Page 45 of Winds of Ruin
“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 themonething.
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 comeacross 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.
