Page 90 of The Other Side of the Mirror

“How are you alive?” My voice was heavy with tears. “The fire…”

“Mom,” Tobias said sadly. “After you went through the mirror, I could barely see through the smoke, but she was fighting…fighting so many of them off with her light.” A shock went through me, but Tobias kept talking. “I heard them say Dad was dead, that the False King killed him himself.” I saw Bash and Rivan exchange a look out of the corner of my eye.“She told me to go…to find you. And then her light flung me back…” He choked. “And I heard her scream, just as her magic pushed me through the mirror.”

Tears were streaming down both of our faces, the room so silent I could only hear my own ragged breathing. But Tobias kept going, like the words had been building behind the mask, despite the way his voice faltered.

“But I didn’t find you, sis.” The endearment burned a hole through my chest. “I don’t know how exactly, but I ended up in Agadot. In the Faewilds. When I found my way out…it’s a long story, but I was eventually taken to our family’s castle in the north. In Soleara.”

Had he just said…

“Our…what?”

My surprise was echoed down our bond by Bash’s own rippling shock. Rivan swore under his breath, then started to saw at the chains, none of the keys successful.

Tobias spoke with more urgency, as if he had been waiting to share this information for a long time. “Soleara was shielded against entry after our parents fled with us to the mortal realm. Shielded so completely that the memory of it was wiped from this realm’s collective consciousness, the castle doors closed until a member of our bloodline passed through its gates, though our people still reside in its mountain. Soleara is the northern kingdom, Eva. Mom and Dad were Queen Estelle and King Adrian, and you and I were its heirs.Areits heirs.”

Disbelief permeated every cell of my body. But Tobias’s face was deadly serious, and I didn’t doubt the truth in his words.

“Soleara has long been closed to outsiders. And our people were never taken in by the lies of the False King, though in maintaining their detachment, there was little they could do to stop him. But the Solearan faction working against him had been waiting for someone from our bloodline to enter Agadot. They tracked me down by the time I made it out of the Faewilds and took me to Soleara, though not inside the castle, so not to break its enchantment. There, they told me everything, including how Mom and Dad knew the False King was an imposter.”

He took a deep breath. “He’s not a Celestial, Eva, he’s aleech. His true power is the ability to steal magic from other fae, which is what he did to the former High Queen to gain the light tied to the divine right to rule. And it’s what he’s been doing to me, to keep up the façade. His only power is in the taking.”

I was staring at Tobias in shock now, but my mind slowly caught up to his words. “But the prince said he was the one who killed our parents, not the False King…”

Tobias chuckled darkly. “It doesn’t matter which title you use, they are one and the same. The same power that lets Aviel steal magic from others also allows him to steal youth, steallife.He killed the couple you tried to save, Eva. Drained them until there was nothing left.” I flinched, and he looked away. “I’ve seen him do it to too many trapped in this prison, their lifeforce allowing him to revert to his younger self.” His jaw flexed. “When he realized the people of Agadot would never support him, even should he win the war, he pretended to be his own son. Knowing the realm would clamor to appoint their savior High King, especially one who was brimming with the stolen Celestial magic that signified his right to rule.”

I stared at him, my mouth agape. Shock and rage surged down our bond; the feelings echoed on Rivan’s and Yael’s faces. The manacle on Tobais’s ankle cracked open, too loud in the silent cell, and Rivan started on the other. Bash slowly came up behind me. Tobias went still before he continued roughly, “The False King stole that Celestial magic from Mom as well. The night he murdered her—tearing it from her before he took her life. And then he came for me, for my light, to continue the charade. Or rather,hedid.”

There was raw rage in my brother’s voice, and, for one confusing moment, I watched him glare directly at Bash. At myanima, who had gone so, so pale, his bronzed skin nearly bleached of color even in the shadow of the cell.

“I didn’t know,” Bash breathed, taking a faltering step toward us. “I thought I was doing the right thing. Doing…my duty.” There was hoarse recrimination in his words.

My gut twisted painfully.

“Just like you brought my sister to him?” Tobias’s eyes had narrowed to murderous slits. “I left the safety of Soleara to travel back to the human realm to find you, Eva. It was past time to tell you. To make sure you were safe. Excepthefound me on the journey, knocked me over the head before I could say a word, and delivered me to our parents’ murderer.”

My vision pulsed in and out of focus, my blood pounding in my ears.It had to be a mistake.Bash stepped toward me hesitantly, and I recoiled, staring at him with horrified condemnation. He flinched as if I struck him, his guilt flooding our bond. I could feel his thrumming panic, his choking sense of sorrow, and I knew what my brother said was true.

Something burrowed a hole in my chest, scraping against my heart.

The other ankle shackle fell to the ground in a clatter of chains, the stone floor moving up to catch it. Rivan moved to Tobias’s wrists, his mouth a grim line.

“You don’t understand,” Bash said, his hands outstretched as if pleading with us. “We’d been told you were armed and dangerous. A member of the False King’s former court bent on finding the prince and kidnapping him in order to secure his father’s release. If I’d known who you really were…”

Hurt pierced my stomach like a knife. I knew he could feel it through our bond, but I didn’t care. Didn’t care about the agony in his voice, the regret written across his face. There was something vital caving in on itself in my chest, my heart aching with yet another betrayal.

How was it that every time I gave someone my trust, it only led to more heartbreak?

What was wrong withme?

“Eva—”

Tobias’s voice was honeyed malice. “If you had bothered to listen to me before shoving those shadows down my throat and knocking me unconscious, then I wouldn’t have spent fouryearsin that mask, helpless as that bastard stole my magic. Except instead of draining me dry and letting me die like he did to our mother, he’s held me here, taking my magic bit by bit every time it regenerates. Siphoning my blood.”

My knees almost buckled at the rage and pain in his voice.

“That’s how he finally found you, you know,” Tobias said with a grimace. “After you moved back home. That golem was keyed to my blood.Ourblood.”

My mind spun despite my fracturing heart. The amulet must have only worked to hide me until the golem tracked me down, after I had foolishly moved back to the same town where the False King had last found me. There was a sudden flash of a pale-eyed coyote in my mind. And somehow, I knew it was Aviel, confirming who I was before the golem brought me to him. Or tried to. Bash must have been sent as backup, should the original plan to take me fail.

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