Page 57 of The Book of Legends
Whispering, “You're a dragon,” I point out. “No one can lie about that.”
He gives me a small smile—sharp, tired, and a little sad. “One of the last.”
“Where I'm from, you are mythical and don't exist.”
“They must be liars and want you to believe that,” he remarks as we go under the arch of the singing trees.
Reality is more perilous than fiction.
Upon entering the Fae High Court, I did not feel a sense of dread. Yes, there was pressure. It was as if the air itself knew I didn't fit in.
Every breath was a delicate pact as it clung to my flesh like frost-soaked silk. Encircling us, like the ribs of a massive beast, the crystal columns hummed with ancient enchantment. The Queen, shrouded in splendor, waited at its core.
Her glittering eyes, nevertheless, seemed to be ripping the flesh off my thoughts.
On one knee, Kainen bows. Her words came next.
Her voice, cold and ancient and disdainful, slithered through me like silk and ice. “So this is the mortal.” Her voice slithered inside me, silk and ice, ancient and unimpressed.
Like a gorgeous storm, she was terrifying, but more than that, she was stunning. But lethal. The Queen continues, her eyes narrowing on Kainen, “the one you almost went to war to defend.”
The tone of Kainen's speech was cautious and polite. “Our assumptions were wrong about her.”
Her response was a resounding zero. “No,” she says. “She’s worse. Or better. I haven’t decided.”
I stood with my hands clasped together in fists.
There was an abrupt hush as if the court were listening to my death as her gaze returns to mine.
I want to know, “When you look in the mirror, what do you see?”
Mirrors were now my Achilles' heel, but there was no way she could know about the mirror—or did she?
But somehow, the words came.
“I see someone who doesn’t know where she belongs.”
The truth of it cut deeper than her gaze. The reality was more painful than the pain in her eyes.
She grins. Skepticism, brutality, and coldness. “How very nice of you.”
The room was filled with a low murmur of amusement, scorn, and intrigue. It was unclear to me. The volume was higher than it ought to have been. My chest pounded with anguish.
Kainen steps forward and added, “She came from a mirror.” His voice was now closer. The presence of his weight next to me was palpable. “Not via a portal, a magic, or a summons. The old way.”
The Queen’s gaze flicks to him. “Impossible.”
“And yet here she is.”
“She may have slipped through a crack and is actually Therion's poison.”
Without warning, Malachi yelles out, “She could be the Phoenix.” His voice resounded like a roar as it reverberated through the spires.
No sound remained.
I fling my gaze in his direction, Kainen's direction. “What do you mean?”
Kainen's jaw clenches.
