Page 78 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Tarly
T arly wasn’t much help in combat with one arm in a sling, but he could direct the wolves and offer another distraction when they faced Marvellas.
If they weren’t too late.
The five of them and the wolves rushed through the castle halls, having to take a more inconspicuous route to avoid the partygoers with the ball still ongoing. Nik had ordered the city to be locked down, and most of their army force had begun to take position around Farrowhold, but they wanted to delay panic spreading through the people for as long as possible.
The passage Nik led them through beneath the library had been mined of Magestone but still hummed with a dark aura that pulsed in his head. Then they held their breath, rounding into the room of mirrors.
They spilled into the small space, and they were alone. Yet the Blood Box lay right there in the middle of the room for the taking. Every hair on Tarly’s body pricked, somehow gathering a worse sense of dread than if they’d run right into Marvellas instead.
“Do you think she hasn’t found this place yet?” Tauria asked.
She wandered around the room, her reflection casting in a hundred directions.
Until Tarly turned rigid, staring across into Tauria’s eyes. The reflection smiled, chilling him to his core.
“Tauria,” he whispered.
She turned to him, and he blinked. The reflection was back to following her. He shook his head, wondering if he’d imagined it in his fear.
Nerida picked up the box. “We need to get it to Faythe for her blood to confirm it’s inside.”
Tarly didn’t want to spend a second longer here than necessary. He headed for the break in the wall with her.
“Wait,” Nyte said, facing the way out with his back to them. “Did this veil lock you in here the last time you visited?”
He couldn’t see it at first glance, but now, enlightened, he detected the faint shimmer over the exit.
“No,” Nik answered with a note of dread.
“She promised to free me if I helped her,” Tauria said.
They all turned to her, confused. Even more perplexing was Tauria’s shocked expression. Her eyes darted over the mirrors.
Tarly saw it again. The single reflection that didn’t copy her movement but had stolen her image and voice. The concept was eerily terrifying.
“Take my form instead to speak to us,” Nik demanded.
The Dresair laughed haughtily, disappearing from a mirror above to their left and taking on Tauria’s image in one closer to their right when it next answered.
“That wouldn’t be as fun.”
“Marvellas was here,” the real Tauria said.
The curve of the Dresair’s mouth was so wicked and amused, so wrong to witness on Tauria’s gentle face.
“She still is,” said the Dresair.
“Rainyte.” Marvellas’s voice was but a quiet plea.
Nyte hadn’t moved. Just beyond the exit now stood Marvellas.
“Mother,” he answered, devoid of any sentimental feeling in the word.
The Spirit felt his coldness, yielding a mild wince.
Nyte said, “Stop this senseless war. It is over for you.”
There was something different about Marvellas now… His spike of terror at first seeing her dwindled the longer he watched her, seeing nothing but a vulnerable soul so unlike one who had started a great war and harbored so much power.
Marvellas lifted a hand to the veil at the same height as Nyte’s face. All Tarly could feel was tragedy for her. He didn’t want to, but he did.
“I’m sorry all you saw of me was this. When I wanted to be good…I wanted to be good for you. Then you were taken from me.”
Nyte stepped back, and Tarly couldn’t see his face to read the emotions that had to be tearing him apart inside even if his composure was steel. Parents were a fragile wound in all. For good, for bad, they were the origins of their existence, and that was an attachment that could never be severed completely.
“You don’t have to hurt anymore,” Nyte said, “if you just surrender.”
“I have a duty I must see through.”
“Ending the world isn’t your duty—it’s a tragic escape from all you failed to achieve. Let it be flawed. Let it be Godless.”
“I cannot.”
“If you do this…I will never forgive you.”
“Forgiveness serves you, not me. It is not an erasure of wrongs. My actions may seem drastic, but I have seen the infinite web of souls and their travel. I am at peace with sending every last one on this land back into that web, knowing they will scatter far and wide, beginning their cycle anew in another place. It is an ending of poetry only I can give.”
Nyte lunged forward, slamming his fist to the veil. He tensed with a pained groan as energy rebounded from it, and he sank to one knee.
“Do you even hear yourself? These are people , not just souls. These are lives , not just pieces of energy.”
Marvellas sank down with him, but Nyte didn’t look up. “Oh, my son…your compassion is a gift to see, but it will hurt you if you let it.”
“You have no idea what I’ve been through…” Nyte said menacingly, drawing his eyes up with such loathing. “In my childhood I yearned for you. In my adulthood I tried so desperately to refuse the poison Father spun about you. But he was right about you. After all this time, I finally get to look at you and feel nothing . You are nothing to me. You are nothing of me. Just like my father.”
“You found the love I didn’t get to give you…didn’t you, my son? That is why your heart was salvaged from the villainy of your father, and now from me. Someone protects it.”
“Yes,” he said coldly. “So how can you continue to say love is weakness?”
“Because it is stopping you from seeing what needs to be done. It will always fool you into believing it is a reward for your suffering when it is the cause.”
Nyte shook his head at the ground, emitting a dark, incredulous laugh. “I was born an orphan, and I have long since come to terms with that.”
He lunged up, slamming his hand against the veil again, but this time the Ruin Dagger pierced through it like a pin into glass, breaking a web of cracks from the impact that kept spreading. Before the veil could shatter, Nyte was thrown back by an invisible force. He crashed into several mirrors, which obliterated around him.
“In another time…maybe we’ll get a chance at the life I wanted for us, Rainyte. Maybe then you won’t ever look at me like the monster you see now,” Marvellas said vacantly, watching her son lift himself from the broken glass with nothing but hate in his eyes.
He said, “I believe love is embedded in each life cycle of a soul—it’s how we recognize our mate in every one. But I also believe our wounds and loathing carry too, so for your sake, I hope we never meet again.”
The Spirit’s eyes flexed. Tarly was used to seeing her lash out with power and anguish. Used to watching how composed and arrogant she was when she dominated a room. Yet now, even though her plans were still as heinous, Marvellas pushed on to carry it through as a lost and vacant vessel. Her eyes were tired, her skin pale and carrying dark circles. Her vibrant hair was now dull and mildly unkempt.
Rattling surged Tarly’s alarm, and the wolves growled louder. The mirrors Nyte had shattered with his body began to reform, and when they did, the Dresair still wearing Tauria’s face stood behind him.
To everyone’s horror, a hand lashed out of the mirror’s surface, gripping the back of Nyte’s collar and yanking him.
Nik was closest to intervene, ripping the Dresair’s hand from Nyte and pushing him away. Then Tarly yelled Nik’s name but it did nothing to prevent the Dresair from taking hold of Nik instead, pulling him through the mirror. Tauria gasped, lunging the few steps and taking his hand before he was fully pulled through.
Tarly and Nerida ran for them too, but they couldn’t get a hold of Tauria before they were both gone, sucked into the mirrors and leaving only their own horrified expressions to stare into. Still, they reached for large piece of glass that had stolen their friends within, but the surface had turned solid again.
An ear-splitting boom caused them to duck and reach for each other instead. Tarly used his body over Nerida’s to shield her as best he could from the shower of glass that rained down hard on them. It cut into his skin at all angles as every mirror in the room shattered .
“No,” Nerida breathed in horror when the chaos stopped.
They looked up, seeing only uneven stone wall. The mirrors lay in pieces around them. What locked Tarly still…was the new terrifying presence that now occupied the room with them.
The creature was unnaturally tall, with limbs too long for its torso. Its skin was like black tree bark, with a featureless face. This was the Dresair’s true form, and it was free. It bent to pick up the Blood Box, not giving them any attention as it headed toward Marvellas with it.
“Bring them back!” Nerida cried.
The creature stopped, turning its head around to her, and Tarly shifted, putting himself between them should it decide to attack. It had no mouth, and when it spoke to their minds, he wondered if Marvellas could hear it too.
“Every kingdom on this continent guards a mirror passage through time and space itself. Us creatures within are not merciful to fresh bodies.”
With that, it left, following Marvellas with the Light Temple Ruin, and they were powerless to stop them. As they rose, Tarly and Nerida could only stare at the place where the mirror had been in complete shock and helplessness.
“We have to get them back,” Nerida said in utter disbelief.
“That went far worse than we thought possible,” Nyte commented.
Tarly could hardly pay him any mind. His thoughts were reeling with the Dresair’s parting words.
Every kingdom guards a mirror passage.
He scrambled over ever place he’d ever visited in Olmstone. If that were true, there had to be another in which they could attempt to get Nik and Tauria back from the void between all space and time. Though even if they did find another passage, the daunting concept of how vast such a place was to be lost in threatened his seed of hope.
“The Livre des Verres,” Tarly said when the spark came to his mind. Nerida looked at him with such desolation and question. “There was a room restricted to the public. I was allowed in once—being the prince had its perks. I recall a mirror there. Not like this place. This mirror had been crafted with an intricate gold border to appear very ordinary. I was young when I saw it, but I remember feeling like something was staring back at me through my own eyes. That I smiled even when I didn’t think I was.”
“It’s the best lead we have,” Nerida said. Her eyes scrambled with her thoughts. “But the battles…the war…getting to Olmstone will take at least a week.”
“We need Nik and Tauria. We don’t have a choice.”
“The ruin…”
Nyte cut in. “Leave that concern to me and Faythe.”
Tarly gave a vacant nod. Their situation had just turned all the more dire at the worst moment, but all they could do was push forward. All they could do was keep fighting.