Page 80 of The Eternal Mirror
But then sleep drags me under. One second I’m warm, curled beside Khaos in that ridiculous palace bed. The next—I’m weightless. Floating. Untethered from breath, from time, from anything remotely real. I’m standing somewhere, staring at...nothing. And I mean absolutely nothing. If this is a dream, then there’s not a lot going on.
Then, as I stare into the void, I see it.
The Eternal Mirror.
It spins like a wheel of starlight—silver rings rippling out across the void, humming with power I can feel in my goddamn bones. It’s beautiful. Mesmerizing. I feel like I’m staring straight into the beginning of everything. Or the end.
It’s drawing nearer, pulsating, pulling me in. I take a step closer...
And then I feel it.
I’m not alone.
The alicorn emerges like a dream half-remembered. Graceful. Impossible. Her hooves don’t touch anything. Her mane floats behind her, a river of moonlight and memory. She tosses her head once and vanishes in a shimmer of silver.
And Selene stands in her place.
Tall. Glowing. Barefoot on nothing.
Her hair falls like a curtain of silver. Her skin glows faintly gold. But it’s her eyes that stop me cold—galaxies burning in her gaze. Infinite. Beautiful. Exhausted.
“Amber?” She turns from me to look at the silver spinning rings. “The Eternal Mirror is restless. What have you done?”
“Me? Nothing. It’s crazy Khronus. He wants to be a true god like you and Vortex, and he thinks the Mirror will do that for him. Please tell me that’s not possible.”
She frowns. “He does not have the magic to speak to the Eternal Mirror.” She turns away for a moment, tension in every limb. “When we created this world, the male children were given the power to shift. The females were gifted magic. That way, they would need each other, compliment each other. No one would have all the power. There would be balance. How could he do this?”
“He’s draining it from the witches, mixing it with dark magic, feeding it into the cracked mirror.”
She freezes, her gaze locking on mine. “The cracked mirror?”
“He believes it’s a splinter of the Eternal Mirror and will open a portal to the real thing.”
Shock flashes across her face. “He found a splinter? From the Eternal Mirror?”
“That’s what he said. Is it true? Is it really part of the Eternal Mirror?”
“I don’t know. It’s not possible.” She wraps her arms around herself as if suddenly cold. “And yet, the mirror cracked when I destroyed Vortex.”
She did what?“You destroyed Vortex?” Well, that would explain why he hasn’t been seen in a long, long time. “Wasn’t he your bonded mate? Why?”
For a second rage fills her eyes. “He severed the bond.”
Shock floods my mind. “I thought that wasn’t possible.”
“For the true gods, anything is possible.” Infinite sadness replaces the anger in her eyes. “He wanted to go back through the mirror. He wasn’t happy with this world; it wasn’t what he had dreamed it could be.” Her expression hardens. “But if Vortex had gone back through the mirror, then all that we created together would be reversed. Astrali, all my children would have been as though they never existed. I couldn’t let him do that.”
“So you killed him.” I suppose I should be grateful. If she hadn’t, it sounds like I wouldn’t have existed. Though to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure that would have been such a bad thing.
She presses her lips together. “I loved him. But sometimes love is not enough.”
Tell me about it.
The spiraling rings pulse and flare, and now that it’s closer, I can see the faint cracks running through it. “What’s wrong with it?” I ask.
“The cracks have never healed. It is unstable,” she murmurs. “I have spent millennia, and all my magic, to hold the mirror together, to make it whole. But nothing worked. Now I know why.A splinter must have broken away when the mirror cracked. It explains so much: why I have been unable to complete the healing. There is a piece missing.”
“So, you go get this splinter,” I snap. “Fix the mirror. Kill that fucker Khronus.”
