Page 28 of The Sundered Blade

Because before she had come fully into her power, her parents had left her. As difficult as it might be for Leisa to hear the truth, Karreya could well understand their terror. If their daughter had manifested mirror magic, it was only a matter of time before someone discovered it—someone such as the hunters sent to track Senaya and return her to the Empire.

“If it aids you,” Karreya said, “I can tell you that your faces are actually quite similar.”

Both Leisa and Senaya suddenly stared at her in utter shock and confusion.

“What are you saying?” Leisa whispered.

“It is my truth sense,” Karreya explained. “When you change your appearance with mirror magic, both of your faces are visible to me—the truth and the lie. And yours are very much alike.”

Her aunt appeared dumbfounded. “That is how you knew me in Iria. You saw both faces.”

Karreya nodded. “And it is how I will know my father. He will not be able to hide from me.”

Across the fire, Senaya’s face had gone ashen gray. “Your grandmother does not know.” She stated it as fact, not conjecture.

“No. I have hidden it very carefully.”

“Why?” Leisa was swiping at her cheeks with her sleeve. “Why have you hidden your magic? Would it not make her value you more?”

“Yes,” Karreya responded flatly. “She would value me so much that she would lock me up, hide me away, and use me as a weapon until my soul was crushed and my spirit a withered husk. I would never see the sun or taste freedom again so long as she lived.”

Her cousin was now as pale as her aunt.

“You may not understand why my aunt chose to leave you,” Karreya continued, “and I will not think less of you for it. But Idounderstand it. I have stood before the throne in Myrn Draguri. Trembled with the fear of knowing what my grandmother is willing to do in order to maintain her power—in order to exercise complete control of everyone and everything in her empire. There is no one she will not crush. Nothing she cannot use. No darkness she will not embrace. Had she discovered your existence, she would have moved the heavens and the seas in order to possess you. Abreia itself would have ceased to exist and everyone you knew would have died, unless she kept them alive to use them against you. And then you would be her creature, subject to her will and living at her pleasure—the perfect weapon against her enemies until she molded you in her own image.”

The fire continued to crackle into the silence left in the wake of Karreya’s words. Leisa’s hands were clenched together, and Senaya sat as if frozen in place.

“Is this true?” Leisa spoke quietly.

“I do not lie,” Karreya replied.

But Leisa shook her head. “I was talking to you… Mother.”

Senaya remained motionless, staring at her daughter. “It changes nothing. I cannot go back and alter the past, no matter how much I might wish it.”

“I did not ask you to change anything. I asked whether Karreya is telling the truth.”

A handful of tense moments passed before Senaya’s chin dropped to her chest and her eyes closed.

“Yes,” she said simply. “When I chose to love your father, when I chose to have children, it was the most selfish thing I have ever done. I knew what sort of world they might someday inherit, and I did it anyway. Because…” She seemed to crumple in on herself where she sat. “Because I received a taste of what it was like to be loved. What it was like to be a part of a family. And I wanted more. I was greedy and selfish and all of you paid the price for my sins.”

This, Karreya reflected, was why her aunt had insisted that she must give Niell up. That there was no place in her life for one slightly broken prince of Garimore. Not because she feared he would not understand her, or that their love would die… But because Karreya held the power to destroy him. Because their family was a curse that would destroy everything it touched until someone gathered enough power to change it.

“It is no sin to want to be loved.” Leisa had not moved, but there was a tremor in her voice that had not been there before. “Or to fight for a different world than the one we live in.”

To want to be loved…

For those like Senaya, Karreya, Vaniell, and even… even her father. Did they have the right to be loved? To seek out their own happiness? Or was there some greater calling, some other rule by which they ought to live by virtue of their birth?

“I once thought I would have to sacrifice love in order to protect the ones I cared about,” Leisa admitted. “I have walked away from Kyrion twice now, because we both had something we needed to do. Both of us had a duty that we felt we could not lay aside. But it is love that holds us firm. Love that reminds us why we make these sacrifices in the first place. Without the capacity for love, we become empty and bitter, driven by whatever has taken its place—whether it is envy, lust, greed, or some other emotion.”

Perhaps the true calling was not to seek out love, but simply to love. To love one’s people enough to sacrifice one’s life in their defense. To love one’s family enough to stand between them and danger. To love another person so deeply that you would destroy your own happiness rather than see them be hurt.

“You have sacrificed much,” Karreya said thoughtfully. “Walked away from the one you love in order to pursue duty. And yet, you are not unhappy.”

“No.” Leisa’s joy was visible in her answering smile. “Because no matter where I am, Kyrion goes with me. Because no matter what happens, I know he will never give up on me. After we have both done everything we can to fight for our people, we will find one another again. It is a light that I carry with me, wherever I go—this hope, and this confidence that he is my home, as I am his.”

Hope… Such a strange emotion. Karreya had rarely considered it except as a weakness, but now that she heard her cousin speak of it, she was willing to consider that it might not always be a liability.

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