Page 119 of The Eternal Mirror
“First, the splinter must be returned to its rightful place.”
“Good plan, but I don’t know where it is, and he’s protecting it with his magic, which is stronger than mine, by the way.”
She snorts. “You will never accept what you are.”
I glare. “And what does that even mean?”
“It means you are bound by the limitations you place on yourself. It has always been your weakness.”
Superior bitch. She reminds me so much of Hecate in that moment. My aunt was always saying the same thing. Always telling me that I must accept what I am. Freaking difficult when you have no clue what that is.
“So, you’re saying that I am more powerful than Khronus?”
“There are so many possibilities in this world.”
I contemplate shifting into my alicorn form and letting Frenzy stab her through the eye. It would be so satisfying. Instead, I close my eyes and count to ten. I open them and smile.
“Tell me about these possibilities?” She just looks at me. “Okay. Then tell me about the Eternal Mirror. Is it possible to destroy it? And what would happen if it was destroyed?”
Selene studies me warily. “Why would you need to know that?”
“To stop it from happening, obviously.”
She still hesitates. I suspect she knows I’m lying.
“Please,” I say. “If it’s that dangerous—if I have to stop Khronus—then I need to understand what’s at risk.”
She exhales. “You need not worry. Only the Mirror’s core—where all realities converge—is vulnerable to spells of unmaking. And only one who is both shifter and mage can reach it.”
Very interesting. Because that includes me; I’m a shifter and a mirror mage.
I’m not sure exactly what a spell of unmaking is, but I suspect I’ve done one before. On my father. So yeah—I’m pretty sure I could come up with something.
“And that doesn’t include Khronus,” Selene continues. “He’s only a threat because he has the splinter—something that was never meant to exist in his world. He has no idea what he’s meddling with.”
“True.” But to get back to the important stuff… “What are the consequences if the mirror is destroyed?” I ask. “Is that the end of it?”
“No, the Eternal Mirror cannot end. But it would cease to exist in this reality. And here magic will die. The Astral Plane will be gone. Gods will fade. And the wielder of the spell will cease to be.”
“Cease to be?”
“They won’t even become memory. The Mirror will take them back into itself.”
A shiver of prescience runs through me. “That’s a lot. What about the other worlds, Valandria, Earth?”
“They would continue. Isolated, cut off. In time, they would fade and die.”
“How much time?”
“Millennia.”
That’s good enough for me. A lot can happen in a millennium.
Her eyes narrow. “I see the path you walk, Amber. And it’s a dangerous one. You only see the evil in this world and not the good. Vortex was the same. Though it was worse for him, as he knew the evil was of his making. Still, he wanted to erase his ‘failures’ and start over.”
“So, you killed him?”
“Yes, I killed him,” she snaps. “What else was I supposed to do?” She stares at me. “Do not even think about attempting to destroy the Mirror.”
