The missing mirror is for the best.
If I knew Amara Tyne lived, if I saw her again… I would only want her more.
A scent rides the air. Smoke. Blood. Steel. It slinks in before him, curling through the empty halls just ahead of the heavy clomp of Arax’s boots on stone.
“My Prince,” he says, entering with a fist to his chest. “I bring word from the front. The Legion has been driven back in the east, but we’ve lost Greenmist Gorge.”
I turn, just slightly to glance at him over my shoulder. “How?”
“The reinforcements from House Taramethos never came,” he answers. “An entire order of Ebon Flight… gone.”
My breath hisses through my nose. My jaw clenches. Fingers curl into fists, gauntlets straining around them.
“I will go myself,” I say.
“You cannot, Rook,” Arax replies quickly. “It’s too dangerous. The gorge is narrow, and they hold the high ground. Their numbers…”
“I will flood that gorge with their blood,” I snap. “I did not ask for your counsel, Arax.”
He nods. “Yes, my Prince.” A beat passes, and I hear the thick bob in his throat.
“They’ve found the bodies of the Lord and Lady of House Maledannan,” he says at last. “On a bonfire in the plains near the forest.”
His eyes flick to the overturned thrones, to the smear of blood trailing toward the shattered door.
“Lady Ilyra’s spies report the Legion passed through here several days ago.”
Another pause and for a warrior as blooded as Arax, who has watched fields rot under corpses, this next truth cleaves clean through his composure.
“It seems the young ones were burned with them.”
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. The sharp crack across my chest is answer enough.
“There was a mirror,” I say, voice low. “Do you remember it?”
He nods. “Yes, Your Highness. The Legion must have taken it when they raided the castle.”
“Perhaps.”
“I’ll assemble the Reapers and await your command,” Arax says, already turning, his armor clanging with the shift.
But I stop him.
“I heard about Estra.”
He halts.
“My condolences, Arax.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” he says. The words don’t tremble. They land like stone.He hides his grief the way I do. Deep and silent.
I listen to his footsteps retreat down the hall as I remain fixed on the wall where the mirror once hung. Whoever took it now holds a key to great power. Too great. I don’t believe for a breath it fell into mortal hands. The Sundered Kingdoms are burning, yes, but both sides are lighting fires. And in war, I trust my own kind even less than I trust the human traitors.
Then, footsteps again. Arax, doubling back.
“Your Highness,” he calls. “We’ve found something. A deserter.”
I turn, my brow lowering, curiosity tightening into suspicion. We stride together through the corridor, pushing through the cracked doors onto the stone terrace where vines creep through every fracture.
