Page 132 of The Eternal Mirror
For a minute, she looks away, and I think she won’t answer. But then she turns back to me, sadness dimming the stars in her eyes. “Of course I did. I still loved him, even then. A love like ours never dies, whatever happens.”
I feel as if she’s telling me something here, but I don’t know what.
“But in the end, I couldn’t do it. And I think if I had, then the guilt would have driven me insane. All my children. And I love this land. How could I destroy it?”
“Do you still believe this world is worth saving?”
“I hope one day it will be.”
Not quite the same thing.
“Besides, while love like mine cannot die, it can be killed. And he slaughtered it. So I killed my mate, for this land, for Astrali, even for Earth. I will not give up on it now. I must save the Eternal Mirror—otherwise his death was for nothing—and then we can sort out the other problems.”
“Like my father.”
“Yes.” She takes a deep breath. “Now, why have you called me?”
So here it is. “I want you to sever the mating bond between Amber and me.”
Shock flashes across her face. I’ve surprised her. “Why?”
“Because it’s what she wants, what she’s always wanted. Her freedom.”
“You’re wrong. She craves to belong but does not trust her own heart.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re running out of time. And I want to give her what she wants before it’s too late.”
“You think there is no hope?”
“I guess mine just about ran out when Amber told me she’d asked you to sever the bond. I can’t save the world and the peopleshe loves from my father. I can’t even save her, and that is killing me. But I can give her this.”
“Your love is pure.”
“Yeah, pure shit.”
“Would you have taken the bond if I had given you the choice?”
I’d gotten the impression that we’d been given the bond before we were old enough to understand, that it had always been part of us. Was I wrong?
“Just when did you form the bond?” I ask.
“When Amber nearly died, and I gave her the choice of life and death. She chose life, but I knew then that she couldn’t fulfil her destiny alone. And so I gave what was left of Vortex’s powers to you.” Her lips twitch. “I nearly chose the heir to the Valandrian throne.”
“Thanouq?” I almost yell the name. “You nearly gave her to fucking Thanouq?”
“He is a moral man.”
“Unlike fucking me,” I mutter.
“Yes, you are not a moral man. But you would give up your life for Amber. Thanouq has other...loyalties. He answers to more than just his heart. Besides, Amber would have been torn in two if I had chosen anyone but you. Her heart is true.”
I frown. Is she telling me that Amber cared for me before the bond?
I know the moment she means, and it was months after we first met. It was on a battlefield. I thought she had died, and I wanted to die as well. To hurl myself into the fighting until I was beyondthe pain that was tearing me apart. But she rose from where she lay, and she was magnificent, defeating all our enemies, and in the aftermath, I had a moment of stunning clarity when I realized that I loved her, and she was all that mattered, and I would burn the world for her if she but asked. Which she has sort of. Or rather, she asked me not to get in her way while she burns it.
Was that moment in the aftermath of battle the moment the bond was formed?
But I frown as I remember so many moments before that. When she first crashed into me on that long-ago night, and I felt as though the world had shifted beneath my feet. When she was attacked by the shadowguard and I knew I couldn’t let her die. When I first kissed her and realized I wanted more; I wanted everything. The many times she’s confronted me and made me want to be a better man.
