Page 51 of The Eternal Mirror
I follow the silver strand with my eyes—see where it leads, where itends. It’s fused into her skin at the wrist, sunken into raw, infected flesh.
It’s not just attached to her. It’spartof her.
My stomach turns. This isn’t imprisonment. It’s consumption, and I stagger back, hand over my mouth, my tongue bitter with the taste of bile rising.
Whatever this magic is...it’s feeding on her.
I back out of the room, fighting the urge to run.
And I promise myself:
This ends. Or I do.
I force myself to go to the next cell. Another woman, another body barely holding itself together. It’s impossible to guess her age. The Astrali are immortal—timeless. These women could’ve been down here for hundreds...maybe thousands of years.
The thought makes my throat close. I can’t imagine it. No—that’s a lie; Icanimagine it. And that’s what makes me want to scream.
The silver thread connected to her is dull and frayed, like a dying nerve. Whatever magic sustains it is nearly gone.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch as I creep closer, crouch, and press my fingers to the inside of her wrist. There’s a pulse. Barely—it’s thready and distant—but she’s still alive.
If you can call this living.
My hands shake as I let her go.
Then Imove to the next cell. This time, the woman looks up. There’s something behind her eyes. A flicker. The faintest light.
I step closer, heart pounding. Her hair is dark. Her skin is pale. Her bones jut out sharply from paper-thin flesh. There’s something familiar about her, the shape of her bones beneath the skin.
And suddenly, I can’t breathe.
“Yasmin?” I whisper.
She blinks slowly, as if the name is reaching her through a fog that’s centuries thick.Please let me be wrong.But I already know I’m not.
“Are you Yasmin? Are you Sheela’s mother?”
“Sheela...” Something flickers in her eyes. Then it fades, and all that’s left is madness. But I know that I’ve found the missing mirror mages, and horror crawls across my skin.
I reach out and touch her arm, and she flinches. I get the impression she would scurry back if she weren’t chained to a wall. But I’m a healer. And while I think she’s beyond help—there’s such a broken feel to her—I can do something. I breathe deeply and send a calming vibe through my body, down my arm, and into hers. She goes still, and for a moment, I think I’ve done nothing, but then her expression clears.
“You’re not Sheela. I thought...” She blinks, and a tear rolls down her face. She reminds me of my own mother, so broken.
“Sheela is fine,” I say. “I’m a friend.”
“A friend? There are no friends here.”
“What happened?” I ask. “What is...that?” I point to the silver trail running from her manacled arm. It’s brighter than the others.
“He steals our magic. He drains us dry. He bleeds us.”
“But why? What’s he trying to do?”
“He seeks the Eternal Mirror.”
“What is that?” But as I speak, I remember reading about it in the library on Valandria. Selene and Vortex came through the Eternal Mirror and created the world. Is that what I was seeing through the cracked mirror—those spinning rings of silver?
“He believes if he controls the Mirror, then he controls all of creation.”
