I didn’treallycare about March, either—unless it had something to do withme.
I didn’t care about Helen when she fell or the others when they mourned.
I didn’t care about my parents.
I didn’t care about the world. If I could have run away from the Labyrinth that first night when March found me, I would have. Whether I’d doom the entire world or not—I simply did not care.
Because ofthis.Because of here. Because of what I’d given away.
The word came out only on the third try because I couldn’t draw in enough air to speak properly. Icouldname what I gave away without trouble, and the word this mirror was looking for was, “Compassion.”
That’s what I’d given away. I remembered it, though I didn’t. I remembered the hole it had left behind. The emptiness that used to be full. I rememberedthat.
Then the pain began.
It was like before, like having my skin peeled off my flesh, except then it had been only a memory, and now it was real. It didn’t last long, but while it did, I couldn’t even fall to the floor, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, couldn’t scream. I could only sit there with my limbs locked, watching with my mouth wide open as the pieces of the broken mirror raised themselves in the air without anybody touching them, and took their place again inside the frame.
Warmth filled me from head to toe as the glass shimmered with a soft chime, and all the lines where it had been broken disappeared, from the bottom all the way to the top. The pain retreated all at once, and I felt like I was by the lake, sitting there on the grass with the sun on my face, breathing. Existing. Alive.
The third mirror was brand new again, the words on the frame gone, the reflection on the glass ofme,smiling. An Ora with a soft smile and soft eyes, clearly proud.
Ofme.
“I was so afraid,” I whispered to myself.
I’d been so afraid ofthistrial that I hadn’t even considered it might be the only one togiveme something back, instead of taking more of what was left of me. I’d been so, so afraid…
A bell rang somewhere behind me, and I turned to see that a tunnel had opened on the wall across. There had been nothing there before but stone blocks.
It was the door.
The door had opened. The tower had finally given me a way out because I’d unwon. The trial was over, and I was still breathing.
My entire body shook when I made it to my feet.
I ran as fast as I could, and I didn’t look back at any of the other Oras watching me from the mirrors.
42
The applause made me sick to my stomach. The cheering, the calling of my name meant the people were all there, and they’d been watching us. They’d seen, and now they jumped to their feet in front of their seats and clapped their hands like they werehappy.
We’d come out the other side of the tower, right in front of the audience. Here, they had no tiered seating, only chairs on the ground in the distance, but the queens were in their glass box that had been transferred to the middle of the crowd, Time knew how. They were both there, on their feet, the white one applauding, the red one waving her hand fan in front of her face.
Five of the other Hands had already made it out by the time I ran through the door on the side of the tower, March among them. Anika, Russ and Seth came after me.
Nine. There were nine of us left now, and the speaker spoke, and the audience cheered, and my insides felt like they were boiling together with my blood. Levana cried—sobbed.It was like knives being stuck all over my body every time I heard her sharp inhales.
Then there was Elida, come to tell us she wasproud.Come to tell us that we did so well. Come to tell us that the third trial was officially unwon.
I expected the flash of memories to come over me, like it had happened the first two times. I expected to remember, then forget. A special kind of torture I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.
But the memories didn’t come. There was just…nothing.
Thatfilled me with dread, too.
Not sure how I made it all the way to the palace when my legs felt so foreign to me. They felt like they belonged to someone else—another Ora. One of the other Oras from those mirrors, maybe.
But even so, I was inside, away from the scorching sun that had been beating me down and I hadn’t even realized it. I climbed stairs and turned hallway corners, and then there were doors, and words, and more words I didn’t care to understand.
