Page 231 of Of Nine So Bold

My eyes tracked the monstrous creature circling us. Howwerewe still alive? And why hadn’t it attacked yet? It had surrounded us entirely, yet it wasn’t constricting down. Was it just toying with us?

The eel drew closer and then pulled back again.

I blinked. The light from our world. That’s what it was avoiding. But why had it…

Casimir’s words registered. I turned quickly. “What did you say?”

“That even a nexus could not withstand the void.”

“No, about the… the reflection.” I turned, looking at the creature my stepmother had become, my mind racing. “And reality.” My mouth moved, searching for words. “Our bond is a reflection of our world. Our reality. Everything we are… and everything we were… We’re a mirror. But she…” I tracked the creature as it circled us again. “She’s broken.”

“Princess?” Dex prompted.

“Her lie is hunting us. That’s what my mother said. That she’s not what she seems and she never has been.” I stared at the massive eel as it coiled around us again. “And thatshe’sthe flaw in all their plans.”

Giving my men a desperate look. “I… I have an idea. We don’t try to hitthis. We aim for her.”

Casimir paused thoughtfully, while Byron’s eyes just skimmed back and forth across the ghostly dirt like he was running cross-references at high speed.

“What’s the difference, though?” Clay asked. “Her or this, it doesn’t?—”

“It does matter,” Byron said, looking up again. “Mirror, mirror…”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“Then that’s good enough.” Dex nodded. “We’ll follow your lead.”

I reached for them. Their magic rushed into me instantly.

“Mm, what’s this?” the eel creature murmured. “You’ve decided to fightyetagain? You truly do love to suffer, don’t you, Gwyneira?”

I turned to face the darkness. “Mirror, mirror,” I whispered. “Broken… now it lies.”

“The prophecy of the Nine?” My stepmother laughed. “How do you thinkthatwill stop me, you pathetic little fool?”

“Because you’re the broken mirror,” I said. “And this is how we reflect the truth.” Our magic surged out from me, aimed right at her. “This is how we shatter the skies.”

The power struck, and the vast creature she’d become flinched. But even though she faltered, the smaller shadows all around her only hissed and clicked as if cackling with glee.

“Idiotic child,” they taunted me. “You think to attack withthis? Wefeedon the energy of worlds. We feed onrealityand consume it all.”

I smiled. “Except you need hers.”

Our power pierced into her shadows. The Voidborn swarmed, intent upon devouring it, fighting frantically to feast and not be scorched by its light.

But they couldn’t take it all. Couldn’t stop it from lancing through the darkness of her monstrous form like an arrow intent upon one target. One truth.

That she had always been the flaw in their plan, just as my mother said. Because no matter what power she drained from something else, what terror she wreaked on our world, or what kind of annihilating monstrosity she used Voidborn magic to become, at her core therealityof Melisandre was that she wasn’t strong.

She never had been.

Before she sacrificed her own humanity to take on the powers of a vampire, she was a witch caught in a system every bit as harsh and unjust as the bigotry of Erenelle or Aneira, who thought the only way to triumph over it was through sadism and bloodshed.

Before she stole a crown to call herself a queen, she was a woman so twisted and broken by cruelty, she’d decided the only way to overcome her suffering was through pettiness and hate.

Before she’d become the monster who murdered my mother and who tried to destroy our realm, she’d been arealthing, and the only power that had beenherswas that she hated the world so much, she’d chosen to make a bargain with creatures who despised reality every bit as much as she did.

Her hatred was the only thing about herself she’d ever embraced in all her life. Out of everything she’d stolen or bargained to take, it was the only thing that had ever truly belonged to her from the start.

---