Words. I had no words. Like my dream, they had flown away, and my tongue was now tarred to the roof of my mouth.
“Aro’el?”
My mother was right. He set every fiber of my body aflame, and I knew it was more than the chimeric. He could pluck me like a string on the Worldrune, and I’d sing for him a song of power and pattern and world-ending dread. We were runechasers both.
“I want to be a mirrormage,” I said. “My father was one, and I want you to teach me.”
I met his eyes, could fall into them like a whirlpool, swift and deep.
“I want you to teach menow.”
He stared at me for a long moment, weary and remote but this time warm, like his armor was off and his walls almost down.Slowly, he reached up and brought his hand to my cheek. I held my breath as he slid his fingers past my ear and into my hair. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. It was unexpected like the scorpion, and I thought of all the ways he would end me, all the ways he would make me new.
I gasped at a sharp tug of pain.
He pulled away, a single strand of hair pinched between his finger and thumb.
“The process is painful,” he said. “More painful than tugging a strand of hair. Your bones hollow. Your spine cracks. Your organs compact. Your very skull reshapes at the realignment of the rune, and your brain follows suit. Your thoughts become fleeting and disjointed, not linear likeRhi’Ahror homani at all. It’s a terrible experience but unlike anything you’ve ever known.”
The life of your mirror consumes you.
He brought the hair to his lips and blew softly. Before my eyes, it became a black feather. He released it, and it floated to the floor.
“I will teach you, if you truly wish to learn.”
And he held the door open. With a deep breath, I slipped inside.
31. Beneath the Surface
“Dry’ash na hud,”he said.“Dry’ash na nar.Repeat.”
“Dry’ash na hud. Dry’ash na nar.”
“Your accent is good,” he said. “Is Devanhan teaching you?”
“I was picking it up from both of you,” I said. “I’m practicallyRhi’Ahrnow.”
Suns, I could never keep my tongue to myself, so I tried to grin, hoping he would know I wasn’t serious. His lips twitched, and I was relieved.
“It is helpful to know how the enemy thinks,” he said.
“Not all enemy,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“I am glad of that,” he said. “But never trust theRhi’Ahr.”
“Not even you?”
“Especially me,” he said. “Close your eyes.”
I did, and I held my breath as he stepped closer. My runescars reacted to his nearness, my skin alive with sensation, heart racing like sailsquid at the prow of a ship. Slowly, he raised a hand and pressed the tip of his finger between my eyes.
I gasped.
Patterns, lines, runes, more. Farther out, suns, moons, stars, circles, strings.
“See it,” he said. “See the Worldrune singing as you cast.”
“I see it,” I breathed.
