear friend. We both had a great deal to work through after the amphitheater. He helped me.”
Krait scoffed and slumped back into the cushions of the chair. “You have shit taste in friends.”
I wanted to hide beneath the table between us. Instead, I crossed my arms, avoiding his stare. “That says more about you than me,” I grumbled. “But I get it. You’re pissed. You have every right to be.”
“I’m not angry with you, El. You lost your Source Match, and instead of ensuring you had your time to mourn, I let you scour the realms for relics and push yourself to a breaking point.”
He felt guilty? That made the heat gathering behind my eyes increase. With his newfound mortality and waning Source magic, Krait had mentioned in passing how much he hated not being able to come search with me. I’d never faulted him.
Krait’s Source magic faded by the year, transferring to Lark—a curse set upon the Shadow Origin’s lineage.
“When you were at your most broken, you found me and took me in. You were my savior, Krait. I will reach my breaking point time and time again for your family because they are mine, too. You couldn’t stop me if you tried.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do,” he growled low and rubbed at his eyes. “How do I keep them safe?”
When our gazes met again, he appeared more tired than I’d ever seen him. I flipped the mirror over, happy to see its black shine and not the face of our worst nightmares. Caym lurked within it, though, waiting for his strength to grow.
“Well, we can start with this,” I said. “Where should we hide it?” A task—exactly what I needed to forget the repercussions of the night.
Krait contemplated for a minute, rubbing the dark stubble on his chin. “The volcanic shores. There’s an uncharted island off them. I can Shadow us.”
I frowned. “Can you make it that far?”
“Of course,” he snapped. “I’m not that weak.”
“Should we tell anyone else?”
“We inform no one other than Angeline and Leo that the mirror was infiltrated. Keep it vague,” he grunted out. “The more who know, the riskier keeping this quiet becomes.”
I nodded, hating that he was right.
A hint of relief settled in my chest. Despite what a shit situation we were in, waking Emmerick was no longer contingent on finding the relics. With Caym now trapped in that mirror, he wouldn’t wake with the sleeping King.
Yet we still knew no way to break the Sethe curse.
Wind whipped through my hair as we arrived on the dreary island. No wildlife or flora graced the harsh rock. Steam rose from the shoreline, emitting a horrid smell.
I lifted the kerchief that I’d tied around my neck, securing it over my nose. Inhaling too much of the volcanic gasses, even for an immortal, could make you dreadfully ill. This alone would deter anyone from searching for too long here.
Boats could not pass without smoldering, and the clouds of steam hid this place from overhead flyers—not that any Griffith riders ever ventured this far north.
Krait had found a metal safe in the armory to secure the mirror in. We’d brought a shovel.
Despite the muggy heat, my limbs felt frozen. A cold lick of shock finally caught up to me—we were burying the mirror.
There at the highest peak of a hill, away from any waves that might disturb the ground, Krait dug. I clutched the metal chest, hugging it close.
When the hole was deep enough, I helped him lower the box into the ground.
My eyes stung as we covered the safe with rocky soil.
Silently, I bid farewell to the artifact that had allowed me to build a connection with the one person who proved my heart might still be capable of love.