“You and Donte disgust me. All of you do!”
I surged toward her, but powerful arms pulled me back.
“Calm down, Tilly,” Cillian said, his composure too calm for the anger raging inside me. I pulled free, shaking with rage.
“I hate you! I hate you all!”
My mind churned. I wasn’t chosen for love or destiny. I was chosen because they saw me as weak.
Footsteps drew our attention and Torin and Fionn emerged from the woods. Fionn carried a beautiful gilt baroque mirror, its ornate design at odds with the tension in the air.
Fionn’s voice cut through the silence like a blade. “We wasted time doing things your way. Look what’s happened.”
He thrust the mirror toward Seraphina.
“No more delays. Show her.”
“This isn’t a good idea,” Seraphina warned.
“It’s necessary,” Fionn snapped. “She needs to see the truth, whether she wants to or not.”
I folded my arms. “Show me what? More illusions? Why would I believe anything you show me?”
Fionn’s reactions hardened.
“Because this is the truth and you’re out of time for denial.”
Seraphina lowered her gaze
“This is the only way, you must see how I looked before the curse affected me.”
She lifted the mirror. I expected nothing more than my own exhausted reflection.
Instead, the glass shimmered and shifted with light rippling across its surface.
Her reflection was ethereal, porcelain skin with platinum curls falling past her waist, eyes like frost.
My skin prickled.
I looked at Seraphina beside me, older, haunted and then back at the impossible beauty in the mirror.
“Is this what you wanted?” I whispered. “To become this?”
Seraphina’s eyes glistened.
“This is how I once looked… before the ancient curseofVarethwithered my spirit.”
I stepped back, my heart pounding. The truth was undeniable.
“Now do you understand?” Fionn asked. “This isn’t a threat, Tilly. It’s a promise of what happens when you choose wrong. The mirror doesn’t lie.”
“No!” I shouted. “I control my own fate. You won’t force me into anything!”
Fionn’s thin smile chilled me.
“You still believe you have control? You don’t. The curse does not wait for mortal hesitation. If you refuse a choice, there is no freedom for you. Only Vareth’s madness… and then death.”
My breath hitched.
