Page 50 of The Other Side of the Mirror

“They are, Majesty. I have one?—”

“Good,” Aviel sneered. “I grow weary of playing the perfect prince. Once I have her fully under my control, there won’t be a need for this tiresome façade. Though I’ve enjoyed playing out the last of this game.”

I could barely feel my body. There was a leaden weight in my chest as I tried and failed to breathe.

With one sentence, the part of me that had started to trust him—to trust anyone at all—splintered within me, leaving me cursing the fact that I had been stupid enough to do so in the first place.

“You’ll have her collared whenever you say the word, Your Majesty.”

What?

My mouth parted in sickened shock.

“I want to renew my light first after that display at dinner, but wecouldlet it play out a little longer…” I could hear the smirk in Aviel’s voice. “I did want to see if I could get her to give herself to me willingly first.”

I was shaking so hard I could feel it in my bones. Not from fear, but from anger—wild and raging in my blood at how thoroughly I had been fooled. I wanted to go in there and slice him limb from limb. To tear him apart for letting me believe that I was ever truly safe when it was a ploy all along.

There would be time for that later. Right now, I needed to leave before they caught me eavesdropping or a guard came this way. But I couldn’t catch my breath as I silently hurried back down the empty hall. Couldn’t do anything except run as everything I thought I knew about this realm crumbled around me.

Despite my misgivings, I had opened myself up to Aviel, trusted him, or at least trusted the faith my friends had put in him. Had believed in the reason they had come for me in the first place. Somehow, I had learned to trust again during my time in Agadot. And everything I had trusted in was alie.

I wasn’t sure when, exactly, I bought into the soulmate falsity. But from the splintering in my chest, I knew I must have done so. I had believed there was someone who was truly meant for me. Someone I could let myself rely on, even with the chance of losing them.

I had been so foolish to stop guarding my heart.

Said heart pounded in my ears as I snuck through the stairway, pulling my darkness around me like a shield. Suddenly freezing, I wrapped my arms around myself, but neither my arms nor the darkness surrounding me helped penetrate the chill of betrayal sinking into my skin.

A hasty plan was forming in my mind, despite my reeling thoughts. If I was going to escape, and quickly, I needed to get to the mirror in the main hall before Aviel found out I knew he wasn’t who he seemed. That he had been using me the whole time. But forwhat?

Was he somehow in league with his father, even after he had defeated him all those years ago? Or did he want to use me, somehow, for some purpose I hadn’t yet grasped?

My heart gave a painful twist in my chest, and I realized there were tears silently running down my cheeks—not for Aviel, but for the betrayal of everything I had so blindly accepted as fact, the hope that was now irrevocably shattered. Swiping angrily at my eyes, I made it to the top of the spiral staircase that would lead to the main hall. Then I clenched my hands into fists as I steadied my resolve, drawing my wits about me.

Quickly, I ducked into the shadows of an alcove as two guards walked by me. I didn’t dare breathe until they had passed. As soon as their footsteps were out of earshot, I ran around the corner to the main hall.

My heart leapt into my throat as I took in the giant, silver-feathered mirror looming across the room. The mirror that would take me back to Imyr if I could only make it through. It rippled as if in anticipation—like it was daring me to try.

The room was too bright even at night to use my magic as a shield. I would have to make a run for it across the shimmering marble floor.

I should tell Bash.

Kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner, my finger hovered over my palm. But before I could write anything, there were loud footsteps behind me,thundering closer.

I didn’t look back. I just ran. Picturing the Imyrian castle, I closed the distance to the mirror on echoing footfalls, readying to jump?—

A bright light slammed into me, tearing apart what was left of my dark shield, searing down my body. A cry tore from me as my back slammed against the wall beside the mirror, hard enough that my head spun.

Soclose. If I could just?—

But my hands were forced to my sides, pinned against the wall with blistering bands of familiar light. My scream died in my throat as I looked into Aviel’s cold, pale eyes.

“People think light equals life,” Aviel said in that voice I had never heard from him until tonight, malevolent yet indifferent, reverberating ominously in the enormous room. “But it is the light that you go into at the end of your life, so unlike the comforting darkness of the womb before a newborn is thrust into the world. As I told you, darling, it is darkness that is the heart of life.”

I glared at him mutely as he stalked forward, struggling against the magic binding me. But it held firm, biting into my skin as I refused to yield.

“It’s time I tell youeverything,” Aviel continued, mockingly repeating the words he had said to me just yesterday in the greenhouse. “Because it wasn’t me who was chosen to rule this realm. It’s why it has continued to decay under my rule…both worlds feeling the lack of balance.”

Aviel stopped inches in front of me. I spat directly onto his cold, handsome face, saliva dripping slowly down his cheek. He laughed as he wiped it away with his sleeve, though there was no humor in it.

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