Page 116 of The Eternal Mirror
Lucifer’s lands. My inheritance, if you want to get poetic about it. Or delusional. It’s...quiet and still. A land caught between memory and dream, where nothing has weight—not even time. Something is definitely off.
Khaosti scans the horizon, his jaw tight. “It’s not real.”
“It’s real enough,” I say. “Just...rewritten.”
“What happened to this place?” Zayne asks.
“When Khronus created the devil, he took all that was good from my father and locked it in amber. At the same time, he created Hell from all that was bad about this place. And this is what’s left.” I wave a hand around. “But I guess everywhere needs a balance of good and bad; otherwise, it feels insubstantial, unreal. As though there’s something vital missing.”
After that, no one speaks for a while. We just walk. Soon we come to a forest, and I think I know where we are. The track leads to a clearing with a pergola at one end.
I love you.
The words echo through time—my mother’s voice.
This is where she first met Lucifer, where they married mere months later. This is also where I stood in Hell and spoke the spell that destroyed my father forever.
I trail my fingers over the cool marble. Flowers are trained around wrought iron, beautiful in form but devoid of color and scent. I look around, remembering the last time I was here—or rather, in Hell’s version of here—with Hecate and my father and Khaosti. I thought we would die in this place, Khaosti and I.
But here we are.
My eyes catch something glinting in the faded light. There, lodged in the roots of an old dead tree, is my sword.
Nightfall.
How?
I can only presume it’s due to some part of the magic that connected this place to Hell. The last time I saw my sword, she’d been in Khaosti’s hand—just before everything went completely to shit.
I can’t believe she’s here now.
I pull her free. The weight is perfect in my hand—familiar, solid in a world that isn’t. The blade hums faintly, as if she missed me.
“I missed you too,” I whisper. Pulling the sword from the sheath at my back, I rest it in the pergola and replace it with Nightfall.
We have hours of daylight left, and we keep moving. Khaosti takes Josh and walks beside me. Josh is restless.
We pass through the village. In Hell, it was haunted by ghosts. Hopefully, they are all at rest now that Hell is no more. Finally, we reach my father’s house. It’s beautiful—graceful, with tall towers at each corner. The wrought iron gates are wide open, leading to a broad driveway with a fountain in the center.
“It’s the same, but so different,” Khaosti murmurs.
We walk up the stone steps to the great doorway. A shiver runs through me as I remember the last time I walked these steps. That didn’t end well, either.
“Welcome to my father’s house,” I say, pushing open the great doors.
Zayne is staring around him. “We used to joke about how your family was likely royalty. Looks like we weren’t far wrong.”
“There was no royalty when my father lived here. Khronus only named himself King after Lucifer was safely locked away in Hell.”
I walk past the door leading to the great hall. I have bad memories of that place. But the next door opens into a sitting room, and Khaosti walks in and lays Josh down on a velvet sofa.
The rest of us sit down as well. I reach into my pack and pull out a bottle of water, passing it around.
“It’s not bad,” Zayne muses. “But it’s not good either. It’s like...nothing.”
He’s right. There’s something missing. But I don’t think we’ll come to any harm here. I get to my feet, suddenly restless. “I’m going to take a look around.”
No one follows, perhaps realizing I need time to myself. I wander the halls and the rooms.
