Page 22 of The Other Side of the Mirror

“I was orphaned early during the war. I barely remember my parents. The only hints of who they were are in my Esterran accent and coloring. But from what I do remember, they weren’t worth knowing.”

Her fingers deftly pulled up her sleeve, and I flinched at what lay hidden there. Old, faded scars dotted their way up her inner arm in a patchwork of suffering. And suddenly it struck me that her fearlessness, her jaunty flippancy, wasn’t due to a heart free of pain—but in spite of it.

“I don’t even know if they died, or just left me behind. Either way, Imyr has been my home for as long as I can remember. Though I barely recall how I was abandoned there, I’ve never felt the need to go back to that desert kingdom in the East.”

I took her hand when I saw it shaking, the movement at odds with her matter-of-fact tone. She stirred her steaming oatmeal with the other hand without bothering to take a bite, staring down at it, not letting go of my hand even as the silence stretched. I knew what it was like to be orphaned, but this…Though, for a morbid moment, I wondered if it would have been better had I hated my family rather than knowing what it felt like to be loved by them before they were taken so horribly from me.

“Rivan’s mother Dianthe took me in.” She didn’t miss my startled look. “They’d just lost Rivan’s father—an absolute mountain of a man who had only managed to be killed by the False King himself. But not before saving an entire village under siege. I guess Rivan looks like him.” Yael gave me a sad smile. “You’ll hear the tale if you wander the keep long enough. His father positioned himself at the entrance of a cave system while the villagers escaped through it, their warriors already long dead from the False King’s barrage. And then he took down the king’s army one by one by one until night fell, the rock formations at the entrance only letting them into the cave mouth a few at a time. But then the False King came for him…”

Something caught the corner of my eye, and I realized Bash and Rivan were standing at the entrance of the clearing. Rivan’s arms were hanging loosely at his sides as though he didn’t know what to do with them. I knew they must have heard, but Rivan didn’t make a move to stop Yael from speaking.

Yael continued without acknowledging their arrival, as if telling their joined stories had put her in a trance. “His mother’s a warrior in her own right, but she arrived too late. And though she grieved, she found it in her heart to take me in when she saw me in an Imyrian market, trying to steal something to eat.” Yael’s eyes had gone near vacant as she spoke, though her hand tightened in mine. “She rocked me to sleep for the first few weeks once I allowed her to touch me, even though I was too old for it, even as she fought her own nightmares. I was half-feral and Rivan and I obviously took a bit to learn to get along. Though I think we both needed the outlet of butting heads against the other to deal with our own grief and guilt and rage.”

Then her face changed, aglow from more than just the morning light. “But it wasn’t long before I met Marin. I was drawn to her even then. Though it took us a long time to realize why.” She let out a long breath, her mouth quirking in a pale hint of her usual humor. “But to answer your question…after all that time sleeping outside under the stars, I had a hard time getting used to my new plush bed. It felt suffocating after all those nights on the hard ground, and even with the window open, I missed the night sky.That’swhy I was sleeping outside when Bash went into the well.”

When she looked at me, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. The tea kettle blared loudly, breaking her reverie, and she blinked them away as Bash and Rivan walked forward to join us.

Rivan quickly settled next to Yael, draping an arm around her in silent comfort. Bash served each of us steaming cups of tea, then ladled Rivan and himself some oatmeal before sitting down next to me.

We sipped our tea in a comfortable silence. Yael and I held our mugs in opposite hands—the hands between us still tightly clutched together.

Chapter11

Eva

The clearing still felt heavy from Yael’s words as we cleaned up after breakfast. But Rivan waved me off after I handed him my dish, saying I needed to spend my time on getting a better hold of the magic flowing through me. He wasn’t wrong. I could feel the darkness building inside me, begging to be unleashed.

Bash nodded in agreement. “No sparring with your second favorite Imyrian until we work on your control.”

“Yael will be so thrilled to hear she secured first place,” I deadpanned, failing to keep a straight face at Bash’s look of feigned outrage, and Yael’s celebratory whoop from behind me.

So Bash and I headed deep into the woods while Rivan and Yael packed up camp, ducking under branches to find the same clearing that Bash and Rivan battled in earlier. We walked in a comfortable silence, but something important felt like it had changed between us after our late-night talk. Or perhaps it was the way we had fallen asleep side-by-side, his hand clutching mine.

I tried not to think how nice it had felt to wake up next to him. How he had managed once again to ground me, in a world where I felt so untethered.

It hadn’t helped that Bash and Rivan had come back shirtless from their morning workout, neither bothering to put them back on as they ate breakfast despite the cool air. When my mind settled from the shock of Yael’s tale, it was all I could do not to take in their rippling muscles still shining with sweat as they ate. My blood had rushed to my cheeks despite myself as my eyes flicked up and down Bash’s chiseled chest unbidden. Until Yael had told them both, rolling her eyes skyward, that she had just eaten, and they needed to put some clothes on.

We came to a small clearing in between the trees and a looming rocky outcropping, the day’s sun already having already burned off the morning chill. An anxious strumming thrummed in my veins, as though my darkness was pushing to get out. I cringed at the thought of how long it had lain dormant inside me—trapped and restless and stifled.

Bash raised an eyebrow at me, missing nothing, and I gritted my teeth.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Just hoping it doesn’t take a century to learn how to master this.”

He choked out a surprised laugh. “I’m only in my fifth decade, though I won’t deny the fact that there is always more to learn.”

“Okay, old man.”

“You realize I am neither, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Semantics.”

He gave me a grin so genuine I knew I had startled it out of him.

When Bash signaled for me to begin with a wordless command in his eyes, it was easier to reach into that bottomless pit inside me this time. Despite my apprehension, I couldn’t help but relish the feeling of that cool darkness exploding around me. I drew on it further, pulled deeper from that well of power until I could feel sweat trickling down my back.

Bash’s shadows seemed to like my darkness, as though sensing the likened Celestial magic. The strands of our power played, swirling around each other as Bash demonstrated how to focus it. To call a trickle of wisps or a solid wave. To be gentle or to attack. He manipulated his shadows as though they were a part of him—like an effortless extension of his will.

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