The guard smiles as he straightens, letting his hand fall away from his weapon.
“Bit conspicuous to have you out here, isn’t it?” I ask, arms folding over my chest as I scan the forest around us. But it’s still early morning, and the forge’s location is away from the main paths in and out of Galdr.
Max chuckles as he steps away from the door. “I thought the same, but those two insisted I stay out. Said they didn’t trust me enough to talk about the Mirror in their presence, so I was banished to stand in the cold.” Though his voice is lighthearted, Max’s next words are solemn. “I am sorry for the loss of your friend. I didn’t know Cass well beyond the occasional passing, but he always seemed happy.” I watch my brother take in Max’s words with a dip of his chin, pushing waves of hair away from his forehead. They just flop back into place.
“Thank you. Shall we enter?” He reaches for the door and opens it, and I smile at Max as we pass, jerking my head for him to follow.
When he hesitates, I roll my eyes. “Stay out here and freeze to death if you want. But you know enough about both of us to get us locked in the dungeons if not executed on the spot. This,” I say pointing to space just past the door, “is nothing compared to all of that.” His steps are lighter as he follows, his smile as unrestrained as Starla’s is when I let her use the magnifier. I don’t know whether to snort or roll my eyes.
Warmth immediately embraces us as we enter, the scent of metal and earth mixing and clinging heavily in the air. At the front stand Daje and Elora, the former’s eyes narrowing when he spots Max, but Nox lifts his hand to quell the argument. “He’s one of us.”
“I told you,” Elora teases Daje, her arm cradled in a sling. She looks marginally better than yesterday, her magic healing most of the smaller cuts and scrapes. Though it does nothing to the fatigue evident in her eyes, her lids swollen and the skin beneath them stained the color of bruises.
I half expect Daje to send her a glare or a scoff in return, but to my surprise, he just grins, lifting a single shoulder in a shrug. Where yesterday his head was wrapped in gauze, only a bandage covers his temple now. “I won’t apologize for being cautious.” I could smirk at how familiar the response feels, but Elora just smiles, a moment of time suspended between them as they look at each other. Daje is the first to look away, clearing his throat as he turns to gesture to the three packs on a nearby wooden table. “It’s all in there.”
“Do you think it will be enough?” Nox asks, leaning a hip on the edge of the table. Max meanders to the opposite side of the room, crossing one ankle over the other and folding his arms over his chest, his leather armor creaking with the movement.
“I hope so,” Elora answers, and the lack of surety in her voice makes us all bristle. She holds a hand out in front of her. “There is no text I’ve found that tells us how to repair the Mirror, howto make it magical again, and I suspect that, even if such a text existed, it would likely be obsolete.” She tucks a loose strand of her fiery red hair behind her ear. “As we all know, raw magic can be a fickle, sentient thing. Our intent is what wields it, but that doesn’t alwayscontrolit.”
I nod at Elora, grateful that she hadn’t censored the way she spoke about magic around me. It is a subtle thing, but after so many years of many others acting as if eventalkingabout their magic around me would cause me to fall apart, I appreciate the small gesture by her. Even if it was unintentional.
“What is the plan?” Nox asks, his hand bracing the table. “We melt the glass and then what?”
“We’ll likely need magic to help grow the flame into something hot enough to match dragon fire,” Daje answers, turning to look at the open flame of the forge. “We will have to move quickly once we melt the glass and can pour it into a frame.” At that, he points to the where the previous frame that held the Mirror is leaning against a wall. It seems that it wasn’t destroyed by Nox’s outburst. “And then we hope that it can be imbued with magic before it cools completely.” His next words are said tentatively. “Is your magic—”
“No,” Nox answers swiftly, his curtness not going unnoticed.
A deep line forms between Elora’s brows. “Still?” she says, inspecting him like one of her books.
“Still. But we’ll use what I can muster and hope that it is enough.”
“And if it isn’t?” Daje asks.
“Then Cass’s life was forfeit, and I’ll be to blame.”
Chapter One Hundred and Seven: Bahira
NoxandIgatherceramic crucibles and place them over the flame to begin heating up, while Max, Daje, and Elora use their magic to move the frame onto a steel table set nearby. Its height is well past Nox’s own, perhaps even reaching Kai’s. I nearly sigh at the thought of the shifter king, the memory of him always flashing at the most inconvenient of times.
“In a few hours, I will have to return to the palace so the council does not get suspicious,” Nox says, now leaning back fully against the wall next to Max, looking unsteady.Is it possible he looks even worse than last night?“And I have a meeting with HayleeandKallin to attend.”
At the sound of her name, I clench my jaw, my reaction visible enough to draw Daje’s attention. His gaze bounces from me to Nox and even to Max before returning to mine, his brows drawn together. “What is it?”
“At Nox’s coronation, your father announced that Haylee and Nox were engaged.”
Daje’s mouth drops open, then closes, then drops open again. “What?” he asks at the same time Elora shouts, “Thatbitch!” Max’s deep chuckle reverberates out.
“It’s not worth discussing, as there will be no marriage. Your father knows this, but I suspect he thinks if he harasses me enough, I will eventually give in.” I think of my brother’s confession last night, of the exhaustion that lingers around him like a fog. His dulled gray eyes meet mine as he gives a slight shake of his head, uncompromising resolve hardening his expression. “There are many battles I’ve grown weary of, but that willneverbe one of them. Getting Rhea home and upon her rightful throne is something I will continuously strive to do. Even if it kills me.”
“I assume there has been no update on her?” Elora asks, her voice trembling.
“Nothing beyond what we already can assume.” The admission is a sword plunged into the room’s beating heart, silencing it as the five of us look at each other.
It’s Max who pushes us past it. “I think the crucibles are ready.”
And with that, we move into a semblance of order as we form an assembly line to begin melting the dragon glass. I runmy fingers against one of the smooth pieces, its iridescence reminding me of the Spell. My curiosity wants to know how they found the glass and if the shape of it before they broke it down for transport was something unique or uniform. But I keep my questions behind my teeth, the knowledge that Cass had sacrificed himself to get the glass enough to keep my focus on the present. Elora, Max, and I sort the pieces by size, while Nox uses a handheld shovel to bring them to the crucibles. Daje carefully sends a slow but steady flow of his magic into the flames. It tints the fire unnaturally golden, his yellow blending with the oranges and reds. As we work in tandem, in a silence that grows more and more tense with each minute that passes, I run through everything I know about the Mirror.
Its magic was ancient, likely the same raw power that flows all over Olymazi. Nox said he couldn’t remember if he saw magic leave the Mirror when it broke, but I wonder if its color might be like that of the Spell. Like that of the magic I saw in blood. Like Rhea’s magic.
